Eccentric Flower:201005/Urban Photos
From Eccentric Flower
Urban Photos
I needed an adventure today, so I went out and took a long walk. About seven miles and 150 photos worth of walk. I have culled those photos down to sixty-three, and they are posted in the Boston and Environs set of my Flickr photos, starting with the Yardless Yard Sale here. Those are today's real entry. Sometimes it works out that way.
(People who do not read Twitter may also not have seen the eight photos immediately preceding those in that set, which were taken in March but only posted a few days back. Although those eight are not as interesting as some of the new ones, you may therefore want to start here instead.
You may also have missed a set which contains the latest batch of interesting pictures from the workplace, and which, since it involves the workplace, is restricted to Flickr friends only. That's here.)
P.S. All of these photos are meant to be viewed at the large size at least. Flickr's default size is too damned small. One day they will add a way to page from large photo to large photo directly. I'm not holding my breath.
As I was walking around, it struck me: Even though I mostly didn't grow up in one, I can't imagine anymore not living in an urban environment. I like it here. I love the juxtapositions, the way everything is thrown together and on top of itself and has to coexist in weird ways. I love the alleys and the hidden gardens and the things crammed into odd spaces. I love fire escapes. (I have half-seriously promised myself to take a photo series of Great Fire Escapes of Somerville.)
You don't get these things anywhere but in urban areas. Baton Rouge, where I did most of my growing up, has none of this. Like most midsized towns in this country, half of Baton Rouge looks like suburbia, sprawling streets with rows of boring houses with boring yards, and half of it looks like a gigantic strip mall. Makes you wonder about the American dream.
Mind you, there is such a thing as being too cramped and too full. I maintain that, while it is occasionally a pleasant place to visit, people who live in New York City are insane. Yards in Cambridge and Somerville are by necessity small - usually very small indeed, a tiny patch of green that most people tend lovingly and well. There are no yards in New York City. There are no quiet out-of-the-way hidden places in New York City. There's no room for them. The buildings come right up to the street and the only way to tell whether you're in an old, allegedly charming housing area or a bustling, soulless commercial district is to check how high the buildings are and what they're made of. The people who live in quaint Brooklyn row houses may say, "well, it's not like we're living in some godawful Manhattan apartment," but I would shoot myself before I would live in a row house, much less in a high-rise. (Sorry, Robert and Francis.)
So, lots of people living in a small space together is interesting, but too many is hellish. Too much green space is boring, tiny amounts of green space is welcome punctuation, no green space is hellish. Clearly I was born to live where I live. I didn't know that until I got here, but when I got here I knew instantly. The proof is that I can still, even after all these years, take a walk through places I've been many times and find joy and surprises.
Go look at the photos. I'm just nattering here.
Joy:
Thank you so much for that Boston walk! Made me miss it something fierce (I lived at the top of Beacon Hill after college). I used to do the walk to the Science Museum and over to the mall on the other side of the Charles a bunch.
BTW, by "brasses" did you mean a technical term I'm not familiar with on the Lyra? I didn't actually see any brass, only chrome and bronze (winches).
-- 02:46, 23 May 2010 (BST)
Joy:
BTW, I really need to get my own flickr account. guppy and I share one. I think there was something irritating with confirming a yahoo account or something where I had lied about my birthdate and so couldn't get back in, and couldn't have my old flickr account back. Bleh.
-- 02:48, 23 May 2010 (BST)
This turned out to be such a productive adventure!
I loved to be taken to a walk(even if any underbridge view strongly reminds me the smell of urine that unfortunately comes with the territory).
The wooden pier pictures are so filled with childhood nostalgia for me!
I am all eager for photo series of Great Fire Escapes of Somerville and will remind you of this promise in future, if you will not be fast enough getting to it!
-- 06:09, 23 May 2010 (BST)
PS re: "All of these photos are meant to be viewed at the large size at least. Flickr's default size is too damned small."
I agree with you.
That is also the explanation of my constant complaint that you do not look at my photos - it causes cognitive dissonance that you expect your photos to be looked at at the big size, but when I ask you to look at my pictures you consider the general view of tiny useless images enough and you seem to be annoyed that I would expect you to open the actual photo and look at it at large size.
-- 07:22, 23 May 2010 (BST)
As I have said before and will say again: I do look at your photos.
When I can find them.
-- 16:02, 23 May 2010 (BST)
The slideshow feature displays large photos, but I'd have to view your whole set, not just the bits you took recently. So if you had smaller sets (and then a collection called Boston and Environs) that might make it easier for us to look at photos in larger sizes.
-- 16:48, 23 May 2010 (BST)
"There are no yards in New York City."
How bad is your Alzheimer's getting?
I have a front yard with a 10' x 10' garden with a sweet little crabapple tree. I have a 50' x 25' back yard that includes a 6' x 30' garden (including a massive shade tree on the property line with my neighbors next door) and an outbuilding with a hottub, french windows and skylight. The rest of the area is for grilling, dining, hammocking and anything else one wants to do outdoors.
The housing stock in Back Bay and Park Slope are materially similar. You should take a walking tour of Park Slope (or Brooklyn Heights or Fort Greene, for that matter).
-- 17:41, 24 May 2010 (BST)
Huh. OK, I don't respond to the Alzheimer's claim, but it's true that I do not remember you having anything like a ten-by-ten front yard. Clearly I need a revisit.
-- 18:55, 24 May 2010 (BST)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8450423@N08/4637101435/
Clearly, you do. There will be parties on the afternoons of June 13 and 27 circa 1-5 p.m., come when you want, leave when you want, eVite to follow. Of course if you want to avoid crowds, there are other options (e.g. 4th of July).
-- 02:58, 25 May 2010 (BST)
Ursula:
"Like most midsized towns in this country, half of Baton Rouge looks like suburbia, sprawling streets with rows of boring houses with boring yards, and half of it looks like a gigantic strip mall."
That's Long Beach, my hometown. Totally. And there was something truly maddening about it all, the FLATNESS of it, the way everything shut up tight as a drum by 10 at night. Long Beach is like a very, very large, sprawling, mid-size town. With slums. A big, boring college and boring suburbs and boring slums and boring beach houses and boring EVERYTHING. Los Angeles is sheer bliss by comparison.
-- 01:37, 23 May 2010 (BST)