I went to the 100th anniversary events. One was at the bridge, where we climbed up to the ROW, heard a poem by one Michael King about the particular designer and type of stone arch bridge, heard a speach or two dedicating an old granite milemarker that had just been reinstalled there, and heard some other talks. (I think the marker is actually the wrong one, and it's certainly not quite in the right place. In the days between the CR service -- early 80s -- we used to walk down the ROW over the bridge and see the milestone a little way RR east of the bridge; it said something like B 5. They took it down when they rebuilt the line, and the one they set up says something like B 13 I think.) Then we went over to the library, where they had the brass plaque that's now on the bridge, and maybe some more talks. Roslindale Historical Society folks always say the accident drew people out there, and I think their Bicentennial history of Roslindale had a story about one family that remembered going to see the wreck and deciding to move, but I wonder sometimes how many people did that. Would YOU suddenly move to a suburb with a RR commute BECAUSE one of the bridges had just collapsed under a train? Maybe I should check Sam Warner's _Streetcar Suburbs_ to see what he said. Of course, the new old-style bridge was obviously designed to look unbreakable (back to Rome); I use it in history classes as an example of a kind of disaster response that also included the way overbuilt Forth Bridge in Scotland.
Folks who still live in town, enjoy the event.
