{"id":58167,"date":"2023-01-13T03:52:30","date_gmt":"2023-01-13T03:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/?p=58167"},"modified":"2023-01-14T23:47:27","modified_gmt":"2023-01-14T23:47:27","slug":"in-boston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/2023\/01\/13\/in-boston\/","title":{"rendered":"In Boston"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday the 13th, oh no! What better day to dive down into… the Subways of Madness! Many will recall the passage in Lovecraft’s story “Pickman\u2019s Model” (1926)…<\/p>\n

There was a study called \u2018Subway Accident,\u2019 in which a flock of the vile things were clambering up from some unknown catacomb through a crack in the floor of the Boylston Street subway and attacking a crowd of people on the platform.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In May 1923 he described his own experience of “things dark and subterranean” in the Boston Subway, writing to Galpin in a letter…<\/p>\n

[After a Boston Hub Club dinner I] hit the trail south [through the city]. Instead of rattling to the South Station on the elevated, I chose the subway, (I am exceedingly fond of all things dark and subterranean, and miss the rides up to 96th!) taking a train to Washington-Summer and there transferring to a S.S. train. [And thence to Providence]. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Boston subway.<\/em><\/p>\n

This shows that his usual Providence-to-Boston run, and back, would have taken him into Boston’s South Station, a main above-ground station for the city. An earlier letter confirms this was also the case in 1920…<\/p>\n

“At Boston, I bade farewell to the Hubites, refusing overnight invitations & hastening to the South Station. I trod my native heath at 1:30 a.m. I reached home half an hour later”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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South Station, Boston, with Elevated train and Elevated platform<\/em><\/p>\n

This above-ground station also appears in “Pickman’s Model”…<\/p>\n

We changed to the elevated [railway] at the South Station, and at about twelve o\u2019clock had climbed down the steps at Battery Street and struck along the old waterfront past Constitution Wharf. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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South Station Elevated platform, 1921.<\/em><\/p>\n

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News-stand window at South Station Elevated platform. Probably carried Weird Tales<\/em>, in its day.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The “steps at Battery Street” elevated platform, Boston. These feature in “Pickman’s Model”.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I didn’t keep track of the cross streets, and can’t tell you yet which it was we turned up, but I know it wasn’t Greenough Lane.” [to reach Pickman’s studio].<\/p>\n

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Greenough Lane, Boston.<\/em><\/p>\n

So South Station itself, as well as the Elevated and the Boston Subway, is a setting. While the exterior of South Station is nothing spooky, the interior had a definite Lovecrafty flavour.<\/p>\n

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Later it appears in “At The Mountains of Madness” via the subway station in its lower depths. When the shoggoth-crazed Danforth recites the stations of Boston-Cambridge underground subway line to try to keep some sliver of sanity…<\/p>\n

South Station Under–Washington Under–Park Street Under–<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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The tentacular tracks at ‘Park Street Under’.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Boston subway (for there was no Providence subway, and HPL did not yet know New York City) also appears in the dreamlike prose-poem “Nyarlathotep” (1920), in which a column of people…<\/p>\n

filed down a weed-choked subway entrance, howling with a laughter that was mad.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Entrance to South Street Under subway station, Boston.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday the 13th, oh no! What better day to dive down into… the Subways of Madness! Many will recall the …<\/p>\n

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