It's Friday Afternoon, Two Weeks to Go, and MassTLC2010 is Looking Amazing!

Take a look at these two screen captures. The first one shows the Sponsored Entrepreneur list. There are 114 young companies on the list. A great group of young entrepreneurs.

And here's the beginning of the list of Volunteer Experts. It goes on for pages and pages. What makes me so happy is that all of the folks have volunteered their time to help entrepreneurs. I believe that getting our startups really growing is one key to our future success!

Register now to join these folks in a fascinating day of invention and discussion. Boston Seaport World Trade Center, October 14, 2010.

Grab a Beer. Watch This. Seth Priebatsch is Going to Change the World


Seth Priebatsch and his company, SCVNGR, are hot. Seth's company has raised venture capital, grown to 60 people, and moved into a new company headquarters. If you've never met Seth, you really should watch this video. Seth has amazing energy, insight and enthusiasm. Seth is one of our experts at the upcoming MassTLC Innovation 2010. Normally our experts will do three one-on-ones in an hour. But after editing and watching this video, I have an idea. Seth, how about you do six one-on-ones in your hour? Not kidding!

Want to meet Seth, and people like him? (Okay, scratch that...there are no people like him.) Anyway, you should register here.

Real Connections, A Real Ferrari, and No Hierarchy - MassTLC 2010

MassTLC 2010 is designed like the Internet - tons of connections and no hierarchy. And the event moves fast, like this Ferrrari 360, which four lucky people will drive at the event and one will take home for the night.

I believe that the core of our innovation economy comes down to a single factor: People. I've been running MassTLC's Innovation unConference for three years now, and our main focus is how to help entrepreneurs find real mentors. When new people join your effort with great advice, even just for a day, you get new energy and new insights that can spark the discovery of new paths.  On my own entrepreneur journey, I had many mentors and assists along the way. My hope is that MassTLC2010 offers these same kinds of opportunities, in the hundreds.  You can register for the conference here.

MassTLC 2010 isn't a typical conference, and it isn't a typical unConference. In this post, I'll review all the ways that our two events - the conference on Thursday, October 14, and the pre-party on Wednesday evening October 13, work together to give all attendees an experience that they simply cannot get at any other event. And, I'll explain how you'll get two chances to drive the Ferrari 360 at the event, and one grand prize chance to bring it home that night!

Great Connections, and Lots of Them 

The foundation of MassTLC2010 is to create as many ways as possible to engender real connections -- the kind where you feel like you can call or email that person later and dive right into your discussion. MassTLC2010 starts "in the round" in a huge room overlooking the piers at the Seaport World Trade Center. Everyone is there to help and to learn, and together, they create the agenda for the day. Last year there were over 80 sessions created. Some are large, some are small, but all of them are attended by people who are there because they care about the subject. The sessions are informal, and are a great way for participants to meet each other in a working environment.

We Start By Lining Up The Help Entrepreneurs Need

MassTLC 2010 is aimed at helping entrepreneurs, and doing that at scale. Not 20 or 30 entrepreneurs, but over 100 this year. So first, we ask people with some valuable experience to become Volunteer Experts. This means that they volunteer to do three 20-minute 1-on-1 meetings during the event, and they are listed on our Roster of Volunteer Experts. Some of these experts have decades of experience. Some have a few years, and may have just received venture funding. But all have something valuable to share with early stage entrepreneurs. And all join the conference with a similar goal: To help.

Finding Entrepreneurs Who Can Benefit From the Help

This year we'll have over 100 volunteer experts -- people who've started successful companies, venture capitalists, angel investors, and technical founders. Then the second step is to find the entrepreneurs who can benefit from this help. We encourage entrepreneurs to apply for sponsorship, which reduces the cost by $250 to just $95, and gives them 1-on-1s, in addition to all the meeting time they get during the event. We choose entrepreneurs not by how far along they are, but rather by how much we believe they can benefit from being a part of the conference and meeting the volunteer experts.

Attracting Great Attendees to Join In

This year, the combination of our Sponsored Entrepreneurs and our Roster of Volunteer experts is over 200 people! The next step is to attract great people from the community to attend the event and lend their energy and ideas. Everyone at the event is the same. Our experts are simply people who volunteered in advance to meet with entrepreneurs. There are no podiums and no panels. All sessions are created on the day of the event, so everyone is here with the same goal in mind: to help and to learn.

