Wittemore Ave. Greenhouse, Cambridge

Updated Nov. 24, 2011: Here's the follow up article about the greenhouse; the demolition is going on right now... "Update on Whittemore Ave. Greenhouse"

When I was a kid, I cried over 1999, thinking I was determined to die young. Well, nothing happened. Dragging the feeling of being deceived, I became obsessed with imagining a parallel universe filled with an Apocalyptic cityscape.

But I didn't need to imagine. Apocalypse was now; decays were violently eating into the towns like Detroit and Gary while I was feeling doomed by 1999...Now I don't cry over 2012. I'm too old and cynical for that. 

An abandoned row of greenhouses along the Cambridge section of Minuteman Trail Extension is a sample size of Apocalypse in my North Cambridge neighborhood. I've always thought the property is related to a chemical company right next to. (i.e.: they used to grow plants for...uh, testings, and it failed a soil test or somethin' prior to cranking out a reuse plan.) But the answer was more simple; it was a closed flower and plant nursery called Edward F Norberg Inc.

A rather familiar view from the bikepath

Less familiar view of the entrance

What I don't know is: how long it's been vacant? Trees are popping out from the greenhouses!

We can do an educated guess from the size of trees but there are crucial factors to determine the year of closure: a) they had been trees for sale grown inside of the greenhouses, eventually the overgrown ex-products broke the sheets of glass. Or b) the glass ceilings broke after the prolonged abandonment, and tree seeds entered into the greenhouse through the openings.

The annual snow fall isn't a good news for the poor greenhouses. It must have been filled with vivid flowers and plants before, now the invasion of wild plants eating into the structures.

I know people who are aware of real estate values and neighborhood safety don't like the state of the greenhouses, but there is a strange beauty in this crumbling down structure. Chipped painting, wild plants hanging down in a carefree manner, surreal trees penetrating the glass ceilings... A mock antique themed clothing shop ubiquitous in shopping malls can't beat the space. 

Locate Wittemore Ave. Greenhouses @ Google Map

J.R.'s Con' Enie Subs, Somerville

What is "Con' Enie"? Please somebody explain it to this non-native speaker.

"With Enie"? An abbreviation of "convenience"? I assume it's the latter, but I've never heard of that expression before. A dapper slang back in the day? What day?

Somehow this space makes me feel I've stuck in the fifties

This abandoned funky sub shop is off the Grove-Cedar Bikepath, nearby the site of the International Paper Company. I've been walking around the bikepath to find any interesting industrial structures to imagine its railway past. I found this sub shop during the excursion.

Me, too

An old guy was at the intersection working as a school crossing guard. This nice grandpa helped me crossing the road; how can you decline his offer? But sir, I'm 31 year-old...

Look at the lovely brick work, removed signboard...A shuttered counter on the storefront must have offered a quick, "con' enie" lunch for the nearby factory workers alike. It could have been an after school hang around space for kids, too; it has that kind of vibe.

Do you see the faded "J.R." on the shutter?

There is little information about the store; When did it open? What kind of clientele? How long it's been closed? And of course, what is "Con' Enie"?

Locate J.R.'s Con' Enie Subs @ Google Map

International Paper Company (site), Somerville

Then: Data unknown, from MACRIS database

Now: Dec. 2, 2010

Continuing from the previous two entries, I've been sketching the industrial past of the Minuteman Bikeway and its extensions.

The ruin of a gigantic paper box factory used to stand on a tip of a delta island created by the arrays of railways and ex-railways. I said "used to" because this iconic ruin is already demolished. I wish I took some pictures a year ago or so, but what is gone is gone. At least I can show you what is left. Good news is that there are cool pictures documenting the factory inside and out, and can be seen via Flicker like here and there.

From Google Street View retrieved on Nov. 29

The factory building was known as the International Paper Company because of the fading sign on the building. According to the MCRIS database, it was constructed in 1928 as "Agar Manufacturing Corrugated Box Co.". History suggests the site had been a brickyard before the construction of the factory. Anyway, the building was a paper box factory.

What surprised me was its size:

The above is a screen shot of a cleared site. The length of the factory must have been over 600ft (180m). Compare with the surrounding houses! While separated by train tracks (or the remain of them), how close the factory and the surrounding houses were, too.

