RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPiTER

Since it’s too hot to think of anything interesting, I’ll post a list of raw data. Below is the ever-expanding list of 2008 Toynbee Tiles.

What the tiler may have lacked in quality, he more than made up for in quantity. The current list stands at 40, with most recent sightings on Girard, Allegheny and Passyunk Avenues. That means that neighborhoods in deep north, deep south and everything in-between here in Philly has been tiled.

Except for a couple thinner strips on Girard and the one on the north end of City Hall all the ‘08 tiles look like this:

Here’s the list:

Broad and Allegheny
Broad and JFK (north side of City Hall)
Broad and Market (east side of City Hall)
Broad and Passyunk
Broad and Vine
Front and Girard
Girard and Frankford
Girard and Franklin
Girard and Lethigow
Girard and Marlborough
Girard and Palmer
5th and Market
5th and Walnut
6th and Market (2 tiles)
6th and South (3 tiles)
9th and Girard
10th and Girard
11th and Girard
17th and Chestnut
18th and Rittenhouse
18th and Spruce
18th and Walnut
19th and Arch
19th and Ben Franklin Parkway
19th and Chestnut
19th and JFK (north side of Logan Circle)
19th and Vine
20th and Chestnut
20th and Sansom
31nd and Market
32st and Market
33rd and Chestnut
33rd and Market
36th and Chestnut
36th and Walnut
37th and Walnut
38th and Chestnut

You read that right Philadelphia. Your beloved mayor is jihadist scum. Last Wednesday, I captured these images of Mayor Nutter doling out terrorist fist jabs at a public event. As a further insult, this was a Sunoco sponsored fun day commemorating our nation’s birth. Why is he corrupting our youth with this kind of behavior? I can only assume that his red shirt covered in “targets” is some kind of Blood gang symbol/uniform. I demand immediate impeachment.

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About a year ago, several large, colorful street tiles appeared in Buffalo, NY. By winter the “House of Hades” tiles had been completely destroyed by snowplows. But their creators have been tenacious. Earlier this year, a new batch appeared in Buffalo. Now, a HHH tile has popped up at 9th Ave and 56th street in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen. Stylistically, aesthetically, artistically and creatively these are my favorite of the “copycat” tiles:

Also, last Friday’s post listed 12 new Toynbee tiles here in Philly. Since Friday I’ve seen additional new tiles at:

5th and Walnut
5th and Market
6th and Market (2 of them, 1 already badly damaged, the other nearly destroyed)

Also, Justin reported a tile at 34th and Walnut and I’m sure there are more.

If you’ve lived in Philadelphia long enough, you’ve probably witnessed the strange sight of cowboys trotting coolly and deliberately up a blighted North Philly Street. Or maybe not. But they do exist and it is a strange thing to see. As with just about everything in Philadelphia, there’s even a mural dedicated to them:

There used to be an elderly cowboy who would ride up 22nd street from regions south, all the way to the stables in Strawberry Mansion. I used to see him all the time, but haven’t spotted him in years. All in all, I’m glad that these random horsemen are around. It breaks up the monotony of the normal cityscape. There’s also something about a 75 year old man in a black cowboy hat, chaps and spurs riding a horse through the intersection of 22nd and Market that’s just great.

All this is just an explanation into this google streetview scene at 17th and Cambria. Philadelphia, you’re one weird city:

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The Philadelphia International Championship Bike Race is this Sunday. Brave the heat and go see the bikers bike by.

There aren’t many places in this city where I can go to escape, but those places do exist. Last Sunday I needed such a place. Since this spot is so fucking cool, I’ve posted about it before. Since it’s a secret, I’m not giving directions. What I will tell you is this.

Through the city’s northwestern neighborhoods runs the Wissahickon Creek. The creek snakes through the valley that divides Roxborough and Manayunk from Germantown, Mt. Airy and Chestnut Hill. Somewhere in this valley is a small tributary stream. Somewhere along that unnamed creek, obscured from all paths and invisible from every trail is the spot. It’s where I go to think and write. It’s where I spread the ashes of my dead cat. It’s where I’ve done things that are too personal to write here. I like the place.

A few years ago, 2 friends of mine started building a series of terraces on a natural ascension in the land next to the small creek. They’ve worked seriously and carefully since then, expanding the original terrace to several more, adding staircases, planting ferns and damming the creek. I can’t say much more that can’t be better described in this series of photos. Enjoy:

A photo from the creek in front of the spot.