The unConference

When I started planning this event over three years ago, I had never heard of an unconference. Instead, I was wondering: Why can't a conference be more like a trade show? Everyone talks at the same time, you get to wander around and see what you care about, and it's fun and exciting. When I learned about the Open Space Technology format that is typically associated with unconferences, I loved the idea. We began working with Kaliya Hamlin, the top technology unconference facilitator in the country. Together, we designed MassTLC2008, MassTLC2009, and now MassTLC2010. Lots of detailed planning has gone into every step of the conference, and it showed in the rave reviews we got in the past two years. This has been a great source of satisfaction for me, and I believe we'll take the event to a new level this year.

New This Year - Giant Pre-Party at Microsoft

We have all seen how generous Microsoft has been in creating a gathering place for our community. This pre-party event is an integral part of MassTLC2010, and it will help add to the real connections you can make. Taking place on all three floors of the NERD center, this party will be expand the ring of people that will take part in this year's event.

- Each registered conference attendee can bring a guest to the party.

- People registered for MassTLC2008 and MassTLC2009 will be sent free invitations

The theme of this party is "Anything But Work". The idea is to create ways for people to have shared experiences with each other around things they love outside of work. Often, once you've gotten to know someone, it's much easier to come together on work ideas later, or help make new connections to other people.

New Venue - Newly Renovated Seaport World Trade Center

The Seaport World Trade Center just finished a huge renovation in February of 2010. The giant ballroom we're using will seat 500 or more in the round for our opening session (and much more with standing, so get there early!). They took out the poles that used to be there, and added a huge outdoor balcony that will be used for the reception at the end of the event. These two new venues put us right where the action is these days - Cambridge and Boston.

New This Year - The Connectors

Even with all our social technology, nothing beats real, human matchmaking. So we've recruited ten young, energetic and well connected members of our tech community to become "Connectors." The connector's job is to get to know all of the Volunteer Experts, and all of the Sponsored Entrepreneurs, as well as many of the attendees. During the event, the connectors will be very visible and available to help people meet each other, including helping entrepreneurs pick which experts might be best for them in the 1-on-1's

New This Year - Drive a Ferrari 360

In an unconference, some of the venues are very small. Maybe even just a table for two. So it makes perfect sense that your small meeting might truly move fast. You and a passenger will have your own little part of the unconference in an Italian sports car. And some lucky driver will take the Ferrari home for the night! Details here.

An Event That Brings Us Together

I'm so excited about this event, and for many reasons. First, it will help entrepreneurs find new people to help them build their companies. Second, it will bring a wide range of people together in a new way that truly spurs conversations and creativity. And third, it's a way for us to get together and create the kind of innovation environment we all want. In real time, in one day. You'd be amazed what can happen. Please join us!  Register here.

A Response From Bill Warner: Boston is Changing

Cort Johnson has written a provocative blog post called Why Boston Fails Young Entrepreneurs. As someone who has dedicated the last three years to change some of Boston's old habits, I care deeply about this issue. And, the MassTLC Innovation 2010 unConference is designed specifically to address many of the issues Cort brings up -- issues that are not new but luckily they are changing.

From Cort's post: 

In Boston, we spend way too much time focusing on how to raise capital and nearly zero time on how to build a business....Boston startup culture focuses on sucking up to the capital/angel community. The investor ends up telling the entrepreneur all the things that they don’t like about their business and why they won’t invest.

This happens, of course, in all fundraising activities. And it is a big way to get de-motivated. I counsel entrepreneurs to figure out how to make real progress on the money they have, even if that's virtually nothing. I believe that once you're helping some people in the way you intend, it changes the equation. Now you're not asking for money, but rather you're showing what you're doing and finding out who's interested.

In the upcoming MassTLC2010 on October 14, the entire conference is designed to have a working feel. It's all about rolling up your sleeves and figuring out how to make stuff happen. We'll have over 100 "volunteer experts" who will have 1-on-1 meetings with over 100 sponsored entrepreneurs who pay $95 (a $250 discount). And the conference will have over 80 sessions on topics that all the attendees create. So I agree with Cort's remedy: focus on getting stuff done instead of fundraising.

