Here’s What Boston Looked Like on Lockdown

Hint: It's pretty empty.

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To get a sense of just how disruptive the hunt for a suspect connected to the Boston Marathon bombing has become, just look at the images people are capturing of Boston on a weekday morning in the middle of April, looking absolutely cleared out. It’s chilling.

Downtown Crossing:

RT @stevenerlangerDowntown Boston Friday at 9 am. Virtually deserted twitpic.com/ckf4i6Retweeted by Julia La Roche — Chris Adams (@chrisadamsmkts) April 19, 2013

And another:

Downtown #Boston at rush hour during manhunt lockdown twitter.com/AndrewTangel/s… — Andrew Tangel (@AndrewTangel) April 19, 2013

Here’s the Longfellow Bridge from Cambridge to Boston.

Beantown still a ghost town in 7th hour of lockdown. Pictured: Longfellow Bridge into Boston. Via Antonio Regalado twitter.com/ABC/status/325… — ABC News (@ABC) April 19, 2013

Here’s Massachusetts Avenue in Boston, near the Christian Science Plaza.

Mass Ave & Westland Ave in Boston. Ghost town. ow.ly/i/1VwUH — John Wolfson (@johnwolfson) April 19, 2013

Here’s Kenmore:

Boston a ghost town. RT @nbcnews: Photo: City on lockdown; an empty Kenmore Square in Boston. (via Andrew Golden) twitter.com/NBCNews/status… — Andrew Kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) April 19, 2013

The ramps to 93-N and 93-S, major arteries of traffic that are now totally empty. This is taken looking “towards Bulfinch Triangle from Cooper Street roofdeck” according to the Twitter account:

Speaking of major traffic arteries, this is the Mass Pike:

Mass Pike is deserted. twitter.com/DanielleWAAF/s… — Danielle WAAF (@DanielleWAAF) April 19, 2013

And a bridge into Cambridge:

Cambridge on lockdown – empty streets due to Boston Marathon manhunt twitter.com/xiaowa/status/… — Xiao Wang (@xiaowa) April 19, 2013

Here’s Harvard Square:

And Central Square:

Mass Ave in Central Square at 9:40 am on a Friday. Crazy. twitter.com/SchwartzHub/st… — Jason Schwartz (@SchwartzHub) April 19, 2013

Here’s Inman Square:

Inman Square, normally one of the busiest intersections in Boston area, basically a ghost town twitter.com/Dan_Rowinski/s… — Dan_Rowinski (@Dan_Rowinski) April 19, 2013

This is, at the least, an affirmation of the city’s ability to disseminate important safety information in the middle of a crisis. That we’re able to keep an entire major city off its own streets is actually quite a feat of modern society. [h/t Business Insider]