The Price of Gas: UPDATE

From Dave Brigham:

That right there is a damn shame. First of all, you should know that nobody was hurt when this massive apartment complex in Waltham, Mass., went up in flames in mid-July. Slated to open next year, the luxury development featured several buildings four or five stories tall. Constructed of wood apartments above a concrete ground floor, the buildings had yet to receive sprinkler systems, but had passed inspection the prior week, according to the Boston Globe.

I wrote about this site in early 2015, before construction began, before, in fact, I even knew what was going to be built here (see February 7, 2015, "The Price of Gas"). The former site of the Waltham Gas Light Co., this spot between Cooper and Elm streets was vacant and polluted for quite a long time. The Edison on the Charles complex is being developed by Lincoln Cooper Street LLC. It was one of several new developments in or near downtown Waltham to rise in recent years.

It's unclear whether the developer will attempt to rebuild. The cause of the fire hasn't been determined. Stay tuned....

Anniversary Post #6: My Favorites from 2015

From Dave Brigham:

Welcome to the sixth installment in a series celebrating the 7th anniversary of the blog (for links to the prior five installments, see the bottom of this post). This post covers 2015.

I need to mention that Joe Viger has contributed some amazing photos and fantastic write-ups over the years, but I'll be linking to very few of them in this series. Why? Because Joe -- an amazing photographer who has served as a mentor of sorts to me in that regard, and a great friend I've known for nearly 30 years -- has changed the security settings on his Flickr account so that many of his photos that have run on this blog show up as broken links now. I will instead direct you to his wonderful online portfolio.

I take pride in this blog, as I'm sure you can imagine. I love exploring, taking photos, doing research and writing posts, as well as editing the work of others. One of the trickier elements of running this blog is writing headlines. I first learned this art during college, when I worked as news editor for my school paper. A good headline should be clear and concise and give the reader a general idea of the story. I follow those rules most of the time, but I also lean on my love of music and a good joke whenever possible.

Such was the case from the first highlighted story of 2015. "Maryland Mansion", from January 19, 2015, is the one and only story submitted by my brother, Steve Brigham. I hope I don't need to tell you the music joke that I made with that headline. Anyway, the post features some cool photos of a long-abandoned home near where my brother lives in the Old Line State.

(The pool of the abandoned Maryland mansion. Photo by Steve Brigham.)

"The Price of Gas" from February 7, 2015, is on this list for three reasons: it represents the first (and so far, only) use of a Google Maps capture on the blog; through online research I learned about the history of the Waltham Gas Light Company in this area; and my speculation in the post that improvements in the surrounding area seemed to be evidence that the lot in question would soon be developed has turned out to be true.

Just one week later, on February 14, 2015, in "Crumpled Paper Company," Heidi Waugaman-Page shared some amazing photos she took inside an old paper mill in Bellows Falls, Vermont.

(On the inside, looking out of the Robertson Paper Company. Photo by Heidi Waugaman-Page.)

Any time we can showcase states outside of the Northeast, I'm happy. So on March 9, 2015, when Kristen Smith shared some shots of Idaho and Wyoming in "Chewed Up, Spit Out," I was ecstatic. The backdrops for these photos are simply stunning.

The next post in March also took readers out of the Northeast. On March 17, 2015, in "Take Me Down to Panama City," I wrote about and shared photos from my family vacation in Panama City, Florida. I got up early a few mornings and cruised around taking photos of abandoned bars, motels and amusement parks. It was a lot of fun.

(Shuttered motel in Panama City Beach, Florida.)

On June 30, 2015, Mick Melvin posted about the former headquarters of the Colt firearms company in Hartford, Connecticut, in "Hartford Arming for New National Park."

(Former Colt armory headquarters. Photo by Mick Melvin.)

"Cavalier Attitude About Motels" from July 26, 2015, represents my favorite kind of post: the successful "find" after an aimless and frustrating drive.

The Internet is this blog's best friend. It's a rare case when I can't find at least a little bit of information about a small conservation area, long-abandoned building or repurposed mill complex. In "Bigelow's Little Office," from September 5, 2015, I was able to distinguish between two small former law offices in Weston, Massachusetts.

(The former Alpheus Bigelow, Jr., House, Weston, Mass.)

I love Mick Melvin's "Is That Paul Bunyan?" from October 16, 2015, because he found a true roadside American icon: the muffler man.

November 30, 2015's, "Walking Dead Tracks" reminds me of my childhood, when I spent countless hours meandering along the rarely used railbed in my hometown.

I encourage contributors to the blog to interpret "the backside" any way they wish, and to simply send me photos if they don't want to write any words. For the most part I like to conduct research and write a story to go with my pictures. Sometimes, however, I just let the photos do the talking. Such was the case with my December 9, 2015, post, "Scenes From An Old Shoe Town," about Hudson, Mass.

