Sunday, October 10, 2010
Little Slices of Neighborhood
While I'm looking forward to moving to a different apartment next year, mostly to get away from the noise and mild sluminess of my current location, I saw something today that reminded me of the charms of my current location.
I live in a town that has, to put it mildly, seen better days. Situated about 20 miles outside of Boston, it used to be a mill town and a railway hub. Now, it's a husk of its former self. The downtown area is dominated by a homeless shelter and long string of small shops that survive but don't thrive. Most of the houses in the area, including mine, are ramshackle triple-deckers (for you non-New Englanders, 'triple-deckers' refers to three-storied houses that were built in the 40's or 50's as multi-family apartments).
One chunk of downtown close to where I live is mostly vacant. It has a shopping center that's completely shuttered except for a Dunkin' Donuts and a charity thrift store, as well as several old factory buildings along the trail line that aren't quite abandoned but have been sectioned off into small, low-overhead businesses.
It's a grim place. It's not a slum, but it's ugly and struggling.
I was returning from a long walk when I looked across the road at a house I'd passed dozens of times without really noticing. The hedges around the house are large, probably 10-12 feet high. Tall hedges are common on my street because it's a state route and heavily trafficked. But these hedges were double the normal size and I was surprised I'd never noticed that before.
As I walked past, I saw an older couple in the driveway. The man looked like he was in his late 60's and the woman was a little younger. The man had a large fleshy face and dark skin and was dressed in suit pants, suspenders, and a dress shirt. Those suspenders were very, very necessary as the man had the large, overhanging stomach of someone who had spent many years enjoying rich food. He was looking down at a little green sports car, something like an Aston Martin. The car, like the man, was old and had seen better days. The hood was popped open and the man was looking vaguely at the innards.
The woman was holding and cooing at a small child. I couldn't see much of her but I assumed she was the baby's grandmother. She had thick black hair that was falling across her face. I think that both she and the man were of Mediterranean descent, which is not surprising given that this area used to be composed of mostly Italian and Portuguese immigrants.
I imagined them as a couple who had lived in that house for decades. I imagined that they raised their family there back when the neighborhood was, well, a neighborhood, where people knew each other and raised their families, as opposed to a collection of houses rented out to strangers who tried to find some way of blocking out the traffic and the declining town that surrounded them. I imagined that the child was their grandchild and that, with the woman looking at the child and the man at the old sports car, that they were a couple looking at the past and the future. I wish them the best.
I live in a town that has, to put it mildly, seen better days. Situated about 20 miles outside of Boston, it used to be a mill town and a railway hub. Now, it's a husk of its former self. The downtown area is dominated by a homeless shelter and long string of small shops that survive but don't thrive. Most of the houses in the area, including mine, are ramshackle triple-deckers (for you non-New Englanders, 'triple-deckers' refers to three-storied houses that were built in the 40's or 50's as multi-family apartments).
One chunk of downtown close to where I live is mostly vacant. It has a shopping center that's completely shuttered except for a Dunkin' Donuts and a charity thrift store, as well as several old factory buildings along the trail line that aren't quite abandoned but have been sectioned off into small, low-overhead businesses.
It's a grim place. It's not a slum, but it's ugly and struggling.
I was returning from a long walk when I looked across the road at a house I'd passed dozens of times without really noticing. The hedges around the house are large, probably 10-12 feet high. Tall hedges are common on my street because it's a state route and heavily trafficked. But these hedges were double the normal size and I was surprised I'd never noticed that before.
As I walked past, I saw an older couple in the driveway. The man looked like he was in his late 60's and the woman was a little younger. The man had a large fleshy face and dark skin and was dressed in suit pants, suspenders, and a dress shirt. Those suspenders were very, very necessary as the man had the large, overhanging stomach of someone who had spent many years enjoying rich food. He was looking down at a little green sports car, something like an Aston Martin. The car, like the man, was old and had seen better days. The hood was popped open and the man was looking vaguely at the innards.
The woman was holding and cooing at a small child. I couldn't see much of her but I assumed she was the baby's grandmother. She had thick black hair that was falling across her face. I think that both she and the man were of Mediterranean descent, which is not surprising given that this area used to be composed of mostly Italian and Portuguese immigrants.
I imagined them as a couple who had lived in that house for decades. I imagined that they raised their family there back when the neighborhood was, well, a neighborhood, where people knew each other and raised their families, as opposed to a collection of houses rented out to strangers who tried to find some way of blocking out the traffic and the declining town that surrounded them. I imagined that the child was their grandchild and that, with the woman looking at the child and the man at the old sports car, that they were a couple looking at the past and the future. I wish them the best.
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