Not only the size and the proximity to the surrounding houses but also the height of the factory was astonishing; it was well over roomy 4 stories. When I first saw the abandoned factory, I thought it was an engine shed because the site was adjacent to a junction of the two railroad services;  trains from Boston split off at the tip of the factory site to the Boston and Lowell Railroad (main line) or the Lexington and Arlington Railroad (the acquisition of the B&L ).

From Google Street View retrieved on Nov. 29

But for an engine shed, I guess the height of 4 stories is too much. Even for a paper box manufacturing, though. Were they manufacturing a cardboard house, or the capitalist's precursor of the Trabant? 

But I remembered that the J.H. Emerson's main office (an Iron Lung manufacturing company) was originally owned by the Climax Paper Box Company. The loft was built in 1909 and J.H. Emerson Co. took over the place by 1937 (from Cambridge Historical Commission in PDF). I guess many paper box companies clustered along the Lexington and Arlington Railroad, but why? That's an interesting question that I don't know yet.

The last passenger service of the Lexington and Arlington was in 1977, and the final freight service was in 1981.The L&A side of the train tracks has been cleared, making a way for the future Muniteman Bikeway extension that connects Lexington and Boston. However, the path beyond Cedar St is still unpaved and an off-limit.

The future bike path goes beyond Cedar St, the factory site on the left

The future bike path towards Cedar St, the factory site on the right

The Boston and Lowell Railroad tracks are still in use

Where the junction used to be. Can you see the B&L Railroad tracks?

When the bikeway extension is completed in the future, the factory site will be converted to something else. A public park, another condo? I'll keep on checking what is going to happen to the site.

Locate Intl. Paper Co. @ Google Map

Click picture to enlarge

MACRIS Database: Agar Manufacturing Corrugated Box Company Building
borisjason's Flicker: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bjm/sets/72157604101488733/
dzm's Flicker: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dzm/sets/72157603764559143/
City of Somerville: MaxPak Planning

Somerville Electric Light Company, Somerville

Triggered by the previous post, I'm on a crusade to fill the pieces of industrial facilities along the Minuteman trail and its extensions, imagining the landscape of the area sometimes between the late 19th and mid 20th century. The Grove-Ceder section of the bikepath (a part of the Minuteman Trail Extensions that goes eastward from Davis Sq.) used to be a railroad track for the Lexington and Arlington Railroad established in 1870.

The path is filled with bikes, babies, grown-ups, and dogs on a sunny weekend

This main power station for the Somerville Electric Light Company (SELCO) was opened in 1889 and is still operating. By the time of the establishment, the adjacent railroad was owned by the Boston and Maine Railroad. Boston Edison Company took over the SELCO in 1903, and the Edison merged into NSTAR in 1999, so I guess this place is now owned by NSTAR.

Somebody please tell me the truth!

Speaking of the power station, do you know about Battersea Power Station in London? Doesn't ring a bell? How about Pink Floyd's album Animals? It's the most ginormous and awesome power station in the world, I swear. I felt as if I was struck by a lightning when I saw the disused power station from a train approaching to Victoria Station, thinking why a mock Greek temple in the middle of the industrial area around the Thames.

What a gray day it was, only in London...

The disused power station is nearby Victoria Station

On the contrary, the SELCO Generating Station reminds me a small electric substation for a tramway in Hiroshima; Hatsukaichi Electric Substation was built in 1922 and demolished in 2009. Because the city of Hatsukaichi is next to Hiroshima city, it temporary supplied the electricity for the tramways serviced in the area destroyed by the Atomic Bomb of 1945. The proximity to the residential area (whether the residents like it or not), train tracks...Why did they demolished it? 

Hatsukaichi Electric Substation: from Wikipedia

SELCO Generating Station

Look at the star-shaped iron wall supporters

Like Hatsukaichi Electric Substation was owned by a tramway company, I first thought the SELCO Generating Station has something to do with the railway right next to. But I realized an electric locomotion (not for a trolley or tram) was introduced to the US in 1895, while the station was built some six years before. Anyway, as the name Somerville Electric Light Co. suggests, it was built for supplying electricity for light, not for the railway.

