Set Yourself Free on Prison Point

From Dave Brigham:

When I'm walking along, minding my own business, and spy a building that says "Prison Point Pumping Station" on it, you know I don't have a choice but to take a boring picture of it and commit myself to finding out the story.

On one of my regular trips along Boston's subway system with my son, I requested of him that we check out the Lynch Family Skatepark. Located under an Interstate 93 offramp in the easternmost section of Cambridge, the skatepark opened last November after years in planning and development, and has become quite popular.

Check out the Creating Skate Space video from Leslie Tuttle to learn how the park came to be, hear from the people who sculpted it out of a former wasteland, and listen and watch as the young'uns who use it describe what it means to them.

After watching the skaters for a few minutes, we turned to walk toward Lechmere MBTA station to continue our journey. Just a few steps from the skate park we saw the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority pumping station, pictured above, behind a chain-link fence. It's not much to look at, but that name.

Why is this area called Prison Point?

Let's take a quick look at the larger area where Cambridge meets Boston down by the river Charles, shall we? Many of you are likely familiar with Boston's Museum of Science. Directly across the busy four-lane road from the museum sits the Lechmere viaduct, on which MBTA Green line trolleys run. Under the viaduct the Charles River is squeezed through a lock before opening up a bit on its way toward Boston's Charlestown neighborhood and on to Boston Harbor. If you were drifting by on a boat and looked to your left, you'd see North Point Park, a lush area popular with sun worshippers, dog walkers and the baby stroller crowd. The park in its former life was an industrial dumping ground and staging area for the construction of the massive Big Dig highway project. Moving a bit more northeast, you find yourself at Boston Sand & Gravel, which, like the above-mentioned skate park, sits under highway ramps. Finally, another quick jaunt to the northeast, under Interstate 93, and you're at Bunker Hill Community College, situated on the former site of -- wait for it -- Charlestown State Prison.

Opened in 1805, the prison was in operation for a century and a half. This area of Charlestown/Cambridge was filled in long ago, but when the prison was built the Charles River flowed right on by. Eventually railroad tracks, industry and housing were sighted nearby. The prison closed in 1955 and inmates were moved to a new big house in Walpole. By 1973 the imposing brick institution had been razed, replaced by the community college.

Check out this blog post from And This Is Good Old Boston for prints, maps, photos and history of the hoosegow.

I plan to return to the skate park, as it's fun watching people perform stunts I could never dream of doing. I also want to walk across the North Bank pedestrian bridge that connects North Point Park to Paul Revere Park in Charlestown.

I've enjoyed watching the evolution of this whole area of Greater Boston. In the coming years, plans call for the development of what is called NorthPoint, a 45-acre site that could eventually feature 5.2 million square feet of commercial, residential, hotel and mixed-use development. Some buildings have already been completed. I will surely keep an eye on this.

Dead Reckoning

From Dave Brigham:

Ah, the dead! They let us walk over their heads and stumble on their crumbling architecture. They tolerate us rubbing their headstones and pondering their out-of-fashion names. They know that we only come out during the day; the night belongs to them.

To get myself ready for Halloween, I recently bothered the good folks at the Old & New North Cemetery in Sudbury, Mass. Here's what I found.

The first fellow I ran into was Abel Hunt.

I love the Biblical names you find in old New England boneyards. Abel, of course, was the good son of Adam and Eve. Slain by his brother, Cain, Abel nonetheless has won out in the end, as his name (which means "breath" in Hebrew) was the 137th most popular on some random baby name list I found online, as opposed to Cain (meaning: "possessed"), which ranked 750th. Take that, evil brother!

Abel's relative, Asahel, got a much cooler tombstone, but, man, that name had to be tough to live with. Yes, it's pronounced just the way you think it is. Don't stifle your chuckle. Just let it out. Anyway, Asahel is another name from Biblical times. And, alas, like Abel, Asahel was slain. His death dealer was Abner. No, not this guy. This guy.

The name Mehitable is brought to you by the Old Testament. A girl's name, it means "God rejoices," according to the Bible of online information, Wikipedia.

Haynes Road intersects with the road that the Old & New North Cemetery sits on. You'd think, therefore, that the family might have some pull and get the lichen cleared from the family tombstone. Actually, there are those who argue that lichen doesn't harm the stone, but rather gives older cemeteries a nice patina. I agree.

