So, a pretty shocking event took place today. We were in stake conference (which was being broadcast from Salt Lake) at an auditorium MIT. At the end to the meeting they announced that the Longfellow Park building, which is in Harvard Square was on fire. We were in total shock. This is the chapel Aleks and I attended for four years before getting married. This was the place where I first made a feeble attempt to flirt with Aleks (we finally went out three years later).
It was a huge part of my life prior to marriage and I have a lot of significant memories there. Besides my personal attachment to the building, it was dedicated in the 1950's and has seen many, many people go through there, since it mainly serves the single student population in the area. My mother in law was baptized there. It is hard to believe and pretty sad. I am sure that they will rebuild, but it will be hard to replace this building and its history.
Thankfully no one was hurt. Everyone was able to evacuate in time. It was amazing since they were watching the broadcast, too and the building was likely full of people.
After getting home from church and giving Isaac some lunch, we walked over there (it is about a 10-15 minute walk from our apartment). Here are some of the photos we took. The fire had been going on for almost three hours by the time we showed up. They had fire crews in helping out from all the surrounding cities. They have said that they will be running water on it for eight hours to make sure that they extinguish it fully.
The institute library has a lot of really significant books, some of which are worth tens of thousands of dollars. We were worried about that, but thankfully that is the one part of the building that was not too affected. They set up an assembly line to get the books out and across the street to the Society of Friends meeting house. They were generous to offer their space.
This round window was front and center in the chapel and let really great light in during meetings.
Here is the scene on the lawn out front of the building.
This is from the back entrance. It was still really smokey there.
More photos that are much more dramatic and obviously taken earlier are available here:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/gallery/05_17_09_cambridge_church_fire/
1 comment:
That's so sad. I remember going to that ward numerous times when I came to visit Aleks (when he was still single).
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