Locate SELCO Generating Station @ Google Map

Click picture to enlarge

Somerville's first high-tech startup (PDF file)
http://mhc-macris.net/Details.aspx?MhcId=SMV.679: MACRIS database

Emerson's Iron Lung and Quonset Hut, Cambridge

I have a slight touch of claustrophobia. I hate being trapped in a windowless space. I hate working at a department store, I hate a long haul economy class airplane trip. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. How much do I hate? I'll prove you, I didn't get Vertigo. I mean I felt sorry for the detective suffering from acrophobia, but I was more worried about the effect of excessive peroxide on Kim Novak's scalp.

Being stuck in an Iron Lung is one of the recent entries. The fear has germinated since I saw an Iron Lung at display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Looking at the picture of an airplane hanger like space filled with hundreds of Iron Lungs at the height of Polio outbreak, I had a strange sensation that the lives of children in the equipments were detached from human warmth; they weren't  human or even machine, something else that I cannot grasp...

From Wikipedia

Iron Lungs saved many lives, but the sensation of strong fear and rejection the children must have experienced is something I would never want to experience. I couldn't laugh when Lebowski  and Walter entered a room with an Iron Lung, while them plotting to beat the crap out of a kid who stole the Dude's car (and money.) However, I enjoyed the subsequent scene where the golf club flinging Walter destroys a red sports car with 'Nam related (?) moral talk.

Forgive my jerkiness, I'm feelin' nervous. Let me knit for a while...

I'm back. As you have already realized, my fear of Iron Lung is somewhat different from the detest of a department store and crappy airplane trip. A strange fascination with Iron Lung grew like a HeLa cell, and it had some meaning, I think. One day I stumbled upon the main office of the leading Iron Lung manufacturer, J. H. Emerson Co. during a walk in my neighborhood, just a pure chance.

the empty hut was making eerie creaking noise as a wind blows

The company's office and Quonset hut -- originally a military-use prefabricated steel structure developed in 1941 -- are located along the Minuteman Trail Extension, the former railway track for the Boston & Maine. A few creaky cylindrical equipments in the hut used to be visible from the sidewalk. I first thought they were just rusty boilers.

But the every clue was telling me what they are: the Quonset hut was a  popular structure during the Polio outbreaks of the 40's and 50's. The nearby  railway  provided the mode of transportation to the hospitals. The name Emerson rings a bell. And Boston as the center for the Polio treatment...The demand for the equipment was so high that the company possibly needed to install a prefabricated hut across the street to store more Iron Lungs.

How many children or adults spend a time in this Iron Lung? Are they all right now? Somehow a series of  thoughts came up to me during the dinner time and led to lose my appetite.

The company was sold in 2007, ten years after J. H. Emerson's death. The office and Quonset hut seem to be lying vacant, and a notice for the hearings regarding zoning changes implies that the Quonset hut is going away soon. The loft looks like an ideal candidate for a new condo project.

The Iron Lung is becoming the relic of the past. But the site is historically significant and needs more attention. Next time you are on the Cambridge section of the bike path (or a virtual tour via Google), look closely for the hut. They are in a quiet residential area and I beg you, don't trespass; I'm afraid there is nothing left in those buildings.

Locate Emerson's Quonset hut @ Google map

Cambridge Historical Commission (PDF file)

Railroad tracks @ Minuteman Bikeway, Lexington

 The Minuteman Bikeway --a bicycle path connects Alewife and Bedford -- used to be a railroad. One day on my bicycle ride, I noticed a remain of train tracks on my left after passing the Lexington train depot to the direction of Bedford.

Train Depot, Lexington Center

Historical overview of the railroad on the left

The Lexington and West Cambridge Railroad opened in 1846, connecting West Cambridge (modern day Alewife Station) and Lexington Center. In 1873, the Middlesex Central Railroad (a subsidiary of the Lexington & W.C. Railroad) extended the service to Bedford, completing the current bikeway route. I guess the remain I saw is a part of the 1873 addition.

Swamp behind

Looking bikepath from tracks

The Boston and Maine Railroad took over the service in 1887, and the MBTA subsidized it in 1965. Eventually, the MBTA purchased the railroad in 1976 after the B&M’s bankruptcy. However, the passenger service ended only a year later, and the final freight service was in 1981. The railroad tracks were removed in 1991 to make a way for the present bikepath.

A tree between rails has swollen up

How many years abandoned, 20 or 30 ?

The Minuteman Bikeway was completed in 1993. Now, a shout of “On your leeeeeeeft” echos the path like a locomotive whistle.

Locate Railroad tracks @ Google Map