From Snails to Whales: Spectacle Island Artifact Collection and Identification Part 2: Identfications

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Spectacle Island Artifact Collection and Identification Part 2: Identfications

Artifact 1: Clay Door knob- This is definitely a door knob because the shape and indentations in the other side were exactly the same a modern day doorknob. After the 1850s clay door knobs were patented in the United States. I think it was used anytime after that up until the dump on Spectacle was closed. These door knobs held up well and perhaps the mechanism failed and the door knob was thrown away. A door could have also made its way over after a house demolition, and the wood disintegrated in the ocean and what was left was the clay knob.
http://www.madehow.com/Volume-5/Doorknob.html

Artifact 2: This looks to me like a fastener probably on a toilet or some other installation piece. It looks to be made of limestone and its likely been broken off during a demolition as well. The piece behind it is a germicide top. It says quality made germicide and the bottom side had a small place that was likely inserted into a bottle. Germicide was used and still is used today to kill bacteria, it is used to clean wounds and sterilize.

Artifact 3: Safety Glass- (**photo at the end of previous post) Glass technology was such that to make glass stronger and shatterproof people put chicken wire inside the panes to fortify the final product. These products were used in industrial buildings and most likely came to the island after a building was demolished or after a pane broke and needed to be replaced. Someone who used this needed a protective layer of glass while getting sunlight. Possibly in a police station or in an industrial factory where broken windows might be a problem. They also serve as a defense against break ins so maybe in store windows or entrances.

Artifact 4: Clay Roof Tile- This clay panel seems to be part of a roofing tile system. These tiles would be placed edge to edge along a roof and were used. These tiles are rarely seen in architecture today but were used after many fires ravaged houses in Boston and became part of the building code from from the 16th to the and of the 18th century in the city. These were desired in urban locations because they wouldn't catch fire. Clay tiles went in and out of fashion and probably this one ended up on Spectacle after a homeowner was modernizing the look of their house. This tile probably came down when a building was demolished. The person who used it was probably a home owner that was renovating or after a house fire and a house needed to be rebuilt. This tile is an old version of the kind we use today usually made of copper. http://www.mca-tile.com/history.htm

Artifact 5: Shoe Soles- In these pictures you can observe the holes where shoe nails were hammered up into the shoe base to make the heel of the shoe. They are a separate part of the shoe made of a material that seems to be more impervious to the elements as the softer probably delicious leather that the shoes were constructed from. I noticed a lot of different sizes of the heels indicating that there were many sizes of shoes represented. Shoes wear out also people grow out of them, they also go out of style. This is often why people throw them away. They remind me of the soles of the shoes my father would wear to work every day. He would wear the same three pairs until they were worn through. This is probably what happened with many of these heel remnants. These shoes were probably used before 1960 when shoe construction technology was a little more basic and heels were nailed onto the shoe base.

Artifact 6: Glass Mustard Bottle Base- The shard that I collected had the words Guldens mustard raised in the glass. Guldens is an American brand that has been producing mustard since 1862. Condiment containers are used by households across the country and in restaurant. After they are emptied they serve no alternative purpose and are thrown away, judging by the amount of restaurant china ware they could possibly be from restaurant trash. The ranger told us that dates are often written on the bottles and I did note one that I found with a date around 1930s. I am wondering if this Guldens shard came around the same time period as the ware on it is similar to the one with that date on it. The trash incinerator on the island was closed after 1935 where trash was just put on the island to sit there until 1959. The person who used this mustard probably liked hamburgers and hotdogs and were probably using it in a restaurant where they were dining, it was likely a casual style restaurant where they put mustard bottles on the dining tables. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulden's

In addition to these objects I also found many shards of china, I focused mainly on looking at the markings that I found on a few bits that were probably the base of the china pieces. Of the information from these markings I could find was that the pottery makers supplied restaurants and hotels and other mass produced items.

When I throw my trash away a capitol waste truck comes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to clear away any bags of trash left outside our door. I tried to research where the trucks eventually take the trash but there was no information online I also couldn't get through to them on the phone although I wasn't trying to contact them on a work day. It's pretty interesting that there is nothing on their website explaining the process just the pick up... Makes it easy to forget what impact we have on the environment and landfills.

Lauren Miller

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From Snails to Whales

Welcome to Snails to Whales, Bruce Berman's blog focused on both the little and the big things that make Boston Harbor such an interesting and extraordinary place to live, work and play.

With 50 miles of protected water, four sheltered bays, seven river systems, 34 islands and a nine-foot average tide, Boston Harbor is one of the most diverse urban ecosystems in America.

This blog focuses on the flora and fauna of Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay - on the beach, the shore, and the harbor islands, and in the cleaner waters of Boston Harbor and Mass Bay - including this ecosystems most important species - people.

During the summer, it is also a place for my Boston University Students and my colleagues at Save the Harbor / Save the Bay to share their work and experiences.

Where I am coming from...

Love that clean(er) water
Learning about the Boston Harbor Cleanup from the waterway’s eyes, ears, and mouthpiece

By Brian Fitzgerald, BU Bridge

On Georges Island, Bruce Berman talks with his students about the history of the Boston Harbor Cleanup,
which is largely complete. Photo by Vernon Doucette

Bruce Berman, aboard a ferry from Boston’s Long Wharf to Georges Island, poses a question to his students: “How clean is clean enough?”

He’s talking about the water below.

It’s a brilliant July day, with the smell of salt spray in the air. The sky is clear, and so is the ocean. But there was a time when Boston Harbor wasn’t so clean, when the stench of sewage assaulted the nostrils of anyone who went near it.

