CultureNOW - Washington Street at Waltham Street: Peter Vanderwarker

Washington Street at Waltham Street

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Description

ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
"Photographer Nishan Bichajian creates a visual fable in the older photo. We're looking up Washington Street from the corner of Waltham Street in the South End. On the left is religion, in the form of Holy Cross Cathedral. On the right is public transit, in the form of the elevated MTA. But dominating both, in the center of the picture, is the bold flying horse of a Mobilgas sign, flanked by a DeSoto at left and an Oldsmobile at right, both grinning at us with their radiator grilles. Bichajian is suggesting that cars are not only the dominant transportation of the era but even, in a sense, the religious icons.

In the new photo we see a very different, newly trendy Washington Street that is being weaned from the car culture. A crew is repaving the street in preparation for the arrival, in two years, of a public transit system, the Silver Line. The city also promises wide, tree-lined sidewalks. At center in the photo are Peter and Paul Cirincione and Joe Nucci, all of Pro B&W Photo Lab, located in the building at right. They have mixed feelings about the changes.

‘We’ve been in the building since 1979,’ says Peter Cirincione. ‘Twenty years ago, customers often viewed us as being in a desolate, dangerous, out-of-the-way location. We no longer have to reassure suburban customers that they now have a dozen places to get a cappuccino within a few blocks. But we miss the diversity of the neighborhood and its ability to harbor those who saw a vitality and persistence in living and working and keeping alive an area that had been neglected by those with wealth.’

The photo lab has been banished to a basement, its old fourth-floor space taken over by an ad agency that pays double the rent. Realtors now market this stretch of Washington as an arts district, but they do so while higher prices are driving out artists and small businesses. There are more galleries and fewer artists. It’s an old story, repeated from SoHo in New York to Fort Point Channel in Boston. Artists and other pioneers move into a decayed neighborhood and liven it up to the point that it attracts richer people, who then force out the pioneers. The cycle can be healthy for cities. But it’s unfair to the pioneers. Boston should move to slow the pace of change on Washington Street."

-Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - Washington Street," Boston Globe, 2001

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Location

Washington Street & Waltham Street
Boston, MA 02118
United States

Nearby Items

Historic Medallions, Washington Street Corridor, Boston		423 feet
Boston Historic Murals		423 feet
Cathedral of the Holy Cross		948 feet
LandWave		0.3 miles
Project Place		0.3 miles
Cyclorama		0.3 miles
Tremont Street at Clarendon Street		0.3 miles