Onomichi Townscape

Bye Onomichi for a while. Bye bye to the kitschy mock samurai castle. See you next time.

Abandoned in Onomichi

Seika Ryo (Holy Flower Dormitory): an abandoned dormitory for nurses

Onomichi is a small seaside town in southeast Hiroshima. Yasujiro Ozu shoot ending scenes of Tokyo Story in Onomichi. I want to introduce this fascinating, quaint town with a web of narrow, steep, winding paths to you. I've been this town countless times, and each time I find new aspects that I didn't see from the previous visit.

This is the 4th of Onomichi series.* I've been explaining how charming Onomichi is, but today I'll tackle some of the challenges modern Onomichi is facing.      

Onomichi does have lots of abandoned houses. Like any other mid to small sized towns in Japan, the increasing senior population is a big challenge of the town.The hilly residential landscape is very charming for visitors but for the aging population, the terrain could be a huge barrier to conduct their everyday life.

*For the past series, see: The Landscape of Yasujiro Ozu, Onomichi Landscape: Local Belifes, and Onomichi Landscape: Commercial Space

Vending machine, Mukaishima Island

The Landscape of Yasujiro Ozu: Onomichi, Hiroshima

Just for a week, I went back to my home in Hiroshima. It's been for five years? since last time I went back. Well, I don't like an airplane trip. Wish I could afford a business class or something. Twelve hours in a sardine tine is asking too much for me. What could I do if I wanna get out and breath some outside air? No, obviously.

Enough gripe. I know, I know.

Onomichi cats are slim and have big eyes and ears!

Montreal cityscape I

An impression sand makes III

Wingaersheek beach, Gloucester

It's not snow! The finest sand I've ever seen!

And of course, that mansion:

Early spring is the best time to spend a sunny weekend with your dog, friend, family, or even by yourself...sans fee and crowd!

The Old Spite House, Marblehead

Old Spite House, Marblehead

Long time no see. Now, I'm back.

Looking through the list of places I made during the last few months, the first thing I wanted to cover was a house called the "Old Spite House" in Marblehead.

The Skinny House, Boston

The Skinny House sits on Copp's Hill in North End. The house is across a very old cemetery established in 1659. This skinny structure is said to be built around 1870. It measures 10ft (3m) width, hence the name "skinny", and the narrowest of the interior is mere 6ft (180cm).

The Vaughn house, Dana

Dana is one of the lost towns of the Quabbin Reservoir. Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott were impounded in 1938 upon the completion of the reservoir. Today, the 39 mi² (100 km²) Quabbin Reservoir is still in use and the largest body of fresh water in Massachusetts.

Music Hall, Waltham

I named this extraordinary architecture as the Pyramid Head Building. Because I could see the building on the main street of a fictional ghost town, and the three embellishments on top remind me pyramids. But this building exists not in Silent Hill but in Waltham, Massachusetts.

To tell the truth, these pyramid things gave me a slight chill because I remembered the Pyramid Head I had seen an empty park in a small Midwestern city. It was a Halloween but I thought he spent too much time on painting his huge knife with blood, and I'm sure nobody wanted to get close to him. "Give me a treat or I'm gonna butcher you" was the message he managed to convey.

I'm sure I'm the only one who got this unfortunate connection with this building.

This building was constructed around 1880 as a music hall. As you can see, the white part of the facade is decorated by some geometric patterns. I wonder if there are some symbolic meanings in the circles and diamonds (not to forget the pyramids), or just the architects' fancy. Since this is located within a stone's throw from the Boston Manufacturing Company, it must have been filled with mill girls...Only if they had any time to enjoy themselves.

Currently, a few shops occupy the ground floor and the rest seems to be rented out as apartments. I wonder which part of the building was a music hall. My guess is the ground floor as the hall and the above as a hotel. Well, that's one noisy hotel.

Locate Music Hall @ Google Map

http://mhc-macris.net/Details.aspx?MhcId=WLT.126

Wingaersheek Beach Mansion, Gloucester

I've never been to Wingaersheek Beach before. Well, it's an expensive beach during the season. We tend to go Plum Island instead. Finally I checked out the place during the off season. Well it's a good beach; it's shallow for a good distance from the shore, the sand is powder fine, and the water is clear. The waves are gentle and so quiet!

And there is a nice Spanish colonial, possibly Mission Style, red tile roof mansion on the shore.

the mansion of the right

The Mission Style architecture was in vogue during 1890 and 1920.  Like the railroad millionaire Benjamin P. Cheney Jr. built a summer home on Calf Island in 1902, there must have been a summer home boom in the early 20th century in North Shore and some Boston islands.

Annisquam Light

From the beach you can see Annisquam Light. The current lighthouse was built in 1897. A guidebook I have says I can walk to the lighthouse from the beach at a low tide. Well, it wasn't possible when I visited.

I decided to get as close as to the mansion. Leaving Brian at the beach entrance, I walked through tide pools and  rocks, thinking what is the current purpose of the building. Private residence, country club, hotel, etc. Either way, it must be belonging to the exclusive class.

After (relatively) close examination, my initial guess was a yacht club. It's off season and all the yachts was covered with fabric like Christo's installation art. Is anybody in the house?

The windows are partially boarded. Even such a gentle beach, the winter wind and wave aren't a polite thing. When the season comes, they'll be removed, right? But why aren't some rooms boarded? I guess some rooms are used by the seasonal maintenance personnel...Oh, this reminds me of the somewhat frozen, literally genius Jack Torrance.

I headed back to the entrance. I could see a long figure staring at me in a bored manner, shivering with cold.

"Hi, I'm back", I said.

"I was guessing you would come to me with 77 steps."

"......"

"But it was 80."

"......" 

