#bricks

a rainy late summer afternoon

these gifs were created from my own personal footage. please link back to this post if you use them.

I was recently in one of Chicago's more historic neighborhoods and I happened to notice that one of the museum-homes had paving brick outside with the word "Purington" on it, so I gave it a search in an idle moment and found the strange and compelling world of brick fandom. Technically most of the sites are people who salvage and resell historic brick and paving stone, but there's a certain whiff of hyperfixation within this particular commercial niche.

Imagine paying for ninety acres of land with bricks. Imagine accepting ninety acres of land's worth of bricks. I mean it makes sense in the era, why bother with cash when bricks will do, but like. Damn.

Also:

There's something insanely compelling about the idea of rocking up to a freight car to start unloading bricks for the day and they're still faintly warm. I'm not sure if it's compelling like fresh warm bread or compelling like some kind of weird eldritch horror.

Boston Bricks by Kate K. Burke and Gregg LeFevre Winthrop Lane Boston, MA March 29, 2026