
City - Boston Ma - The Great Molasses Flood 1919 - Side by Side

by Mike Savad
Title
City - Boston Ma - The Great Molasses Flood 1919 - Side by Side
Artist
Mike Savad
Medium
Photograph - Colorized Photo
Description
Colorized photo from 1919, Jan 15th
Original Title: Boston molasses explosion
Location: 529 Commercial Street in North Boston
The story is long, and its on the original. Here is the fast version. A very large tank 58x90ft or so in size, carrying 2.5 million gallons of molasses, exploded. It sent out a wave that was any where between 8-20 feet tall (depending who you asked and how close you were to it). It covered an expanse of 160 ft in diameter, and traveled at a speed of 35mph.
This would normally be hilarious, but 21 people were killed, 150 were hurt, animals of all kinds died, and it destroyed 2 blocks of houses and buildings. Most of them were destroyed, and it took months to clean up. The entire city was covered in the stuff because people tracked through it. The entire city of Boston was sticky.
The image was a documentary shot, it was made to cover a story. This particular angle, had a huge pole running down the middle of it. And while I could keep it a documentary shot, once I color it, it stops being one. So I took the time to remove it. I only had trouble around the curve of that track.
The other problem I had was the molasses and the color. You can see a lot of glare on the ground, the molasses is shiny, everything is wet and kind of covered in it. You can see where it stopped though, right around that firetruck. I wasn't sure if I should make it black to brown (you wouldn't see any detail), or leave the highlights, because its reflecting something. I just made it brighter in spots, it was hard to decide. There was also a lot of brown in this due to wood, and that tank was painted brown to hide the leaks it had.
Uploaded
September 24th, 2017
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