Boston startup events feel more formal than a White House black tie dinner. Over the past 18 months I’ve gone to a lot of events. . . a lot. There are two things in common between 90% of them: suits and Sam Adams. Imagine how difficult it is for a young guy to approach a group of ‘buddies’ at one of these events as they sip on their Sam Adams, and chat about their golf game.

This is a typical behavior at any event where little groups form, with or without Sam Adams and with or without suits. My belief is to change the design of the events to avoid this grouping and to avoid the barrier to talking that Cort goes on to describe. It may not seem like a big deal, but at the unConference, you start in a circle. You're looking at everyone else, not at a stage. The event is all about meeting people. And I believe suits will be pretty rare. (We'll add that to the web site!)

This year, we've even added a reception from 4:30 to 6:00 on the beautiful balcony overlooking the waterfront. Sam Adams will probably be there. But I'll bet the vibe will be very different than what Cort has written about.

Our innovation economy is created in a chaotic and haphazard way, and also in ways that are clearly intentional. My hope is that the unConference will move the needle another big chunk this year, as we have in the past two years.

Stay tuned, Cort. Boston is changing. You're part of that. In the last three years, I've seen so much progress. More is coming.

Note: Cort and nine other young entrepreneurs have volunteered to be "connectors" at the event. They learn who's coming, call them in advance, and help make connections at the event. This group was put together before Cort's post, and it will be a great way to address some of the issues he brings up.

The Power of Saying Yes Quickly: Jeff Taylor, a Millennium Movie and an unConference

Jeff Taylor in his parallel life as a DJ
Yesterday, I sent individual email invitations to a number or local leaders to be volunteer experts at the MassTLC Innovation 2010 unConference. One of them was Jeff Taylor, founder of Monster.com, eons.com and Tribute.com. Exactly four minutes later, I got his response: "I'll do it." That made my day, and it led me to think about how different it feels when someone says yes quickly, vs saying yes (or no) after more time passes. Hopefully, we've all experienced that "fast yes" feeling. It's wonderful, empowering, and memorable.

I believe that the power of saying yes quickly comes from knowing that a quick answer is from the heart and genuine.  You might think that if someone deliberated carefully for a long time, and then said yes, it might mean more. I'd say that's a different kind of yes...a "from the head" yes. I believe the two are quite different, and can lead you down very different paths in a relationship. Some people believe that responding quickly will lead to errors...saying yes when you should have said no. I doubt it. I believe when you have that urge to say yes quickly, it comes from a whole ton of processing that goes on in your brain, not just from the heart, but with lots of very fast logical input as well.

As I pondered this little thought, I remembered back to the first time I met Jeff Taylor, in 1999. I was making a movie for the City of Boston to be shown at the millennium fireworks celebration on the Common. The movie (only 3 minutes long, but very advanced for its day) was getting expensive, and I was looking for a partner in funding it. I met Jeff at his office in Maynard at Monster.com. I showed him what I was doing, and he said yes, right then and there. I still remember that meeting.

Here's the movie that resulted. (click the little box ...lower right...with four arrows to view full screen.) I still love watching it. This movie uses 3D graphics to show what major changes to Boston would look like in the new millennium. The idea is that our fictional delivery guys (they ARE the filmmakers) are running around with magic boxes that can show the future of each site. They slam the black box down, and out comes a view of the future.

At the time, the Red Sox owners were planning to tear down Fenway Park and build a new Fenway next door. We show it appear and assemble in 3D. Very cool. (Except it was a horrible idea...we are so lucky the new owners came in and upgraded Fenway and have polished the jewel rather than tearing it down). No one had any idea about the Zakim bridge. most people went by the partial concrete foundations and wondered a little. We show the bridge appear in 3D. So cool.

And when the movie was all done, I showed it to my son, who was four years old. He he loved it. But not for all the 3D visualizations we did. No, what he loved was the little monster that runs across the screen at the end with the last credit for Monster.com. After the monster ran by, he said "Again." That's the four-year old version of the fast yes. And it felt good.

So, next time your heart says yes and head says go, give a fast yes, and see how it changes people's lives, including yours.

What Connects the Old Boston Garden and Cheez-Its? Old Maps Tell the Story

If you've followed my blog for a while, you'll know that I love old maps, and the stories they can tell. In 2000-2004 I funded and built an open-source system called MapJunction, upon which the Boston Atlas is based. Over the years, The City of Boston, the Boston Public Library, my own non-profit called Future Boston, and many others contributed maps to this system. What I love about the system is that we have so many current and historic maps that are all accurately overlaid, that we can figure out what's going on in photo like this one. (Run the system yourself to see the maps below in high resolution by clicking here.) Let's take a look. I found the photo above in a shop at Quincy Market. It shows the Boston Garden area in 1928.

