What a pillar of salt sees…

[ornoth]

Yesterday, modpixie posted to the b0st0n community a list of Boston sights and sounds that no longer exist. It sparked enough nostalgia that I thought it might be interesting to set down a list of the things I’ve seen here that are, sadly, either endangered, going, or gone.

There are two lists. The first column enumerates those elements of Boston that are already historical data. The second column is a list of things which are currently in the process of failing. Most of those are still here—at least nominally—but I think they are endangered species that could disappear tomorrow.

Long Gone Going? Bands The Cars Cliffs of Dooneen Concussion Ensemble EBN: Emergency Broadcast Network Steady Earnest The Allstonians The Bentmen Bim Skala Bim The Mighty Mighty Bosstones Powerman 5000 Clubs Local 186 Mama Kin The Rat Venus de Milo The Linwood Grill Jacques The Plough & Stars Restaurants 33 Dunster The Blue Diner Bombay Bistro Cafe Avventura The Deli Haus The old India Quality Kebab-n-Kurry Mehfil The Rattlesnake Bar & Urban Canyon Steve’s Ice Cream Bartley’s Burger Barn Herrell’s Little Stevie’s The Pour House Rodizio @ Midwest Grill Organizations Bank of New England (BONE) Filene’s Basement & bridal rush Jordan Marsh Lechmere The MDC NECCO NYNEX Stah Mahket Tower Records Newbury Waterstone’s Booksellers Wordsworth Books The Boston Bruins Building 19 Coolidge Corner Theater MFS Newbury Comics Places The Boston Garden The elevated Central Artery The Fleet Center The John Hancock Observatory The DuBarry mural The Haymarket The old Northern Ave Bridge Yawkey Way as a public way Media WSBK, WLVI Mighty Mouse Creature Double Feature   People Bird, Parish, McHale Bobby Orr, Terry O’reilly Red Auerbach The Woop-Woop Guy Miscellaneous Bowling under Fenway Park Meeting people at the gate at Logan MBTA tokens The Mattapan High-Speed Line

More recent updates can be seen at this post from 2009 and this one from 2013.

Comments

[ornoth.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, I was on one of the teams that built HomeLink. IIRC, the project started as BayBank, then was BankBoston throughout its implementation, then was renamed FleetBoston, and now it’s BofA. And I thought Web sites turned over quickly!

New England Tel could equally be New England Bell, IIRC. Amusingly, I also worked on NYNEX’s BigYellow yellow pages site, which subsequently went to Bell Atlantic, then Verizon after merging with GTE’s SuperPages. This kinda thing sure makes a mess of one’s résumé!

The ’snake is indeed back, although I haven’t been. It turned sour even before the horrid “George” episode. I fear it’ll never be the same, sadly.