Daily Archives: August 13, 2014

A Drowned House in Salem

I seldom publish two posts in one dayand especially on such divergent topics–but a photograph of an old house on Carlton Street in Salem popped up on Facebook this morning, and I can think of little else. The simple colonial house had been shorn of its roof and top story, by all accounts in the past few days, and left completely open to the elements: just in time for the driving rainstorm we are experiencing today. I ran over to look at 25 Carlton Street in the early afternoon, and it was indeed drenched, inside and out, even more forlorn in appearance now that the floodgates have opened. This was deliberate and brutal decimation: the house looks like its top was sliced off with a chainsaw. The interior has been gutted as well, and what is referred to as a “massive center chimney” in its MACRIS inventory removed. No tarp in sight. I have never seen a worse case of demolition-by-developer, whose name was still conveniently legible on the building permit: Jewel Saeed, of Swampscott, Massachusetts, who appears to own several convenience and liquor stores in the Boston area. Let us hope and pray that he sticks to his day job and stops preying on historic houses in the future.

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25 Carlton Street on August 13, 2014. The house was built by or for Salem shipwright Thomas Magoun c. 1803. Below: contrasting views of the house on a better day and today.

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The Rampant Ropes

If you are in the vicinity of Salem or even eastern Massachusetts RUN, don’t walk, to the Ropes Mansion Garden off Essex Street for the most flagrant display of August abundance I have ever seen! (Perhaps you should wait until tomorrow though, as we have pouring rain today). I have posted many pictures of this beautiful formal garden over the years, in every season, but it is nothing short of stunning this particular summer. Everybody’s having a good garden year, myself included, but the Ropes Garden has outbloomed us all. It has several notable advantages: a circular plan devised by horticulturist John Robinson in 1912 which creates all sorts of colorful contrasts and perspectives, a perfect mix of annuals and perennials, natural and man-made enclosures, and a full-time professional gardener. I could go on and on with flowery praise but let’s get to the pictures, which of course will not do the garden justice: about half of these I took in the afternoon, the remainder at dusk–I was looking for contrast at both times because it’s difficult to capture the vividness of flowers (especially so many flowers) without.

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