We’re a little west of Boston, along the Massachusetts Turnpike, that state’s portion of Interstate 90. And we’re looking at this today:

If you know this, you know this. And if, as is likely, you don’t, it looks like a highway overpass. I’ve strategically zoomed this image from Google Earth in, to remove the identifying information.

Here it is from the other side. Those are windows, and this is a building.

Here’s the view from the street to the left of this image, and here is what this is: a regional supermarket called Star Market. The part on the right, as you can see, is extended over the Interstate highway!

So this is not a pre-existing building that has been reused, but rather just a really unusual building in the first place. How did it get built? Here’s the story at Atlas Obscura:

The turnpike was intended to be routed through Star Market’s parking lot space, but the owners objected. They were instead granted “air rights” to build in the space above the highway in 1963, and thus what was considered a “space age” supermarket at the time was born. 

The idea of compensating for the land eaten up by the highway by using air rights for new buildings was apparently tossed around a lot in that period, but nothing much ever came of it. A GBH News article states, “In reality, only one other project would ever be built. And not a single structure has been built with air rights west of the city in almost 50 years.” (What was that second structure? Perhaps they’re referring to this 1984 mall and its parking garage, though that isn’t quite 50 years!)

I’m not sure why the idea of building over highways never took off. Expense? Difficulty of access? Legal issues? If anyone knows any of this history, I’m curious. But despite the idea being mostly defunct, it did leave the Boston area with a floating supermarket, a drab concrete square that nonetheless serves as a unique landmark.

Related Reading:

Crossing Into the Supermarket

A Universe of Uses

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