The Mysterious Building

There is a building on Rt. 28 in Harwichport, Massachusetts that has been abandoned for as far back as I can remember. In all the years I’ve gone by it, the windows were always boarded up and there was no activity of any sort going on. It was, for lack of a better explanation, a dead building with no apparent maintenance ever being done on it...allowing it to slowly deteriorate as the years went by.

I remember my Uncle Billy telling me, many, many years ago, that this building, built in 1935, once housed a Packard Dealership. Later inquiries seemed to confirm this. It was also later owned by a chemist who did research within its walls. That’s all that was really known about this building, that is …until February of this year.

Several Saturdays ago I was driving to Harwichport to visit my Mom. As I drove by this abandoned relic, I noticed something unusual…activity. I immediately turned around and boldly drove onto the property. There I found a guy with a pickup truck and an attached trailer, parked near the garage door of this building. What sat directly behind this trailer was a relic from motoring’s past, seeing its first glimpse of sunlight in many years. It was a 1930 Ford Model A. Aside from the car itself, what also caught my eye was that one of the tires on this vehicle was a (non appropriate) 1950’s vintage Firestone white wall tire, whose white wall belt still remained very much white.

When I questioned the "pick up truck" guy about the Model A, he told me it was one of three vehicles that sat in that building for at least 52 years. All three of those vehicles were last registered in 1956 as was evident by their 1956 Massachusetts license plates. The other vehicles sharing the darkness for all those years with the Model A included another Ford Model A and the remnants of a 1930's Ford hot rod conversion. The car he was getting ready to trailer to his house (shown in the above picture) was the last car out of the building. The other two vehicles had been removed earlier in the week. Unfortunately, I was unable to venture into this building as another gentleman with the key had just left.

It’s amazing that this building remained undisturbed all this time. It was in a sense a time capsule which held three vehicles in its grasp until February of 2008.
The building is now for sale and will most likely be torn down, which is a shame as it has become a bit of a landmark here. Every time I drive by that building I always glance over at it and it's as if I can almost hear it saying, 'I’m still here.'