I’m going through some atlases & by the 1970s they were literally pasting edits over the old 1950s atlas

The result is spooky; there are entire “ghost neighborhoods” *just* visible beneath the parking lots & highways that replaced them. Streams channeled. Streets obliterated. /1

I’ve been well aware of the extent of the destruction urban “renewal” took in Lowell MA between the Connector & Northern Canal projects, but seeing the ghost neighborhoods really drove it home in a way that grainy photos of sections of the projects never could /2

The automobile-centric attitudes of the time are in full swing.

“How do we save our post-industrial city? MORE PARKING”

...& boom, there goes another chunk of historic downtown core. /3

Sometimes it was easier to just slap on the equivalent of a “404 page not found” when an entire atlas page worth of buildings was wiped off the face of the earth (!) /4

Interesting to see what DID fill the voids, though...

Where to put the new school? How about where old infectious disease isolation wards were for the hospital.

...it’ll be fine. I’m sure.

...

/5

Always at least one cringe-inducing moment in the archives; here’s today’s (click for full size):

/6