Today
The sites of the molasses tank and the North End Paving Company have been turned into a recreational complex, officially named Langone Park, featuring a Little League ballfield, a playground, and bocce courts. Immediately to the east is the larger Puopolo Park, with additional recreational facilities.
A small plaque at the entrance to Puopolo Park, placed by the Bostonian Society, commemorates the disaster. The plaque, entitled "Boston Molasses Flood", reads:
On January 15, 1919, a molasses tank at 529 Commercial Street exploded under pressure, killing 21 people. A 40-foot wave of molasses buckled the elevated railroad tracks, crushed buildings and inundated the neighborhood. Structural defects in the tank combined with unseasonably warm temperatures contributed to the disaster.
One of the DUKW amphibious tourist vehicles operated by Boston Duck Tours, appropriately painted dark brown, has been named Molly Molasses in remembrance of the event, per the firm's practice of naming their DUKWs after famous Boston locations, events and other bits of local culture.
Read more about this topic: Boston Molasses Disaster
Famous quotes containing the word today:
“The greatest felony in the news business today is to be behind, or to miss a big story. So speed and quantity substitute for thoroughness and quality, for accuracy and context. The pressure to compete, the fear somebody else will make the splash first, creates a frenzied environment in which a blizzard of information is presented and serious questions may not be raised.”
—Carl Bernstein (b. 1944)
“The East is the hearthside of America. Like any home, therefore, it has the defects of its virtues. Because it is a long-lived-in house, it bursts its seams, is inconvenient, needs constant refurbishing. And some of the family resources have been spent. To attain the privacy that grown-up people find so desirable, Easterners live a harder life than people elsewhere. Today it is we and not the frontiersman who must be rugged to survive.”
—Phyllis McGinley (19051978)
“In the information age, you dont teach philosophy as they did after feudalism. You perform it. If Aristotle were alive today hed have a talk show.”
—Timothy Leary (b. 1920)