I visualize this project as a transect of industrial New England – a sampling of the urban, rural, industrial, and cultural fabric along a defined geographic line. This project began with an interest in the historic Hoosac Rail Tunnel in Florida-North Adams MA, and evolved into a study of the towns along this corridor. The rail line is the old Fitchburg Railroad, which connects Boston with Troy NY and passes through the Hoosac Tunnel. It was used from the mid-nineteenth century on to move goods coming from the great lakes region via the Erie Canal, then on to Boston via rail. This rail line was the seed from which many towns and industries sprang - it shaped these towns, even though the rail line has all but ceased to service the local towns.

The towns themselves are post-industrial towns struggling with what to do with the infrastructure they have inherited. In the town centers you find re-purposed or abandoned 19th century industrial buildings, urban design that is rail and river centric, blight, store fronts pasted on old buildings - manufacturing infrastructure that is still defining the urban fabric of these towns. Layered on top of this framework is 100 years of transformation. These places have been visibly shaped by their history. The local cultures are entwined with the industrial and rail heritage. There are also Native American cultures found along this route.

This project attempts to take in the current state of this corridor. I’m photographing what interests me along this route - architecture, landscape, roadside culture, kitsch, signage, objects - with a special interest where past events shape the present landscape.

An analogy that occured to me when I started this project was of a hemiepiphyte strangler fig tree, which grows around a host tree. Eventually the host tree dies, decays and disappears, leaving a fig tree with a hollow interior the shape of the host tree. This project is about photographing the interior and exterior of that remaining fig tree.