Holy Moses! Look at These Old Tablets

From Dave Brigham:

Unlike Moses, I didn't need to ascend an Egyptian mountain to find amazing hand-carved tablets. Rather, my Mount Sinai moment came at the foot of a former trash heap in the leafy outskirts of Boston.

Somewhere, somehow (I really need to keep track of this stuff), I learned while minding my own business on the World Wide Internet about two large carved-stone blocks located along the Charles River in West Roxbury's Millennium Park. In a flash, I was gobbling up information at this blog post at And This Is Good Old Boston.

"The first is labeled 'Machinery' above the word are two machine gears, and to the sides are two classical figures swinging hammers," I read at the blog. "In the middle of the stone is a large shield, with a smaller American stars and stripes shield above it. On a ribbon running behind the American shield are the words E. Pluribus Unum....The second block is labeled Leather. Again, there is an elaborate shield in the center of the carving. This time, the smaller shield at the top represents the shield of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts."

Within relatively short order, I drove due south through several Newton villages and into West Roxbury. I parked in Millennium's kayak launch lot and followed the path at the western end, as instructed in the blog post. There were lots of families and couples walking dogs and generally enjoying a cool yet still warmer-than-normal autumn day.

I'd hiked a bit at the park a few times over the years, but I was still surprised at the steep angle of the former dump. At the top of the landfill cap are a handful of athletic fields, walking trails and a parking lot. But my quarry was located at the bottom of the hill, near the Charles River.

Sciatica pain be damned, I hobbled down the paved path, took a wrong turn, doubled back, and found a dirt path that seemed promising. I thought perhaps I was on the wrong trail, but when it turned left along the Charles River, I began to get a good feeling. And sure enough, about 30 feet past the lookout area where some folks had stopped to observe the river's drought-stricken water level, I found what I was looking for.

Despite knowing I would find them here, still I was fascinated (and dumbfounded) by these slabs. Measuring perhaps 5 feet by 3 feet, they are heavy and ostentatious and nearly otherworldly laying there just a few feet from where people hike every day. I sense your puzzlement. "What the hell are those things, and what are they doing there?"

"The seals were part of the 'First National Bank of Boston' façade," according to an anonymous commenter on the above-linked blog post. "I found some photos/ artist renderings along with a news article describing the building as having 5 of these carved 'plaques' in recognition of Bostons (sic) significant contribution to the textile industry."

While a subsequent commenter doubted whether that bank was the origin of the panels, further research by a Boston Globe reporter and the Boston City Archeologist confirmed that theory. "We pored over image archives and were able to find that the Boston Public Library had an image of the bank from 1910," the Globe article reports. "The tablets are just visible on the right side of the image, enough to confirm that the leftmost tablet is the 'Leather' tablet and the far right tablet is 'Machinery.'"

To see video of the tablets, check out this separate Globe article (I apologize if it's behind a paywall).

As I made photos, several people walked by. Since I was just a few feet off the trail, I assumed that to these folks, the discarded stone slabs were old news. I'm so happy I stumbled across mention of this bizarre treasure, because I never would have found myself walking along this part of the park, and if by some miracle I had, I likely wouldn't have noticed the large stone blocks.

While the detectives mentioned in this post were able to determine where the tablets came from, no one has definitively been able to say how they ended up in their current position. The First National Bank of Boston was demolished in 1944. "In the mid-20th century, the hill [now known as Millennium Park] was first used as a gravel quarry, resulting in a massive hole in its center," according to the Globe article featuring the city archeologist. "That hole became a convenient place to dump trash, so the city turned it into the Gardner Street Landfill, a municipal dump that was used into the 1980s. As the First National Bank was demolished during a time when the landfill was active, it’s likely that these and other fragments of the bank were dumped unceremoniously in West Roxbury."

These big chunks are pretty far from the old landfill site, located very close to the river. It's likely somebody dragged the stones there. But how long ago? And why?

For a post about another slab of stone sitting in a puzzling site, check out "I Seek Newton, Part III: Highlands", a March 23, 2016, post about the Newton Highlands neighborhood and Cold Spring Park.

Fanelli Cafe: In Business for 178 Years!

From Dave Brigham:

Located at 94 Prince Street in New York City's SoHo neighborhood, Fanelli Cafe has been in business since 1847 (!). I knew nothing about this historic eatery when I walked by, trailing my wife and daughter as they window-shopped. I saw the sign, pointed my camera up because I liked the looks of it, made a photo and moved on.

This is the final post in my series of quick hits about a trip to NYC last fall. Links to the previous six are at the bottom of this post.

"Herman Gerken leased the wooden building at 94 Prince Street in 1847 and became the proprietor of a grocery on the site," per the cafe's web site. "In 1853 [John] Hance’s heirs, Edna Brown, Mary Sarles, and Sara McIntosh, sold the lots to Herman Gerken. In 1857 Gerken built the present day (sic) handsome five story (sic) brick building that still carries the 94 Prince Street address. This corner building was interconnected with his adjourning (sic) building at 135 Mercer Street by at least 1891."

To read the history of this property, starting with a Dutch farm in the 1640s to its status during Prohibition as a speakeasy, check out this page on the cafe's web site, which quotes from an article originally published by New York Art World.

