Place: Boston Molasses Flood
Address: Commercial Street, near Copp's Hill
Neighborhood: North End
TheMBTADog is back from winter break. Due to lack of time, I will not post as often as I had during the autumn of 2015, but I will try my best to create at least two posts a week.
On December 12, 2014, I looked for the site of the Great Molasses Flood! 97 years ago, there was a great flood of molasses in the North End. At the time, there was an elevated rapid transit line called the Atlantic Avenue Elevated on Commercial Street, which was taken down in 1938.
To visit the site of the Boston Molasses Flood, get to North Station and walk east onto Causeway Street and Commercial Street until you reach a park. Bus route 4 can also take you there, but service is limited to weekday rush hour, so it is better to walk from North Station. The North End is best traveled by foot.
"On January 15, 1919, a molasses tank at 529 Commercial Street exploded under pressure, killing 21 people. A 40-foot wave of molasses buckled the elevated railroad tracks, crushed buildings and inundated the neighborhood. Structural defects in the tank combined with unseasonably warm temperatures contributed to the disaster."
To learn more the Boston Molasses Flood:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood
http://www.historytoday.com/chuck-lyons/sticky-tragedy-boston-molasses-disaster
