It’s Not a Trick, It’s an Illusion

In an ordinary week, I might pass the building-wrapped-in-a-sheet-that-looks-like-a-building here in Cambridge once or twice—a diversion in my normal bike commute, a whim to stave off boredom (how quaint!). 

It’s a disguise that does not hold up to much scrutiny. Maybe, perhaps, if you were just barely paying attention—driving past on your way down Main Street toward the Longfellow, headed into Boston—it would pass muster, registering as anonymous urban scenery. But otherwise, it’s a bit like covering a weeping zit with concealer and the hope that no one will notice. The bricks, for all their attempt at three-dimensionality, are shadowless and flat. There is a real light and some shoddy wooden stairs at the front, leading to an entirely fake, impassible door. The whole thing flutters in the breeze. 

Here is what I know about the building-wrapped-in-a-sheet-that-looks-like-a-building: It once belonged to the Polaroid Corporation. Sometime in the early 2000s, Polaroid sold all their Cambridge real estate and closed up shop. Now, MIT owns the land, which is slated for redevelopment, though it is unclear when that might happen. Going back in time on Google Maps, you can visit 2007 and the building, pre-sheet. It looks like shit. 

But this “ah, that’s better” thing isn’t new, or unique to Cambridge. In London, the false facades of row houses at 23 and 24 Leinster Gardens cover leftover Underground construction. New York, Paris, and Chicago have likewise employed a little “nothing to see here” magic to hide stuff like substations, subway vents, big-ass holes in the ground, general decay. You can almost imagine someone wiping their hands after a job well done. There, I fixed it.

At its best, the building-wrapped-in-a-sheet-that-looks-like-a-building is about blending in. The fact that I’ve spent hours of my life thinking about the building-wrapped-in-a-sheet-that-looks-like-a-building suggests it hasn't been doing a very good job. Though now, the building-wrapped-in-a-sheet-that-looks-like-a-building exists in a place that’s completely changed—almost everything here is a shoddy set of stairs to a door that won’t open. Given much of the city’s reduced to being there for the scenery, you might think that the building-wrapped-in-a-sheet-that-looks-like-a-building would fit in better. But actually, it fits in worse. 

“Catastrophe” is a not-inaccurate way to describe things, though on a one-day-at-a-time scale and being relatively lucky—all things considered—it can be hard to take in. But outside, things are different. When my husband and I leave our apartment, one of us asks: Left or Right? There’s nowhere to go, except to wander some distance away from our home and then, eventually, return. Passing empty storefronts, restaurants, classrooms, theaters—well, it’s impossible to deny that something has happened, is happening, will continue to happen. 

So, the totally normal level of voyeurism I entertained Before (envying built-in bookshelves through a neighbor’s window, noticing the bros on the corner are watching Jeopardy! on their comically huge television) now feels like something approaching devotion. I spend a lot of time on our walks looking in through the windows of places I can’t reach, hoping for something that feels like a sign—that someone is watering the plants, that they’re taking care of things, that it might be okay. 

Which leads me to the most fucked-up thing about the building-wrapped-in-a-sheet-that-looks-like-a-building. 

In its painted-on windows, there are the painted-on reflections of other buildings that also aren’t quite real, either. To become anonymous urban scenery, the building-wrapped-in-a-sheet-that-looks-like-a-building makes-believe that everything that surrounds it is anonymous urban scenery, too. There are brownstones, skyscrapers, the spire of a church, maybe a parking garage. It looks like a bit like Boston broken into disjointed parts. Not the reflection of the city, but the idea of it. It’s cheesy as hell to think of the city itself as a living thing, but looking at the building-wrapped-in-a-sheet-that-looks-like-a-building—well I think that’s what it’s missing. Living is growth and hurt and, maybe most of all, change. 

The sign I’m looking for is, of course, an answer: What will the city look like after this? The building-wrapped-in-a-sheet-that-looks-like-a-building won’t know the difference.