Here are links to the previous six posts:

March 15, 2025, "Globe Slicers May Rip You to Shreds"

March 8, 2025, "House in Flux in SoHo"

March 1, 2025, "Hoofin' It to the Bowery Ballroom"

February 22, 2025, "Shoot Your Shot at Amsterdam Billiards"

February 15, 2025, "Webster Hall Was Right Across from My Hotel"

February 8, 2025, "The Carl Fischer"

Globe Slicers May Rip You to Shreds

From Dave Brigham:

I love it when I make a photo of a place simply because I'm captivated by its grittiness, and the subject of the image turns out to have played a significant role in music history.

Located at 266 Bowery in Lower Manhattan, Globe Slicers has served the restaurant industry since 1947. What, you may be wondering, does a 78-year-old company that sells and repairs slicing machines, mixers and meat grinders have to do with music?

Does that name Blondie mean anything to you? No, not the 95-year-old comic strip featuring the titular character and her bumbling husband, Dagwood, master of the massive eponymous sandwich. Neither am I referring to the delicious dessert confection.

This Blondie:

When I posted the photo above to Instagram, one of my followers clued me in that "Debbie Harry and Chris Stein lived above Globe Slicers and their apartment was Blondie's practice space." Thank you, Joe Schumacher!

The apartment was just down the street from the late, lamented CBGB, the club where Blondie and other artists such as the Ramones, Television, Talking Heads and Patti Smith created a seminal punk rock and New Wave scene.

Here's the thing, though: Globe Slicers wasn't located at 266 Bowery back in the Blondie days. There was a liquor store in this space at that time, according to Stein, who was Blondie's co-founder and guitarist. Stein, who turned 75 in early January, is also an accomplished photographer.

To read a full history of 266 Bowery, check out this excellent post from the Daytonian in Manhattan blog.

This is the sixth in a series of short posts about my trip to New York City last fall. Long after my trip, and subsequent to writing this post, I began reading Debbie Harry's autobiography, Face It. I'm thoroughly enjoying it! Links to the other posts in this series are below:

March 8, 2025, "House in Flux in SoHo"

March 1, 2025, "Hoofin' It to the Bowery Ballroom"

February 22, 2025, "Shoot Your Shot at Amsterdam Billiards"

February 15, 2025, "Webster Hall Was Right Across from My Hotel"

February 8, 2025, "The Carl Fischer"

House in Flux in SoHo

From Dave Brigham:

This plaque is located outside a Guess store at 538 Broadway in New York City's SoHo district, marking the former location of a Fluxhouse artist cooperative live-work space. These are the kinds of things I make photos of while all around me people are window-shopping, taking selfies in front of a Brandy Melville store and generally not taking photos of things like this.

If, like me before October 13, 2024, you have no idea what a Fluxhouse is, let me tell you all about it...in the words of web sites that know what they're talking about. I made this photo because I was somewhat familiar with the Fluxus art movement. What did I know about it? Well, that the musician Beck's grandfather, Al Hansen was a member of the movement.

"Founded in 1960 by the Lithuanian/American artist George Maciunas, Fluxus began as a small but international network of artists and composers, and was characterised as a shared attitude rather than a movement," according to this article from London's Tate galleries. "Rooted in experimental music, it was named after a magazine which featured the work of musicians and artists centred around avant-garde composer John Cage."

"Drawn together by their disenchantment with the elitist attitudes that they perceived in the art world at the time, they looked to the Futurists and Dadaists for inspiration, especially focusing on the performance aspects of these movements," per this article from The Art Story. "The two most dominant forces, however, were Marcel Duchamp and John Cage, who championed the use of everyday objects and the element of chance in art, both of which became fundamental to Fluxus practices. Whilst Cage was part of the Fluxus movement, Duchamp was never directly involved."

"From 1966 to 1975, George Maciunas realized the social objectives of Fluxus towards a pragmatic and non-elitist conception of art in his work as an urban planner in the Fluxhouse Cooperatives," according to the George Maciunas Foundation web site. Over that decade, he livened the SoHo and Lower East Side neighborhoods by creating Fluxhouse cooperatives in 17 buildings.

This is the fifth in a series of short posts about my trip to New York City last fall. Links to the others are below:

March 1, 2025, "Hoofin' It to the Bowery Ballroom"

February 22, 2025, "Shoot Your Shot at Amsterdam Billiards"

February 15, 2025, "Webster Hall Was Right Across from My Hotel"

February 8, 2025, "The Carl Fischer"

Hoofin' It to the Bowery Ballroom

From Dave Brigham:

This is the fourth short post about my trip to New York City in October (the first one is here; the second one is here; the third one is here). You can't throw a rock in the Big Apple without hitting a famous restaurant, park, store, art gallery, person, movie setting or nightclub. As I was walking through the Bowery in Lower Manhattan, I stumbled across an example of the latter.

The Bowery Ballroom opened on Delancey Street in 1998, in a building that's nearly 100 years old. It is considered one of the best music clubs in the country, per Wikipedia. As with Webster Hall that was featured in my second NYC post, I'd heard of this place but haven't been there.

I became more interested in this well-known spot after looking up and seeing "TREE-MARK SHOES" chiseled into the facade.

Wikipedia says this store never opened, because its planned debut came just before the Wall Street crash of 1929. "It stood vacant until the end of World War II, when it housed a series of shops." Ephemeral New York, however, says Tree-Mark moved in after the big war and was there for the next 30 years.

Whatever.

When I think of the Bowery, which over decades of decline became shorthand for down-and-out, I think of the Bowery Boys, probably thanks to my Dad mentioning the fictional New York City characters from a series of movies made from 1946 to 1958. The Boys were successors to the East Side Kids, who were an imitation of the Dead End Kids.

Got all that?

Here's a sample of the Boys in action: