TRAVEL STORY
Read the essay on this site
Read at The Atlantic (subsc. req.)
Real Places
Travels to prime attractions around Boston
by Emily Hiestand
“The latest installment of Emily Hiestand's marvelous account of the ‘so-called ordinary world’ has just appeared on newsstands — in the July-August issue of The Atlantic. In ‘Real Places,’ Hiestand focuses her acclaimed eye on local infrastructure—bridges, wastewater treatment facilities, fish processing plants, shipping terminals—and proposes these ‘bastions of the utilitarian’ as terrific travel destinations. In America, Hiestand writes, ‘most of our infrastructure actually belongs to We, the People, and we are free to sally forth and review our big stuff.’ In this insightful, funny travel story, she shows us how to do just that. Along the way, she champions more sustainable forms of infrastructure, and salutes the souls who build and tend ‘the hefty pinions of civilization.’”
— The Atlantic, July 2001
Excerpt
”The newest aid to navigation along the New England coast is a cluster of ovoid structures that loom130 feet tall, and rather perkily for such giants, on the tip of Deer Island, in Boston Harbor. The eggs, as they are commonly called (and there are a dozen), cut a dashing, futuristic figure against the blue-green Atlantic: Rem Koolhaas meets the Jetsons meets Faberg. One warm summer morning last year I was zooming to the top of one egg in an industrial-strength elevator along with six visiting Sri Lankan engineers. As we stepped out onto a catwalk, a process engineer, Jeff McAuley, said of the egg below us, "This could blow up anytime."
He was kidding. We were perfectly safe, I think, but McAuley was getting our attention about conditions deep inside the structure. … The Sri Lankan engineers were almost bubbly with excitement about the facility. Me too. The operation room rivals the deck of the Starship Enterprise; there are monster pumps, and in the dome of each egg a lovely occulus, a functional cousin of that calm, all-seeing eye in the Pantheon. But what really sends me is the transformation this plant is working on Boston's once sullied harbor, restoring it to a sparkling realm clean enough to please bluefish and seals. And people, who are rediscovering the harbor islands — a sapphire necklace of tide pools, wild roses, swimming coves, and ruins of, for instance, the Asylum for Indigent Boys. …
I've always been keen to ask how and why, for what purpose, at what cost; and I soon realized that an expedition to an ordinary electric plant or marine terminal is a terrific way to get behind the scenes quickly — that a few hours at a lock or toll bridge taking with the operators invariably reveals truths about a city or a region that you simply cannot discover in its cafés, shops, and museums. That must be because infrastructure is essentially nesting on a grand scale, embodying power, creativity, and our current schemes — for better or worse — for conducting life on earth. Visits to infrastructure facilities also give a traveler techie info, insight into the big sustainability puzzles, more fun than you might imagine — and deep respect for the souls who build and tend these places.”