The city had changed remarkably. At times I scarcely knew where I was. Acres of familiar buildings had been swept away. Remembered streets had vanished. Great new structures, efficient but ugly, rose on every side. New highways looped and slashed in every direction. In bewilderment I frequently retreated to the still unseized central Common, or Green as it is called. (I understood, however, that even this last leafy refuge was under siege; various interests were agitating to cover the grass with cement in order to create a gigantic pay-toll parking lot.) One afternoon in late October when a threat of rain hung in the air, I started out on a walk. The lack of sun rested my eyes; the chill air somehow soothed me. For an hour or so I strolled aimlessly. On a sudden whim I decided to visit a city area which I had so far neglected. I had lived in this section as a very young child--over forty years ago. Although I was scarcely more than three when the family moved, I retained vivid memories of the neighborhood and of the specific house itself. The house was a two-story, red-brick structure, solidly built, located at 1248 State Street. When I lived there, a big elm tree stood in front of the house. In the rear, a large empty lot which stretched to the adjacent street, Cedar Hill Avenue, made an ideal playground. Subsequently the elm tree was cut down, the lot was nearly filled by a cheap tenement-type building and the entire neighborhood declined. As I approached the old area, I was appalled at the appearance of things. Some houses had been torn down; others stood vacant, displaying smashed windows, broken doors and collapsed verandas. On one block every house was empty and partially wrecked. I was amazed and disconcerted. I had not seen such desolation since war days. Under those grey October skies, with a thin mist already starting to fall, it was the bleakest scene imaginable. I experienced an intense oppression of spirits, and as I continued to walk along those strangely deserted streets, my mood of dejection only deepened. I finally met a pedestrian, muffled already in a winter overcoat. He squinted at me suspiciously when I asked him why so many of the houses stood smashed and empty. "Route 91," he muttered, hurrying away. Although I had learned there was indeed a rational explanation for the devastation, I felt no better. I was firmly convinced that a slight alteration on the highway blueprints could have carried the new road across empty marsh flats, only a few miles away. The cost of fill would have been a fraction of that expended on extensive condemnation proceedings. I fully expected that the brick house of my early childhood lay already in ruins. I felt a thin exultation at finding it still standing. I say "thin" because of course I knew it was doomed. Already its windows were broken, its door sagged in and part of its front hedge had been ground away by truck or bulldozer.