I am definitely a person who enjoys and needs solitude, and General Ship became my refuge for quite some time. When my wife and I weren’t going out to eat or doing something on Friday or Saturday night, I would grab a six pack and head down to General Ship. There, I would basically sit in the Crane Operator’s seat and listen to music off my phone. This happened in the heat of summer and the dead of winter. I remember climbing the upper part of the one crane and being up there photographing while ice cold wind was absolutely ripping past me. Several of these pictures were taken on subsequent days, so going two days in a row was definitely on the table. Maybe it wasn’t the healthiest activity in the world, but I loved it.

Eventually they decided to demo the cranes, which was heartbreaking. I worked nearby at the time and I would cruise past to watch the progress at lunch. It seemed incredibly unnecessary since General Ship was on a pier that was fairly isolated. It may be that they wanted to make the area more attractive for redevelopment as Boston’s Seaport District was absolutely booming, but I certainly thought it looked cooler with the cranes than as just a desolate concrete pad with a hole in the middle. It could also be that they figured out people were visiting, but we were fairly careful and I never ran into anyone else that I didn’t arrive with. It was a very low key spot.

The one good thing in all this is that I certainly do not feel like I missed anything or didn’t go here and enjoy it enough. I enjoyed the ever loving shit out of it. There was a small underground portion where the dry dock controls were that I visited but didn’t get any good shots of, but I have no regrets. I saw everything here, photographed everything here, and climbed everything I was capable of climbing. Job Done.