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Imagine it's January 15, 1919, just after noon in Boston's North End. You're a brakeman

in the third car of the city's passenger train, rattling up the rails on elevated tracks.

The train's chugging north at 20 miles per hour and approaching a section you've always loved

where you can see the docks and feel the ocean wind blowing in from the wharf.

You look down and see longshoremen hauling kegs of beer and carts loaded with livestock.

To you, there's a sense of progress and optimism in all this activity, something your city desperately needs. The flu pandemic has ravaged Boston for months, and thousands of the city's

young men were killed in the war in Europe.

You turn to your assistant next to you, who's bracing himself by the window.

It's his first time on this route.

Now, look, when you get here, you've got to be careful, because this bend up ahead is really tight.

The young man nods.

You know, sir, my parents' family used to live in this neighborhood.

They moved over to Charleston before I was born, though.

Irish, right?

Yeah, mostly Italians down here now.

It's been built up, too.

You see that skyline?

...