Berman is the communications director for Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, a public-interest environmental advocacy organization whose mission is to help restore and protect the harbor and Massachusetts Bay. He also teaches a Metropolitan College summer course called Politics, Public Relations, and Public Policy: The Boston Harbor Cleanup.

“The Boston Harbor Cleanup is an amazing success story, and I just love to share it with students,” says Berman, noting that the harbor’s “bad old days” weren’t that long ago. Those were the days when untreated human waste, syringes, condoms, and tampon applicators routinely washed ashore. The antiquated sewage treatment plants on Deer Island and Nut Island were so poorly designed and maintained that they flooded during even mild rainstorms, sending millions of gallons of untreated waste directly into the harbor.

Since then, bacteria counts in the water have decreased by more than two-thirds. Now the harbor teems with plants and animals, and people can legally dig for clams on Carson Beach in South Boston, which was unheard of in the 1980s.

“It was one of the filthiest harbors in America, and now it’s one of the cleanest,” says Berman. “What I’m trying to impress upon students is how this incredible comeback occurred, and how business, advocacy groups, environmentalists, and government can affect the outcome of large projects such as the Boston Harbor Cleanup through negotiation.”

Paradise regained

Berman points to the left as the boat cruises by the cleanup’s centerpiece: the gargantuan white egglike tanks of the Deer Island waste treatment plant, which in 1995 replaced the antiquated facility. The plant treats an average of 350 million gallons of sewage a day.

“And what comes out of the Deer Island treatment plant?” he asks. Berman, his booming baritone competing with the roar of planes taking off from Logan Airport, has a habit of putting students on the spot to see if they’re paying attention.

“The outfall pipe,” say several simultaneously. “Treated water,” chime in a few more.

“That’s right,” he says with a smile. “The plant separates the solid and liquid waste, and it pumps the treated water through the 9.5-mile outfall pipe, which empties into Massachusetts Bay. The resulting sludge is converted to high-grade fertilizer.”

Now Berman returns to his original question: “How clean is clean enough?” There’s no quick and clear answer to this one. “It’s a question that at the end of the day the federal courts had to decide.”

In 1985, a landmark federal court case required that the harbor’s beaches be made swimmable and fishable by 2000. Save the Harbor/Save the Bay was formed the next year to raise public awareness of the $4.5 billion Boston Harbor Cleanup. Sewer ratepayers in the 43 cities and towns financing the project cried foul over the prospect of astronomically rising bills, but because of the determination of environmental advocacy groups such as Berman’s, the cleanup was largely completed on schedule.

Berman says it isn’t finished, however. There are still frequent beach closures because the counts of Enterococcus bacteria exceed the federal and state standard for swimming. The culprit: filthy storm water and sewage, much of it from leaky pipes and illegal hookups emptying into storm sewers, and then into the harbor.

“So is the harbor clean enough,” the Springfield native asks his students, “when you can’t swim in it one out of five days in the summer?”

Work to be done

Berman and his class look out from Georges Island to Gallops Island (left) and the white tanks of the waste treatment plant on Deer Island (right). Photo by Vernon Doucette

This summer the state approved one of the last parts of the cleanup: the construction, by 2011, of a 2.1-mile tunnel near the Dorchester and South Boston shorelines that will hold sewage and storm water during bad weather. It then will be pumped to Deer Island for treatment.

Berman is ecstatic over this development, the result of “tireless negotiation and consensus-building,” he says. “After 2011, we’re looking at beach closings once every five years, when there is a major storm, instead of once every five days.”

But he is not about to let his guard down. To say that he is a man obsessed with the harbor cleanup would be an understatement. Berman is also Save the Harbor/Save the Bay’s “Baywatcher,” and he lives on his 40-foot trawler Verandah. Polluters beware: if you’re discharging oil or sewage into Boston Harbor, the Baywatcher just might be watching.

He is quick to point out that his zealotry is not just on behalf of the harbor’s flora and fauna. “The harbor is for everyone,” he says. “If you’re from a working class or poor family in Boston, and you can’t afford a Cape Cod getaway in the summer, a clean harbor is important. The same is true if you’re a tourist vacationing in Boston or you happen to live in a pricey waterfront condo.”

Accordingly, Berman, who was a political consultant and contributing editor to the Phoenix newspaper before joining Save the Harbor/Save the Bay nearly 10 years ago, also teaches his students about the harbor’s role in the city’s economy. He points out that in the early 1990s, just a few ferries cruised the harbor’s waters. Today, more than 100,000 people visit its islands each summer, discovering their ecological and historic treasures.

“The best way to protect the harbor cleanup,” Berman tells his students, “is to make sure that the public has access to the resources and can see a return on its investment.”

Trevor Kosmolsick (MET’05) has lived in Boston for seven years, but until taking Berman’s course, he had never been to the waterfront. “I’ve also wanted to go camping in the area, but I never knew that you could camp on a few of the islands,” he says. “Bruce Berman is not only a great professor, but the ultimate tour guide.”

He also backs up his words with actions. Sometimes he takes off his shirt and dives in the water to demonstrate to passing boaters that it’s safe to swim. To show people on ferries that fishing is safe, he’s been known to grab one of the bluefish or striped bass he’s caught and (very carefully) plant a wet kiss on it.

“What I want everyone to understand is that investment in the environment really does pay off,” says Berman. “We’re willing to pay for a clean Boston Harbor, so we should enjoy it.”

From Snails to Whales

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Spectacle Island Artifact Collection and Identification Part 2: Identfications

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