Imagine living next to the saddest car on the VFW Parkway
By adamg - Wed, 02/20/2008 - 8:57am.
There's probably an interesting story behind the wreck that's sat for years in somebody's driveway on the VFW Parkway in Roslindale (northbound, between the West Roxbury Parkway and the Hebrew center). But in the meantime, Alyssa wonders what it does to property values as she drives past on the way to work.
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Awesome!
I watched that piece of s*** decompose for seven years. Great update pic.
It's still decomposing
And it still puzzles me on a daily basis. Looks like it's at 36 or 40 VFW Parkway. Google has a street view.
Does it violate any city ordinance?
Does the city have any law against keeping wrecked, inoperable and unlicensed vehicles on your property, within view of the street? (If not, maybe it should.)
Maybe ...
It looks like more than four students could be living in it ...:-)
Not enough room
Since Whitey Bulger joined Jimmy Hoffa in the trunk.
Students?
We don't have no steenkin' students down here in Rozzie. Until a couple years ago, however, we did have a classic white-trash house down the street - snarling dog, a hole in the wall where the air conditioner used to be AND a couch in the side yard. Ah, the country!
Yankee Yard
We once joked about putting our expired appliances on display in our front yard and curating them like a rustic exhibit, but all our neighbors got the joke. Wasn't nearly so much fun that way.
Oh, yeah
And how could I forget the classic touch of that house: A car up on blocks in the driveway!
That's not a yard sale
It's a lifestyle.
That's no car!
That's an in-law apartment!
You can have one
You can have one abandoned/unregistered vehicle on your property under city law. The Council tried to change that a few years back but Councilor Yancey had an amendment put in to allow one such vehicle on your property and it passed.
anywhere on your property?
even in the front yard?
I think it was anywhere on
I think it was anywhere on the property but I'm really not sure. It might also depend how badly the vehicle is. I'm truthfully not certain.
How badly damaged?
If the junk-heap at 36 VFW degrades any further, it may not be possible to determine how many cars it used to be.
Is this it?
You can see it on Google Street view, though from the look of it, that picture was taken before the car imploded.
That's the one
I think the address is 36 VFW, belonging to a Mr. Robert P. Borzakian, now of Westwood. Boston says the taxes are up to date, though there have been liens for nonpayment in the past, according to the Suffolk registrar.
Paging Mr. Borzakian... could you pick up your cah at the courtesy phone, please?
I drove by it just now
Wow. How could I have ever missed that? House looks like it could stand some work, too.
Google is old
That Google Maps pic reflects what that car looked like when I moved to Rozzie in 1996. By the time I moved out of the 'hood in 2002 or so, it was halfway to its current condition. It would be cool to see some time-lapse photos of the deterioration, kinda like those eclipse photos taken by Gribley.
Google StreetView
Google didn't even exist in 1996, and I'm not sure anyone there had thought up the idea of StreetView in 2002. The StreetView photography for greater Boston was done last summer.
Street View vs. TerraServer
The street view was last summer, true, but most images from Terra Server are updated only every few years. Up until a couple of months ago, we still had a Volvo in our driveway according to Google Earth - that Volvo was gone as of 2003. The park near us also still had rusting 1950s play equipment in a swampy end and a baseball field - it has been renovated to have two soccer fields and the basketball and tennis courts have been moved.
Meanwhile, across route 38, our friend's houses were in much higher resolution with much more recent images as of a year ago.
Yeah, depends where you are
The street view of my house includes renovations done in 2006 and my car (I bought the house in 2005).
The street view of my agency's headquarters shows renovations that were done in fall of 2007.
While panning around my neighborhood to look for clues to when the pictures were taken (I couldn't find anything that would narrow it any further), I came to the conclusion that curbside trash might be one of the best methods for dating the images. I saw some furniture and appliance boxes and things that people would likely know what week or so they'd put them out. Pretty fitting, really, given our overconsuming nation.
Oddly enough, I can't think of anything else off the top of my head that I can put a date on when it went out of business, was demolished, was built, etc. I'm usually a total dork about noticing/remembering that sort of thing. Except, you know, during a time that it would be useful.
Dating StreetView images
When Google first introduced StreetView for the Boston area, I recall people zooming in on the Dedham Community Theatre and Somerville Theatre marquees, to see what movies were playing. I know you don't have movie theatres in your neighborhood, but I'm wondering about similar signs that might be at places like Roxbury Community College or the Reggie Lewis arena or Hibernian Hall or the like.
Aren't you the lucky one
We're so remote we don't even have a Street View of our street, so the best we can do is the spy-eye eaglecam from outer space ...
The view of Centre Street in West Roxbury was taken no earlier than the third week in September, because it shows the trailer the dog grooming place brought in a week after it was burned out by the 8/29 Tai Ho fire, but there are no flowers or black bunting at the fire house.
Also: Regular was $2.60 a gallon that day at the Hess station. It was 62 degrees at the Hyde Park Savings Bank and 12:57 at the Cooperative Bank across the street (the two ALWAYS have different times and temperatures). And it was possibly not a Thursday, because I didn't spot my wife's car on either Centre or in the CVS parking lot, and she might have been there at that time for her weekly violin lesson at Suzuki of Boston.
Sadly, we have neighbors...
with not one but two rotting out cars in their backyard.
;~{
A suggestion
To anyone who lives near, or drives by, this place: how about printing out this thread and depositing the printout on this guy's front porch?
I have a suggestion ...
I have a suggestion ... somebody answer the question "do you really give a shit?"
If I lived around there, I would
As it is, I'm just amused.
Oh yes, I know that wreck well
I've been driving past it every morning for five and a half years. It both depresses me, and makes me feel better about anything unsightly in my yard (abandoned toys, dying dogwood, etc.). I am sure that there is a story, and not a happy one. The house doesn't look too good, either.
Abandoned Vehicle
It was Felix Arroyo's campaign headquarters. The Van not the house. Viva Venezuela!!