Locate Wingaersheek Beach @ Google Map

Cabot Farms, Somerville

It's damn cold, cold, cold! Last year was the first Massachusetts winter for me, and I was thinking it's manageable. Ughhh, I was duped. My arms are swelling like Popeye from snow shoveling. I love my Bean Boots, but am getting bored with wearing the same pair day after day. I need somewhere to schmooze like a lethargic lizard to escape from the cold and snow...

Looking at this abandoned function hall, I was imagining myself as a stuffed reptile in the lounge room. It wasn't appealing. Instead, I changed my mind as a dapper drummer smokin' a cigar or pianist who occasionally wears a funny hut and orders a drink saying "Straight, No Chaser"...I confess, I would be quite trashed if I did that. At Cabot Farms, time has stopped sometimes around the mid 20th century.

This glass block clad place has been closed for at least 2o years. Abandoned places tend to draw our rich imagination, so does Cabot Farms. If you ask about the place to Somervillians, they'll tell you rumors something like a real life heist film. Huuum, Somerville.

The premise had several functions: Cabot Farms was a function room catered for events like wedding receptions and group meetings. On Broadway Dance Club took over the place briefly in the 80's as a non-smoking club. A doorway in the middle is an entrance to the apartments upstairs which are still in use. Proudly air conditioned -- I experienced such a claim while I was traveling India-- Garden Room seems to be...no idea...the old folks' boozy-woozy hangout? Each clue on the facade encapsulates the owner's imagination and the time passed by. Let me show you some examples: 

The above is a window dressing for Garden Room. Actually, it does look like a makeshift board-ups...The decoration is comprised with the pictures depicting the history of office environment and technology. Don't see the connection between the Garden and office technology? I'll explain it to you:

My grandpa used to work as a typist.

However, the ruthless wave of technology alienated him.

Now he stays in the place called Garden Room all day long.

What caught my attention is the detail in the "future" office space.

Pen tablet = the future technology

At Cabot Farm/On Broadway part of the premise, the never ending Christmas show is going on. Look at the Christmas themed decorations like pine corns, red and silver decoration balls, and silver dust on the bottom of the window. And don't forget saying hello to the lovely Satchmo; even educated fleas do it.

I need a polarizing filter badly...

????

Sorry, but who is that dude? He's like James Bond look-a-like. I mean a Sean Connery type, but not as sharp as the Scotchman. I asked Brian: "Ahhhh, James Cagney? No, no, Al Jolson. Don't you think?"

Don't ask me. Maybe, Maybe not.

The result of an image search for Al Jolson made me very nervous; he made his career as a minstrel man in 1927 movie the Jazz singer. No wonder why I didn't know him. Wait, wait, why is he right next to Louis Armstrong!!??

Al Jolson paved the way for African-American performers like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, and Ethel Waters.It is remarkable that a Jewish mamma's boy from Lithuania could do so much to bridge the cultural gap between black and white America. --From Broadway: The American Musical by PBS

Okay, it can be interpreted like that, but I cannot help thinking it's a cynical display of American show biz.

Instead of getting worked up with photos, I decided to examine the wall. Some insists calling these glass blocks as "VFW bricks", because it helps diffusing the morning light for the old folks inside.What a brilliant interpretation.

I like the green facade, there's a nostalgic ring to it. But why....oh, it's the color of the 80's dial home phone when I was little. That faded lime green PVC body with ceramic like shine. I wonder whether kids now know how to use a dial phone. They are not going to push the hole instead of rotating it, are they?

So, who owns the place now? Are there any plans to convert the space? The answer is simple: it is still owned by the same family. The conversion plan is not on the board because there seems to be an inheritance issue. Oh, that reminds me another abandoned restaurant with similar trouble, Sahara Syrian Restaurant in South End. Instead of being gentrified, those restaurants stay put as an unintended private museum of Boston social life.

Locate Cabot Farms @ Google Map

Ghost Building Two:  Harrumph!
Remember Cabot Farms?: the Somerville News
30 to 35 yeas later and so much has changed: the Somerville News Blog
BROADWAY: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL: PBS

Round House, Somerville

This is a strange, ahem, unique house. Surrounded by typical three-story houses in Spring Hill, Somerville, this cylindrical oddity (oy!) has been under renovation since a local man purchased this abandoned house in 2007.

Originally, the Round House was owned by Enoch Robinson, who operated a prominent hardware manufacturing company. Built in 1856, this three story single family home contained an oval library and living room among with more conventional-shape kitchen and dining room on the 1st floor. 2nd and 3rd floor were consisted with bedroom and bathroom shaped like a divided piece of sliced pineapples in a tin. By the way, the diameter of the house -- how many times do I have an opportunity to say so -- is 40ft (13m).

A construction project is going on behind the Round House. I don't know it's the same operation as the renovation project, but they aren't going to raze the house, right? But look closely, the exterior of the 3rd floor, modillions, window heads, the order, etc.  have been refurbished.

Tinplates? It looks like air ducts jutting out with no apparent reason, no, I think they are battlements.

The current state of the interior is a big mystery to many. Originally, the interior was equipped with nice hardware due to the nature of Robinson's business. The roof was topped with a glass skylight, and the walls were decorated with "the French scenic wallpaper." (from Centers and Squares) It sounds like a house with full of fun.

Now (on the right is ex-Carr elementary school)

Then: vintage post card from Centers & Squares

This month, I've been covering 1850's octagon-themed buildings. The Round House is a derivation of them, and I'll take it further next time: I'll cover possibly the first octagon cage ring built in the mid 19th century which hosted a match between Chuck Norris and the dude with star-spangled bad boy pants. I've heard about it few years ago and just found it's in my neighborhood. (Oy, can't you wait for 4 1/2 months?) Ah, I love Massachusetts!

Locate Round House @ Google Map
For the original floor plans, etc.: Centers & Squares