Sidewalk Candy: Art of Kathy Kottaridis

For Kathy Kottaridis, manhole covers are doorways to the subterranean city and the unseen public systems that support life’s essentials: sewers for flushing toilets, water for cooking or bathing, gas or electricity for heating and cooling; or broadband for the next family Zoom call.

Even when she's sure she's seen every manhole cover type in Boston, something unusual pops up – like that of the Roxbury Gas Company in Nubian Square that served the autonomous town of Roxbury before 1846; one for the Hyde Park Sewer system from 1901 that pre-dates that town’s merger with Boston in 1912; a couple marked QMCSC on the waterfront for the long gone Quincy Market Cold Storage Company; one marked BPTCO for the Boston Pneumatic Transit Company that once propelled cylindrical containers of documents through a network of tubes beneath the financial district; or the disused but beautiful mid-19th century coal chutes that survive on the sidewalks of the South End.

Here at the Roslindale Substation, which once generated power for a streetcar system, it’s no coincidence that a beautiful manhole cover for BERy – the Boston Elevated Railway – graces the building’s sidewalk along Cummins Highway. BERy is the 19th century public transportation franchise that became the MBTA.

If there’s art in this exhibit, it is that inherent to the designs, materials, and textures of the covers in their urban context. These are prints of images from Kathy's Instagram feed @sidewalk_candy that she takes with a Galaxy S10 phone camera. They are edited in Instagram with the goal of placing the anonymous, grimy, and overlooked hatch center so you’ll take notice and hopefully see them with new eyes.

Kathy has curated three brief scavenger hunt routes around Roslindale Square so that you can discover the beauty and intrigue of our local manhole covers. Completed scavenger hunt cards are entered into a drawing for a basket of goods from local businesses!

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