Figure 1 – Derby Street Laundry on the corner of Becket and Derby Streets, Salem, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

We have definitely gotten into a strange new world view, as we wander the streets. They are so deserted, but at the same time we rise to anger whenever we pass a smoke, mask down around his/her neck, puffing away. perhaps they should develop a special mask for such fools, one with a hole in the center for the cigarette! 

There is an airy silence in the bright morning light. I see it in black and white, leaning towards the classic duo tone that mimics selenium. In Figure1, we see the Derby Street Laundry at the corner of Salem’s Derby and Becket Streets. The building has certainly seen better days, and true to an old section of an antique town, the streets are bent and warped. This is near the Old Custom’s House and most certainly Nathaniel Hawthorne tread this very path. 

“and the third[window] looking across a narrow lane, and along a portion of Derby Street. All three give glimpses of the shops of grocers, block-makers, slop-sellers, and ship-chandlers; around the doors of which are generally to be seen, laughing and gossiping, clusters of old salts, and such other wharf-rats as haunt the Wapping of a seaport.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Customs House