A year ago today, I posted about the 89th anniversary of the Boston Molasses Flood, ergo today marks the 90th anniversary of said event.
When you read about the freakishness of the whole accident, as well as the sheer devastation and disruption the wave of molasses caused, it’s relatively surprising that the flood is not better remembered in a place that prides itself on being able to commemorate a nearly infinite list of historical trivialities. Walk through various parts of Boston and you will be overwhelmed by the number of plaques and signs remembering people whom popular history long since forgot, but the much more recent and seemingly consequential industrial accident itself only gets one little plaque:
This is the site of the disaster as it looks now:
It’s in the uppermost corner of the North End. A century ago it was all warehouses and storage tanks like the one that burst, and now it’s a playground and a housing project in a forgotten corner of the city, unseen by the tourists who cram the more scenic cobblestone streets of the Italian part of the North End.
Last year I mentioned the book by Stephen Puleo entitled “Dark Tide”. It is the only contemporary book about the flood at all, and apparently the only other book about it is the published report on the disaster by the investigating committee. Luckily, the Puleo book is a good read, so at least the one chance you have to learn about it in detail is worth the effort.
Stephen Puleo himself appears today at the Beacon Broadside blog to share a small anecdote about his little taste of fame resulting from the book. He says that one of the various duck-boat tours that operate in the city now include that lonely looking North End project as a stop along the way, so maybe the touristas will take this unique bit of Boston history back to wherever they came from along with all their “Cheers” memorabilia and leftover clam chowder and spread the word.