Well, the first question is, where is the Boston Garden on this map? It's not there, since the Garden opened in 1928, and this map was only printed that same year.

Here's the same area in 1938. No mention of the Garden, that sits on top of North Station. I looked at many maps, and they all just seem to ignore that there is a world famous stadium sitting on top of the train station. That's surprising.

I wondered about the the building in the foreground with the awnings. 

This 1928 map shows that it's the Boston City Hospital Relief Station. Built in 1900, it was basically a local emergency room that was needed because of all the industrial injuries that occurred in the area. Read more about it here.

Notice the building to the right of the Garden. It's called the North Station Terminal Building in the 1928 map, but by 1938 it's called the North Station Industrial Building. What's it's story? Looks like its under construction in 1928.

Here's the area in the 1938 map. The building is on the lower left. Notice the brick (red) buildiing to the right of it. This is called Charles River Stores, and the Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company. This company eventually became the Sunshine Biscuit Company. Makers of, among other things, Cheez-it crackers.

By overlaying the City of Boston's GIS data, we can see which building are still there. I've set the layer called Boston Building Footprints to be on, a little transparent, and blue.

We can see that the Biscuit building, and the one to the north are still there. (Well, part of northern one.)

And here they are. The nearer one, the Biscuit Company has been hugely renovated and added upon. It is a now a luxury condo building called Strada 234. I'm sure people eat Cheez-It's there every day and have no idea about this story!

This later photo shows the area from the other side. (Looking south). The Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company is hidden by the large brick building to its north. The little white building in front is probably part of the wooden building (shown in yellow on the map.) This photo is from a series of historic aerial photos of Boston taken by the State Department of Transportation

Here's another view of our beautiful North Station Industrial Building.

When the central artery destroyed 1,000 Boston buildings in the 50's, it squeezed in next to the North Station Industrial Building. I remember looking into its grimy windows as I drove on the Central Artery Southbound in the 1970's when I first came to MIT.

Looks like our little Relief Station is still there, right on the Haymarket Circle at the lower right.

Here's the same area in the 1940's, before the Central Artery. You can see that the Boston City Relief Hospital is still there.

 

And now this aerial from Bing Maps shows the scene today. The Biscuit Building and the large one to the north are visible on the right, just below the Zakim bridge. The Central Artery is gone, and it dives below the city right next to where the old Boston Garden stood, which is now a parking lot. That's because they built the Fleet Center while the Garden operated, and then tore the old Garden down.The grassy area with a "Y" pattern is called Portal Park, and sits atop the beginning the tunnel. What happened to our North Station Industrial Building? 

(Update from original post) I found this image on Google Earth by turning on historic imagery. How about that. This image from 1996 shows that they fit the Fleet Center in and the Industrial Building still stands. 

This Google Earth image from 2001 shows the same area, and now we can clearly see that the Industrial Building came down to make way for the Big Dig and the Zakim Bridge. Funny thing though. The original highway squeezed by the building in the 1950's. But then, when the Industrial Building came down, it provided the perfect place for the Big Dig to be constructed while the elevated Central Artery kept carrying traffic.

Here is the same view in the most current aerial photo. The Fleet Center (huge white roof) is now called the TD Bank Garden. To its right is the parking lot where the original Boston Garden stood. Just above the Garden, I-93 dives under Boston, right where the Industrial Building stood. And the building that looks kinda like a cruise ship just up the street? That's Strada 234, luxury condominiums that inhabit and expand what was formerly the Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company (Sunshine Biscuits...of Cheez-It fame).

And what of the Boston City Relief Station building? It survived the Central Artery, but not the 1960's Urban Renewal.

This image from the 60's shows construction of Government Center. The City Hospital Relief Station was right in the way of a new street, (I've painted it on in its exact location) and I'll bet that's when the building came down.

So, this whole saga springs from understanding one little 1928 aerial photo in a store that mainly sold historic sports images! And now, when I see those Cheez-It commercials on TV, I can think of a Boston connection.

