It’s not as if it’s going to suddenly become a ghost town. Far from it, in fact. Development in the city is at an all-time break-neck pace.

In the wake of the astonishing transformation of the Assembly Row area, plans are underway all over the city for renovation and further development in terms of housing and infrastructure.

Many of us, though, are looking wistfully over our shoulders and quietly yearning f0r quieter, gentler times. The soda fountains in the corner drug stores. The produce vendors in the streets.When you walked into the neighborhood market you would know and call everyone working there by their names. Their first names at that.

The recently announced closures of a couple of the city’s most venerable family operated businesses has given quite a few of us cause to wonder why the comfort and familiarity of the past must give way to a seemingly colder and impersonal change in our lifestyles, all in the name of progress.

That’s just the way it is, unfortunately, and perhaps this is nothing new at all. Did our forebears lament the passing of the horse and buggy world they were so comfortable in? What did their predecessors decry as the times marched on.

Ultimately, we adapt and go with it, as we must. Still, it’s times like these when we can take a moment or two and consider what is passing into history. Our history.