High Street Motion: Photograph by Will Tenney

High Street Motion

Lanesville, a village of Gloucester, Massachusetts, was the site of a vibrant granite industry until the Depression of the 1930s silenced the steam drills. In addition to the many large and deep quarries left behind, now filled with water, there are many much smaller quarries called “motions” where stone paving blocks were carved out of solid rock, mostly by hand. One such motion, filled with water alongside High Street in Lanesville, reflects a couple of sinuous maple trees in a late fall clear blue sky.