Boston's Inner Belt - The Highway That Was Stopped - Detailed Report About Impact on Roxbury

Proposed route of the Inner Belt (I-695). Notice that it would have razed Brookline Ave in Cambridge, through Central Square, and then taken out Norfolk Street on its way to Somerville

I've always been fascinated with Boston's proposed, but never built Inner Belt Highway. It was to be called I-695. I came across this fascinating report on the www.archive.org site, in their scanned text section. 

The report detail every building and every family that would be affected in Roxbury. It's very interesting to see how the proposed destruction would affect people, house by house. Views the full listing here.

This photo shows the exit for I-695 (The Inner Belt). Part of it was built, and you can see where the proposed highway was to go. Note the old factory buildings along Albany street in the lower right. You can see them in the new photo below. Also note that the Fort Point Channel used to go all the way to Mass Ave, and you can see it in all its non-glory, to the right of the exit ramps. Also notice the amount of traffic on the highway. Not much.

Here's the same area from Bing Maps. They do a great job with oblique aerial photos, but few people know that they have this extensive photography, which looks much different than the straight down aerials we're used to.

Notice the round brick building in the lower left. You can locate that building in the new aerial. The path for I-695 was taken in Roxbury, and when the highway was cancelled in the 1970's, the right of way became Melina Cass Boulevard.

The round building at the bottom of the photo is an old gas holder that used to store gas for lighting.

This Roxbury map from 1883 (Open it here using the Boston Atlas) shows the gas holder, and Mass Ave's old name: East Chester Park. It also shows the "Roxbury Canal" at the end of the Fort Point Channel. (the canal is quite degraded by the time these photos were taken in the 60's)

The highway continues along right near the Museum of Fine Arts, and directly in front of Wentworth College. In the lower right is the United Drug Company. (This was the company that became Rexall Drugs. Northeastern University bought many of their buildings, and this is the site of part of their campus. (It looks like lowest of the United Drug buildings is now a part of the Northeastern University campus. The Orange line takes the path of the rail lines shown in the photo above.)

From this aerial photo, it looks like the taking or the highway stopped before it got the Museum of Fine Arts.

This 1931 of Roxbury (open it here.) Clearly shows the Museum of Fine Arts, Wentworth Institute, and the United Drug Company.

Here the highway goes past the Museum, and right in front of Simmons and Emanual Colleges. I had heard talk that it might have been set underground at the Fens.

1931 map sowing the area.

Finally, here's a look at the whole system, as proposed. You can see how I-95 (the unbuilt SouthWEST expressway) was supposed to connect to the Inner belt. Also notice that what became Route 2 looks like was supposed to branch out to what became Route 3.
Links:
http://places.designobserver.com/media/pdf/Bostons_South_1265.pdf  (Details about how Southwest Corridor was reused)

Other links (from Inner Belt Expressway Unbuilt)
I-695 (Massachusetts) (Neil Kelly)
  • I-695 (Massachusetts) (Scott Oglesby)
  • Boston's Canceled Highways (Scott Moore) (link changed to wayback machine archive...could be slow)
  • Boston University Bridge (Boston University)
  • The Urban Ring (Center for Urban and Regional Policy, Northeastern University)
  • Interstate Plans (1955 "Yellow Book" map) (Adam Froehlig)
    •
  • Expressway Plans (1965) (Massachusetts Department of Public Works)

    • Boston Braves Stadium is Hiding At BU - Watch the Movie

    Try it yourself: Enter the Boston Atlas Centered on Braves Field  or Centered on Fenway Park

    My father-in-law, Joe Edelstein was telling me how he used to go to Boston Braves baseball games. He's 92 now, and I asked him, "who the heck are the Boston Braves, and where did they play?" He said the stadium was right near BU, and that he went there all the time to see Warren Spahn pitch. "Really, a major league stadium next to BU?" Sure, he said, and that made me do some research using the Boston Atlas. Here's what I found:

    Many great  old photos from the Braves days: http://www.baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?55575-Classic-Boston-Braves-Phot...

    I found this photo of a football game at BU. You can see how they cut into the old stands to make the football field fit. Not long after, I believe they tore down the stadium and build Nickerson Field as we know it today. Later, BU added the three tall dorms that are there now.

