With some time to spare after licensing-board hearings, and with decentish temperatures yesterday, I wandered along the South Boston waterfont, where, in addition to what seemed like every single construction worker in New England putting up new towers, one could also see glimpses of what used to be.
There's a limit to all the new luxury housing and high-priced office space going up along the water, and that limit is the 100-year-old Boston Fish Pier, where actual fishing boats, such as the ones above, still dock and workers process tons of seafood.
In Fort Point, round BWC plaques mark the buildings erected around the turn of the last century by the Boston Wharf Co. (see the BPL collection of Boston Wharf Co. photos) - which first filled in the land the buildings sit on, then built the warehouses to store goods from the ships that docked at the wharves the company also built. The buildings stood the test of time; the wharves didn't.
Back on the harbor, one thing that once seemed like it would also endure is Anthony's Pier 4. But the old seafood place closed in 2013 and now it sits forlorn and crumbling behind a chain-link fence, awaiting its destruction to make way for a park as part of the Pier 4 development.
Out on the harbor, a red-striped Coast Guard cutter passed between a tug boat and a green buoy:
