(no subject)
Jan. 15th, 2004 12:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oakenguyOn this day 85 years ago, at right about this time, a 2.5 million gallon tank of molasses suddenly burst on Copps Hill a few miles north of where I'm typing. It poured through the North End in a fifteen-foot wave, knocking down buildings and smothering people and horses. Some flooded cellars weren't fully cleared for years.
If there's one lesson the Great Molasses Flood teaches, it's that sometimes wishing life was more interesting can be a dangerous thing.
(If there's a second lesson, it's that the top of a steep hill might be a dangerous place to build a 2.5 million-gallon tank of anything.)
Unfortunately, my plan to commemorate this event by building a Lego version of the Boston skyline, dressing as the Grim Reaper and pouring a gallon of molasses on it has been cancelled due to the cold weather.
If there's one lesson the Great Molasses Flood teaches, it's that sometimes wishing life was more interesting can be a dangerous thing.
(If there's a second lesson, it's that the top of a steep hill might be a dangerous place to build a 2.5 million-gallon tank of anything.)
Unfortunately, my plan to commemorate this event by building a Lego version of the Boston skyline, dressing as the Grim Reaper and pouring a gallon of molasses on it has been cancelled due to the cold weather.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-01-15 09:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-15 09:58 am (UTC)Ah, the Great Molasses Flood
Date: 2004-01-15 09:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-15 10:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-15 10:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-15 10:09 am (UTC)Slow as molasses in January
Date: 2004-01-15 10:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-15 10:16 am (UTC)"Molasses" - Tom Rowe (Schooner Fare)
(Oh, molasses!)
Molasses sitting on the Boston shore.
(Oh, molasses rhum.)
When they pumped it in it was twelve degrees,
A long cold night in a Boston freeze.
(Singin'! Oh, molasses! Oh, molasses rhum.)
In the morning it was forty-two.
(Oh, molasses!)
Molasses vat split clean in two.
(Oh, molasses rum.)
Two million gallons coverin' the bay
Twenty-six people drowned in the flood that day.
(Singin'! Oh, Molasses. Oh, molasses rhum!)
Oh molasses, Ole New England tea.
You killed my Grampa, killed my Pa.
And it sure as hell is a killin' me.
(Singin'!) Oh molasses, oh molasses rhum.
My grampa he died cuttin' cane.
(Oh, molasses...)
My Pa went down in the great brown rain of
(Oh!) molasses rum.
But I won't go in a pool of blood,
I won't drown in a blackstrap flood;
Still I'll go down to molasses, Oh molasses rhum...."
no subject
Date: 2004-01-15 12:04 pm (UTC)*EEEEP!*
*hides with abnormal fear of hermit cookies*
no subject
Date: 2004-01-15 06:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-15 06:06 pm (UTC)Woah...
no subject
Date: 2004-01-15 06:54 pm (UTC)This event is what inspired the name for the local theatre group Boston. My friend, Duncan, is someone many of the Boston crowd may remember from various Halloween parties we held.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-15 10:47 pm (UTC)The tank had been riveted instead of welded (or maybe vice versa) to save on costs and that failing led to the rupture.
They tried for awhile to blame it on a bomb placed by immigrants or anarchists and local immigrants suffered greatly from this.
Anti-semtic and anti-immigrant attitudes being predominant in that area at that time.
The same less on is taught to us by poltergeist 4 i believe where a sub plot concerns i think the replacing of steel screws with brass (I think it was brass) ones as a cost saving procedure.
Damn molasses flood,..
it ended up in the bay yes?
I can't remember the rest of the story,.. but didnt it ruin local waters for awhile as well, fuckign up the local fishing industry or something?
KK!
no subject
Date: 2004-01-16 09:33 am (UTC)(And they haven't cleaned the T since...)