    Demolition of left field stands in 1955 (BPL Photo)

    Crowd leaving after a game in 1937 (BPL Photo)

    Aerial photo from 1933 (BPL Photo

    Another aerial photo from 1933 from the Boston Public Library. Notice a few things: 1) There are fans sitting on the field! As I understand it, the fences were so far back that home runs were not possible. The field was designed for the inside the park home run, rather than the over-the-wall home run. Later, they moved outfield wall closer to allow more home runs. 2) you can see street cars just behind the ticketing building (which still stands and is BU's Campus Police). These street cars would divert from Commonwealth Avenue on game days. How's that for convenience? 

    1930's photo. You can see the old Armory in the background. That was torn down to make way for the Aganis Arena.

    Largest ball grounds in the world, according to this postcard.

    This postcard, from 1950, shows the added outfield wall just in front of the light towers. Just five years later, most of the stadium was torn down, but one part of the right field stands was used for BU's current Nickerson Field.

    Detailed Maps (Updated) from Boston's Molasses Flood of 1919 - A brief video

    The molasses tank explosion sent steel plates right through the supports of the elevated train on Commercial Ave. 

    I've always been fascinated with the Boston Molasses Flood of 1919. It's a true and tragic story of a two million gallon steel tank filled with molasses. Apparently the tank was built in a substandard way, using materials and techniques that were weaker than what was required. The tank basically came apart at the rivets on a 40 degree day in January, 1919. The day before had been only 2 degrees, and some theories say the molasses expanded, stressing the completely full tank. When the tank let go, the pressure turned sheets of steel into projectiles, and then the molasses itself became a giant destructive wave, taking out whole buildings nearby. While there was no chemical "explosion" the result was similar. In an instant, the tank was gone, and shrapnel was everywhere. Check out these photos.

    This map overlay shows the location of the tank in 1917. Almost exactly on the first ballfield after to the left of the bocce courts.

    The tank was right next to Commercial Street. This was a residential neighborhood in 1919.

    [Click the triangle above to start playing the video]

    Also: You can try the maps yourself by clicking here: Open Boston Atlas with 1917 Overlay Showing the Molasses Tank

    By the way, in those days, there WAS a rail link between North and South station, and this elevated was how that was accomplished. The elevated was taken down in the 1940's, and I remember seeing a photo of the demolition showing a giant billboard next to the project saying "Scrap to beat the Japs". The billboard was from Lipsett Demolition, which really caught my attention, because that's my Aunt Marcia (Lipsett) Warner's (now in her 80's)  father's and uncle's company. That company also took down New York's elevated trains.

    Update October 2, 2010:

    This, book, Dark Tide by Steven Puleo goes into amazing detail about the disaster. Working off of court records from the lawsuit that ensued, Puleo paints a detailed picture of the people and events that led up to tragedy.

    I'm about 1/3 through the book, but it has already revealed some new things I didn't realize. He mentioned at some length that the tank was mainly important to keep USIA's distillery in Cambridge running at peak capacity. They would offload the molasses from ships from Cuba, then put it on rail cars to be be sent to the USIA plant in Cambridge. So I had to find out where this plant was.
    I found this listing on Google Books. It's an ad from a 1921 journal for druggists. Purity made industrial alcohol, some of which went for medical use, but as Puleo's book outlines, the big push was to maximize production of alcohol as an ingredient in explosives manufacturing to support the needs of European countries in World War I

    Here is the 1916 Bromley Atlas map, from a company called Community Heritage Maps. (Here's the Cambridge overview) They have a wonderful collection of Bromley Atlases which they let you browse, and which they will print in a variety of forms. The 1916 map clearly shows the Purity Distilling Company taking up a few blocks at 943 Cambridge Street.

    The 1930 Bromley Atlas shows the Purity Distilling site as mostly vacant.

    This overlay shows that the distilling plant was right in the middle of a residential neighborhood, just as the molasses tank in Boston was just feet away from a densely populated North End. Note the round blue tank at the top. Probably a smaller holding tank for alcohol, or maybe molasses. Note on the 1916 map that there are train tracks on the northern side.

    Molasses Flood Links:
     Wikipedia Article on the Flood - Note that their map is most certainly wrong. I put in a comment to that effect, with links proving the error. (See last comment on the discussion page.) 
    Modern Marvels "Engineering Disasters"- They have an 8-minute segment, which I'll bet is very good. Maybe make a Tivo wish list for "molasses" and it will pick this one up when it plays on the History Channel. (Can anyone find this online for viewing? Add a comment below if you can.)