The final post of the year, from December 29, 2015, was the result of my slamming on the brakes and doubling back. "Gravity Can Lift You Up" features a cool old building with an interesting story.

Here are the links to the previous five installments of this series:

"Anniversary Post #5: My Favorites from 2014"

"Anniversary Post #4: My Favorites from 2013"

"Anniversary Post #3: My Favorites from 2012"

"Anniversary Post #2: My Favorites from 2011"

"Anniversary Post #1: My Favorites from 2010"

Stay tuned for my favorites from 2016, including a look at Clinton, Mass.; a fascinating journey through a former military training annex in the suburbs west of Boston; a skateboard park in Hartford, CT; the long-abandoned Medfield State Hospital; a Shaker cemetery; a junkyard in Somerville, Mass.; and a beautiful church in the woods of Maine.

UPDATE: Price of Gas

From Dave Brigham:

Not long after I wrote about the long-abandoned former Waltham (Mass.) Gas Company site, the city council approved a 260-unit luxury apartment complex at that location (see February 7, 2015, "The Price of Gas"). I had no idea at the time that a developer had proposed this project, but in my article I speculated that something was afoot because the State of Massachusetts had recently demolished an old railroad trestle and begun adding a walkway along the nearby Charles River.

This is what the site looked like in late 2014/early 2015:

And here's a shot I took recently:

Below is a shot looking north from Pine Street, where there will be another entrance to the project.

Read this article for more on the development.

The Price of Gas

From Dave Brigham:

The smokestack in the background tells you that you're in an industrial area. Well, you would've been if you were standing here 100 years ago. The brick buildings that once stood on this site in Waltham, Mass., were torn down years ago, replaced by a restaurant, movie theater, parking garage and public housing. The smokestack is on the former Francis Cabot Lowell Mill, one of America's first textile mills. The mill is now home to senior housing, the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation and a public Internet center.

The area in this photo between the fence and the tree line -- that's what grabs my interest. While all else around the site has been developed, this place remains vacant, because it will require some major clean-up.

This is Cooper Street, a short, dog-legged piece of road that runs off Pine Street and behind Ristorante Marcellino. This is where the Waltham Gas Light Company once stood. According to Wikipedia, this area was "one of the oldest industrial complexes on the south side of the city, with brick buildings dating to 1854-55, not long after the founding of" the gas company.

In 1902, the gas company acquired the old Parmenter Crayon Company building, according to the Waltham Museum web site. Waltham Gas at that point became owner of the entire Cooper Street area west of the Watertown railroad tracks.

Just seven years later, according to the museum web site, Waltham Gas shut down, "transferring its electrical business to Boston Edison, which still operates an electrical substation in a nearby former company building. The other company buildings were converted to other manufacturing uses, and were demolished in 2007."

I've been unable to find out who owns the vacant lot, but I did locate information about the site, a place that I've wondered about for years as I've walked by or parked in the nearby lot for a movie or for dinner.

According to a Bentley University research paper about the nearby Moody Street commercial sector, the City of Waltham doesn't own the property, which "is believed to be the site of heavy waste contamination." The report states that a chemical has been placed on the property to prevent contaminants from spreading to the nearby Charles River. The Bentley team estimated in its report six years ago that scrubbing the site might cost between $1 million and $3 million.

The city and the property owner have apparently been fighting about who should pay for the cleanup. The city evidently would like to use the site as additional parking for the busy Moody Street shopping and dining district.

In the meantime, the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation is doing its part to beautify the area. Directly across the river from this site, in the shadow of that smokestack, the DCR is connecting an existing part of the Charles River Greenway on Elm Street by building a boardwalk under a bridge and connecting it to a new path where until recently there were abandoned train tracks leading to a trestle.

Here's what the site looked like shortly after the DCR started:

I know I have a shot of the old trestle that used to hang over this site as it crossed the river between the Francis Cabot Lowell mill building and a car wash, stopping just short of the Cooper Street site in question. But I can't find it. I did dig up a shot I took of the trash that used to fill the site where the DCR is now building the boardwalk.

Observant Backside fans will recall I posted this shot in January 2011. Who tosses a perfectly good acoustic guitar down a hill?

So, with the state beautifying the area just across the river from the Cooper Street property and tearing down the old trestle (which I suppose some saw as an eyesore; I thought it gave a nice patina to the area), I imagine there will be pressure to settle the differences over the cleanup and move forward to put the old Waltham Gas site to some sort of use.

Here's a Google Maps view of the property (first time here on the Backside that I've tried this).

The site in question sits directly behind (or above, in this map) the building marked Ristorante Marcellino. Just under the white box in the upper left corner that I wish I could get rid of, there is the outline of what I believe was a rather large gas tank.

I understand the City of Waltham would like to use this area to expand parking, but it would be nice if it were used as pure green space.