How cool is it that a family of pelagic seabirds is buried in this graveyard! Oh wait, what? Not puffins? Oh, Puffer. Anyway, they've got a nice spot.

Aren't Rebecca and Mary just the best? You can tell that Rebecca takes care of Mary. "Just lean on me," she sings. And Mary really appreciates that.

Adelaide Whelpley was the name that John Lennon and Paul McCartney planned on using for their song about "all the lonely people." But then through various lyrical twists and turns, the name changed a few times, before becoming a little something called "Eleanor Rigby."

Louisa means "renowned warrior," according to the Internet. I'm guessing not only is she safe in Jesus' fold, but that she provides more than a little protection for her fellow foldees.

Hoo boy. No goofy comments here. Can you imagine anything sadder than this tombstone?

These aren't the parents of the infant in the photo above. This headstone is powerful. Despite being cracked, this relationship is eternal.

The cemetery dates to 1843, but for the most part it holds up well. There are some signs of aging, however.

The most impressive memorial in the graveyard belongs to the Maynard family. I assume these folks are related to those for whom the neighboring town of Maynard is named for.

Below is a detail from the Maynard statue.

There are numerous graves of war veterans, as you'd expect. Still, I found the markers for these guys very cool.

(Spanish War veteran.)

(Grand Army of the Republic veteran, meaning he served in the Union Army, Navy or Marines during the Civil War.)

(Veteran of the War of 1812.)

Seeing these three veterans' graves made me realize just how little I know about the military history of this country. Ain't that odd....

(Speaking of odd, here's a guy who was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.)

And here's a video of an R.E.M. song:

So there are just some of the folks from your friendly neighborhood graveyard. Sit down and have a chat with them this Halloween.

Closed Circle: UPDATE

From Dave Brigham:

On my regular subway trips around Boston with my son, I regularly walk past the site of the former Circle Cinema in Cleveland Circle. Located on the border of Boston and Brookline, the movie house opened in 1965 and closed in 2008. The theater sat empty for a number of years while developers worked with both city governments and residents to hash out an acceptable redevelopment plan (see January 5, 2015, "Closed Circle").

National Development recently installed the old cinema sign -- round, 7-foot-tall letters -- on the top of one of the new buildings, a 92-apartment independent living community for seniors. A second building will be a 162-room hotel operated by Marriott. The site also contains underground parking and a few retail slots.

I like this project, although of course I haven't seen the inside yet because the new buildings aren't slated to open until next year. I like that the new buildings aren't just more high-priced condos (although I suspect the senior community ain't gonna be cheap). I think siting a hotel on this spot (where there once also stood a restaurant, most recently an Applebee's, before that a Ground Round and a Howard Johson's) is smart, as it sits next to not one, but two, branches of the MBTA's Green line trolley system, providing relatively quick and inexpensive access into Boston.

On Thin Ice

From Dave Brigham:

By the time you read this, the quaint warming hut abutting Bullough's Pond in Newton, Mass., will be gone. I'm not sure how old the building is, but I'm guessing it dates to the 1920s or '30s, when ice skating was at its peak on the pond.

Situated close to the imaginary line separating Newtonville from Newton Centre, the pond is surrounded by lovely homes and has benefited greatly from the stewardship of the Bullough's Pond Association. According to the association's web site, "People have been ice skating and playing hockey on Bullough’s Pond since, at least, the early 1900’s." Digital Commonwealth, a priceless online archive that contains photos, manuscripts, books, audio recordings and more from Massachusetts, features a photo of what is called a bath house at Bullough's Pond circa 1925. I'm not positive, but I'm guessing this is the same structure.

The city of Newton discourages ice skating on the pond, due to the fact that the water doesn't freeze as easily as it once did. This is because of silt build-up, according to the association web site.

(This is where skaters would walk to get from the warming hut to the ice.)

More than 350 years ago, John Spring dammed the Smelt Brook and built a grist mill on what became known as Spring's Pond, according to the Bullough's Pond Association web site. Up through the 1850's, the pond, which became known as Pearl Lake before being named Bullough's Pond, was much larger. Due to an expanding population after the addition of a rail line nearby, Newtonville began to grow and Walnut Street was extended south and bisected the pond, per the association. Eventually the southern portion of the pond "would....be filled in and put into culverts, with remnants reappearing years later as the City Hall ponds and the library retention pools," according to the BPA web site.

One might look at the warming hut in the above photo and think, "That place looks great!" Well, I thought the same thing. Great minds....

But as you may be aware, the name of this blog is The Backside of America. So I needed to walk around the building....

(The first sign of trouble.)

(I would love to know what this place looked like in its heyday. Not sure why it looks so great on the outside but hasn't been maintained on the inside.)

Although no longer as large as it once was, the pond is still scenic enough to attract the attention of Hollywood. Per the association's web site, the pond has been used as a backdrop for TV shows and movies, including 2008's "The Women," directed by Diane English and starring Meg Ryan and Annette Bening, and featuring one of my favorite actresses, Debi Mazar.

No Yachts, No Mansions

From Dave Brigham:

What's the first thing you think of when I say Newport? Mansions built by 19th century robber barons that they referred to as summer cottages? The America's Cup yacht race? The International Tennis Hall of Fame? Loads of windburned preps with names like Muffy and Skip wearing Nantucket Reds and spilling white wine while howling with laughter over tales of cheating on exams at Hahvahd?

On a recent family mini-vacation to Rhode Island's toniest address, we managed to miss all of that. But we saw plenty, on both the front and back sides of this wonderful, historic city on Narragansett Bay.

As regular readers of this blog know, whenever I'm on vacation, I make time to find the backside of whatever city I'm in. I spent part of one early morning doing just that, but a lot of my discoveries were made while just walking through Newport's commercial and restaurant areas, as well as on a tour of a fort just a few miles from downtown.

(Fort Adams)

(View across the front yard of the fort, with housing in the background.)

Built between 1824 and 1857, the current Fort Adams replaced a predecessor established in 1799. It was an active Army post until 1950. We toured part of fort (there was a reenactment going on taking up a lot of the interior space), including some of the listening tunnels.

(Our tour guide took us on a short walk through some low listening tunnels, in which soldiers garrisoned at the fort could station themselves so they could hear attempts by the enemy to dig under the fort.)

We had lunch one day at Buskers Pub, a quiet respite from the overflow crowds at so many other eateries. Amid all the memorabilia, both real items and knockoff ones peddled by restaurant decor companies to give diners that oh-so-important cozy feeling of fake nostalgia, my wife spied this beaut.

Know what it is? I'll give you a hint: it's used in a game that few Americans have seen, and even fewer understand, a game that originated in the Basque region of Spain. Give up? It's a jai-alai cesta! Newport used to have a fronton -- what you call the enclosed court where jai-alai is played -- but it's been closed for years. Now the building holds a casino. My friends and I frequented the Hartford fronton back in the '80s.

There are loads of cool historic buildings along the main drags and in the neighborhoods of Newport.

(Now housing retail and office space, this circa-1894 music hall looks great, and surely must have been the cat's pajamas in the 20th century.)

(Home to the Newport Blues Cafe, the former Kinsley Building started life in 1892 as a Aquidneck National Bank, hence the "SAFE DEPOSIT" etched into its facade.)

(The Seamen's Church Institute provides "education, hospitality and a safe haven for those who work, live and play on or by the sea." This building was erected in 1930.)

Driving up to our hotel, I looked across the street and my heart skipped a beat.

The park had a similar feel to Doubleday Field at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, which I had the pleasure of playing on a number of years ago. So I knew it was old.

Bernardo Cardines Memorial Field is indeed long in the tooth, and is considered one of the oldest baseball fields in the good ol' US of A. Home to the Newport Gulls of the New England Collegiate Baseball League, a summer league sanctioned by the NCAA and Major League Baseball, the field isn't anything fancy, but I really wanted to get inside to watch a few innings.

Alas, there were no tickets to be had, as the season had ended earlier in August.

Meandering just a little ways from the hotel and ballpark, I came across The Point neighborhood (also known as Easton's Point), one of the oldest in Newport.

(The Callender School in The Point. Built in 1862, closed in 1974 and renovated into apartments in 1979-81, it was named for John Callender Jr., pastor of First Baptist Church in Newport, who lived from 1706 to 1748.)

(The Point is filled with so many amazing old houses that have been beautifully restored. The neighborhood has one of the highest concentrations of Colonial homes in in the U.S., per Wikipedia.)

(The Sarah Kendall House in The Point dates to 1871, when it was built for the wife of a wealthy shipping merchant, according to the inn's web site.)

(On the outskirts of The Point sits Ten Speed Spokes, a bike store with a cool retro sign.)

Inevitably, I stumbled across some railroad tracks.

Once part of the Old Colony & Newport Railway that connected to Boston, these tracks have been abandoned for quite some time. But there's a small, restored station just up the railbed.

About 20 minutes out of town you can ride the rails. Not on a train, mind you, but on a rail cart. No, not a handcar like you've seen in old-timey movies. You pedal along for about six miles, hands-free, while you enjoy views of Narragansett Bay and the quaint surrounding towns. Here's some video of the trip my wife, kids and I took with Rail Explorers:

Pretty cool, eh?

Finally, while we didn't hit any mansions or board any yachts, we did check out one of Newport's major tourist attractions: the Cliff Walk. Sandwiched between the Newport shoreline and the backyards of Gilded Age mansions, the walk extends 3.5 miles, although we only walked a small portion of it because my kids are kinda lame.

(Mystery box located along the Cliff Walk, at Salve Regina University.)

We had a great time in Newport. There were so many great restaurants, shops and museums that we only strolled past, because again, our kids were with us. I'd love to get there with my wife and take advantage of more of what this great little city has to offer.

One-Stop Barnstorming Tour

From Dave Brigham:

I've never smoked, other than a few times experimenting with cigarettes and stogies as a teenager, but tobacco is a minor theme in my life. I grew up in a Connecticut River Valley town that was once known worldwide for growing shade tobacco for the cigar industry. When I was a kid in the 1970's, local teens would rise early during the summer to pick tobacco alongside migrant workers. There were tobacco barns at the edge of my neighborhood and scattered throughout the town and others in the area. Some of those barns are still standing, although I don't think any of them are in use.

On a recent trip to visit with family in Windsor, Connecticut, I stayed in a hotel right off the highway. I'd stayed there before, and had a vague feeling that there was something worth exploring in the immediate area. As often happens when I sleep in a hotel, I awoke early. I left my wife and kids sleeping in their cozy beds and struck out on foot along the busy road heading west. There were no sidewalks, and although there wasn't much traffic on this Saturday morning, I felt ill at ease. After just a few minutes, however, I veered onto a side road.

My hotel was on Day Hill Road, a busy thoroughfare with other hotels, business parks and office buildings, so when I saw the side road sign said "Old Day Hill Road," I knew I'd find something good.

This is one of three old tobacco barns on this farm. There were crops all around, but I couldn't tell you what the farmers are growing. Seemed to be mostly vegetables. I would've explored more, but there was an SUV a short distance away that I'm guessing belonged to someone charged with keeping folks like me away.

The sun was already hot at 8:00, and I didn't have a hat or sunscreen, so I didn't walk too far on Old Day Hill Road. After returning home I discovered that there are some old potato barns just up the road a piece from where I stopped. Bummer....

Upon my return to the hotel, once my family was awake, I opened the curtains in the room. And got this wonderful view.

I wrote about another tobacco barn and the former church that served the little community of agricultural workers in East Granby, CT, last year (see July 19, 2016, "Tobacco Road").

Hub Holdout

From Dave Brigham:

I think about the backside of America a lot. This doesn't surprise you. I try to snap photos of shuttered buildings as soon as I notice them, because in this strong Greater Boston economy those places get bulldozed and turned into gleaming glass monoliths faster than you can say "gleaming glass monoliths."

Thankfully, some places have been able to not only defy the wrecking ball, but also thrive by ignoring the ways of The New. On a recent subway trip into the Hub of the Universe with my two kids, I had plans to walk by the Mother Church of Christian Science, and perhaps dip our toes in the reflecting pool outside. Construction along Huntington Avenue, however, left us unable to easily access the church, and we found the pool empty.

But then I looked across the street, and pulled out my ulterior ulterior motive.

Looks like the setting for an episode of "Spenser: For Hire" doesn't it? The MidTown Hotel is certainly an anomaly amidst all the high-rise condos and skyscraper hotels in Boston. This place would fit in along Route 1 north of the city, although much of the midcentury charm of that roadway is gone (see this article about the old Hilltop Steak House, and this one about the famous Route 1 orange dinosaur).

Built in 1962, the hotel looks much better on the inside than the outside would leave one to believe. Located near Symphony Hall, the Prudential and Copley malls, Northeastern University, Copley Square and much more, the place shows no signs of fading away. For a nice ode to the MidTown, read Thomas Farragher's column in the Boston Globe from two years ago.

As if all the amenities, attractions and restaurants close at hand weren't enough, you can also get your hair styled.