But through all the change, and through all the stories, there's a common thread:
this is a working neighborhood.
Its history isn't the colonial museum history of the old downtown. It's the still-unfolding
history of industry, a history of function and work and the present tense. It lives in the wholesaling,
production and artisan businesses that coexist with the residences, restaurants and
retailers. It subsists, sinister, in the environmental legacy of the old tannery and factory sites.
It flourishes as gardens thrive in soil aerated by buried demolition debris. And it speaks
through the scorched walls of old basement
kitchens, the checked old ceiling beams of artists'
studios, and the faded scents of the old warehouses
converted to condos.
Right: 2nd and Fairmount Street, 1933.
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