SOMERVILLE, MASSACHUSETTS DOESN’T ATTRACT MANY pilgrims. Spend enough time walking its narrow streets, though, and you’re guaranteed a particular kind of religious experience. It may reveal itself proudly in a front yard, or sneak up on you in a side yard. But eventually, undoubtedly, you’ll be blessed by the presence of a Bathtub Mary: a sculpture of the Madonna, generally about waist-high, carefully sheltered in its own protective nook. [...]
Bathtub Marys get their name from the structures they’re typically placed in: actual bathtubs, tipped up vertically and dug halfway into the ground to form graceful, arched shelters. Although domestic shrines and home altars are a long-lived Catholic tradition, it’s thought that this particular incarnation began just after World War II, when postwar economic recovery led to a rash of home remodeling. Families installed shower-bathtub combos, and their old claw-footed tubs, which were difficult to recycle, ended up out in the yard, repurposed as religiously inflected lawn art. [...]
Pacini is far from the first Somervillian to be captivated by the statues. Cathy Piantigini, a lifetime resident and children’s librarian, has spent the past few years walking every street in the city in an attempt to map them. A local brewery, Slumbrew, has even put out a limited-edition beer called the Bathtub Mary. (It’s a pale wheat ale.) Some of the city’s newer residents have put their own spin on things—one bathtub arch now houses a toy robot.
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