Goodbye Reef, So Long Bill

From Dave Brigham:



Just a few years ago, this little strip was home to a dive bar called The Reef, as well as a chiropractor's office and some other small business. I went to this corner of Waltham, MA, near city hall, to take pictures of a different old building near the commuter train tracks that is likely to be torn down soon and replaced with housing. I didn't find that building all that interesting, however.

As I walked by this old brick building, it spoke to me. Although I drive and jog by this place regularly, I'd never been this close to it before (except when I parked nearby last winter when taking the picture for my January 7, 2011, post, "Trash Guitar").

I love the simplicity of the bar's entrance. I picture lots of skinny, old guys wearing tank tops and smoking in and around the door. I hear old country music leaking out the grimy windows. I smell pickled eggs on the bar.



I got closer to the door and saw a dried rose hanging there, with a note attached, reading,

"Bill,
Still missing you.
Love,
Your wife & Michael"



My first thought was that it was a tongue-in-cheek message to some guy who used to spend too much time at The Reef. But then the thought occurred to me that perhaps Bill had died and this note might actually be truly heartbreaking. Either way, I was amazed to find it there, and touched by its simplicity and grace.

UPDATE: What a Dump

From Dave Brigham:

I love the immediacy of the Internet. Not long after I originally posted this, one of our loyal followers pointed me toward this web page because she suspected this building is the old O'Hara Waltham Dial Company. One look at the picture there, and I knew she was right. A big Backside thanks to Shuko, proprietress of the wonderful Creepy-chusetts, Strange-chusetts photo blog!

Built in 1897, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. I'm glad to know that one of my original guesses about this building -- that it was either automotive- or watchmaking-related -- turned out to be correct.







I know a guy who lives nearby and he said a developer bought the place a few years back with plans to build condos. I'm not sure if the developer was going to save the building. It's on Rumford Avenue, within sniffing distance of the Newton town dump, so I get the feeling nothing will happen until the housing market catches a big fire.

Dead-End Tracks, Part I

From Dave Brigham:

There's something about trains and railroad tracks that stir my mind. I become nostalgic for a time that I never witnessed, a time when freight trains delivered lumber to local yards, heavy machinery to factories and cattle to slaughterhouses. Passenger trains shuttled people across town or across the country.

I hearken back to my childhood, when I would often hear, and sometimes see, the freight train that ran through my hometown, Simsbury, CT. I wondered where the trains were coming from, where they were going, who was on them, what was on them. I wondered why, when I walked along the tracks, I saw so many liquor bottles strewn about (teenagers, surely, rather than hobos).

The abandoned trestle above, once part of the Watertown Branch of the Fitchburg Railroad, crosses the Charles River and a walking path less than a mile from my house. For a time, the branch served as the main passenger line between Boston and Waltham (thank you Wikipedia). The tracks were used until 2000 for freight service.

Tracks and trains bring to mind westward expansion, and exploration of new and exciting places. My wife and I took the kids to New York City a few weeks ago on the Acela and it was a great ride. Relaxing, sure, and filled with so many great views of the Connecticut coastline and the southern cities of the Nutmeg State. I was jonesing, however, because there were so many opportunities for Backside pictures, especially in unfortunate Bridgeport, but we were going way too fast for me to get any good pictures.

Anyway, in this age of turning old railroad beds into biking and hiking trails (an effort that I fully support), I'm glad that there are still some industrial age relics like this trestle hanging tough. I discover beauty in its solemn, sentinel-like presence. But I also wonder about unsavory types hanging out late at night. I see the old mattress on top and wonder whether somebody sleeps on it, or, well...my mind wanders into dark territory.

The Ones That Got Away, Part I

From Dave Brigham:

I wish I had started taking pictures of the Backside of America when I was young, and had started this blog years ago, because there are so many places I've been that I would love to have documented here.

1) The abandoned house on the outskirts of my neighborhood that my friends and I stumbled across when I was a kid. The place was filled with the stuff of everyday life -- clothes, books, dishes, furniture. Seemed as though whoever lived there left in a hurry, or was forced out. Some older kids had found the house before we did, as evidenced by the fact that the place was trashed, everything tossed about, drawers opened and emptied, things torn apart. Not long afterwards, the house was torn down to make way for a condo development. I never found out the story behind that house. It haunts me to this day.

2) The abandoned nursing home in my hometown that I walked through late one night with my friend John and his brother, Backside contributor David Burke, and other folks. I felt like I was walking the set of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

3) The Fraternal Order of the Eagles building I discovered on a back-lot tour during college in Keene, NH. There was nothing remarkable about the building, but just stumbling across it with a few friends as we searched for the "real" Keene was really cool.

4) Various and sundry old diners, junkyards and abandoned houses across the country.

In researching pictures I plan to post separately at this site, I found some information about an old auto manufacturing facility in Waltham, just five minutes from my house. The building stood until just a few months ago, part of a long-abandoned Raytheon facility that's been dug up and is being turned into a BJ's Wholesale Club. I passed the building countless times, and knew it had been part of defense contractor Raytheon (a sprawling complex, parts of which still stand, much of it just weeded-over parking lots). Had I known that some of the buildings dated to the early 1900's and were part of the Metz Autombile factory, I would have snapped some pictures and posted them.

But instead, all I can do is link to this old photo and embed this video:



I'll comb my memory and the Internet and post some more photos, links and remembrances of the ones that got away. Stay tuned.

Take Me to the River

From D. Brigham:

The picture above shows a staircase running from the back of a house on Farwell Street in Waltham, Mass., down to the Charles River. Most likely it used to connect to a boat dock. It's made of concrete or stone, rather than wood, like most dock stairways are. As a result, it looks more like an ancient ruin than a recently abandoned walkway that once led to a pleasure craft filled with some cold Bud Light. Curiously, this part of the Charles isn't conducive to boats bigger than kayaks or canoes, as it is very shallow and less than a mile from the Watertown Dam, so I'm not sure what purpose a dock would have served (photo by Dave Brigham).

I decided to post this photo as the inaugural picture here not because it's an especially great shot, but because it reflects the method by which I discovered the backside of America. When I was about 12, I went on my first canoe ride with my dad, putting the old green boat into the Farmington River at the Route 185 bridge in Simsbury, Conn., hard by the renowned Pinchot Sycamore, the largest tree in the Nutmeg State. While I enjoyed the sights along the banks of the river -- trees, birds, frolicking fish, garbage snagged on rocks -- what really caught my eye was the rear of various residential and commercial properties at or close to the water's edge.

I'd grown up in Simsbury, and was familiar with all of the houses along Hopmeadow Street, the town's main drag, as well as the wide array of businesses, from Mitchell Pontiac and the Weatogue Barber Shop, to the Ensign-Bickford munitions factory and Fitgerald's grocery store. But I'd never been on the river, and so had no idea how the town looked from the water.

It sounds obvious to say, but I saw the town from a whole new angle. Nothing was familiar, and nothing was as attractive from the back as it was from the front. Today I am lucky to live very close to the Charles River in Newton, Mass. There is a walking path next to the river that my family and I use for runs, bike rides and leisurely strolls. I took the above photo by straying from that path into the woods next to the river. While the trees and wildlife along the river are beautiful and fun to watch, and the path offers a quick route to grocery shopping, I am more interested in the old railroad trestle in Waltham, the lot where linemen for the local electric company practice climbing utility poles, and other places hidden from the street.