The Samuels lab house recreates The Great Molasses Flood, at the north pole. You can see gingerbread people and reindeer running away, and Santa and Mrs. Claus in front of their house, as yet unaware of the danger that approaches.
The house was displayed with an informational plaque reading:
The Great Molasses FloodAn essential ingredient in gingerbread and other treats, molasses is to blame for one of the most horrible disasters in the last century, recreated here in gingerbread-house form.
In January of 1919, a storage tank containing 26 million pounds of molasses burst, releasing a black, sticky flood into the streets of Boston. The molasses wave reached up to 40 feet and moved at over 50 kilometers per hour. It injured 150 people and killed 21, while ripping buildings off their foundations and snapping the girders of train tracks.
And yet to our modern eyes, molasses is simply an unusual, even old-fashioned, ingredient; gathering dust in our kitchens, and sweetening our gingerbread.