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Approaching

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And here it is

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The western wall

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4th and 5th level terraces

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4th level terrace. Look at the detail in the stone work. It fits together like a puzzle.

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Puzzle pieces on the western staircase

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Ground level

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A chair built into one of the walls caught the sunlight, so I sat in it.

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The view from the chair. This is a good place to sit, think and relax.

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The End

Occasionally, my place of employment attracts minor celebrities and future Kings of England. Last week, it was minor celebrities. Apparently Jane Seymour, (better known as Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman) is a big fan of public art. Who knew?

Here’s a quick, crappy shot I took with the incredibly annoying Canon XT that we have in the office.

Far more excitingly, here’s a photo (taken by Paul Loftland) of Mayor Nutter with Baltimore City State Senator Clay Davis. Both were at our annual fundraiser. While Wikipedia calls Senator Davis a “fictional character” and refers to him as actor “Isiah Whitlock, Jr.” fans of The Wire and citizens of any corrupt American City beg to differ. I mean, there he is with the Mayor. And Nutter is real, right? Think of Senator Davis as the Vince Fumo of West Baltimore.

Well, quitting the internet didn’t work. And if you happened to visit yesterday only to see that this site was gone completely, that was an accident. I don’t know what happened, but it’s better now. For my triumphant return, please enjoy this deeply bitter and miserable rant:

Until a couple months ago, there was a dirty, dingy old Laundromat near 20th and Spruce. Even though most of the machines were broken and the place smelled like death, (mice behind machines) it was the closest Laundromat to my apartment and I’d wash my clothes there anyway.

The only employee I ever saw was an old man who never seemed to leave. He wasn’t very friendly, but he was pushing 80 and working 15 hours a day, 7 days a week in depressing dump of a business. Who would be friendly?

The Laundromat closed in March. The owners are renovating the space into a nail salon. I do my laundry at 15th and Spruce now. It’s much farther away, but it’s cleaner and friendlier.

On Tuesday I was walking by the old Laundromat. Sitting on its stoop was the old man who used to work inside. He was filthy, unshaven, wearing dirty clothes and obviously homeless. The Laundromat left, but he didn’t.

I was in a bitter fucking terrible mood, so to be honest, this sad sight barely touched my conscience. I wondered for a second if I should give him the address of the Social Security office, or the number of a social worker. But I didn’t. I don’t know where those offices are, and I don’t have the numbers to any social workers.

And what good would it have done? I assume that his life is over. What kind of help can anyone possibly give him? He’d have moved on if he wanted to. That shitty fucking place was his life. That’s what touched my conscience and made me sad. Miserable people and their shitty fucking lives.

If anyone out there is a more hopeful person than I am, you know where to find him.

A little over a month ago I woke up early and set out for a pre-work bike ride. Since I work at a non-profit, showing up to work straight after an 11-mile ride is perfectly acceptable.

Also, morning rides on the Kelly/MLK Drive loop are also a hell of a lot more pleasant than afternoon ones. Without rollerbladers, dogs, children on scooters, people randomly wandering in front of you, walkers who take up the entire path, oblivious crew brats and all the other people that make me hate people, an early morning ride is actually nice and relaxing.

But a month ago, my ride was cut short by a glint of silver down in the Schuylkill. As I crossed over the MLK Drive bridge just west of the Waterworks, I noticed this flash of light. When I got to the far end of the bridge I was shocked to see that it was a Loon eating a fish. The fish, reflecting the light of the sun was what caught my attention. I had to cancel my ride and get home to pick up my camera.

Why?

Loons are some of my favorite birds. I’d also never seen one anywhere near Philadelphia. You think it just looks like a duck with a cockroaches body? Well listen to the sound they make:

Loon 1

Loon 2

The loon couldn’t choke down the fish… but it tried for as long as I watched it. Some fishermen told me that they come through every year. If you’re looking to catch them on the Schuylkill leg of their migration, just head down to the Art Museum about a month ago and keep your eye out. Until then, here are some photos:

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Not long ago I had the privilege of shooting the Fairmount Arts Crawl. Although it was a sprawling event that covered an enormous area, I could have stayed at the Neighborhood Potters wheel all afternoon. Here are a few shots from the demonstration wheel:

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When moving out on my own, I had visions of base, raw survival. One bad week and I’d end up like that bird in the post below this one. On the streets, dead and discarded. It turned out a lot better than that.

On May 1, 1998 I moved to my first apartment. For all you slow witted people, that was 10 years ago today. It was a $650/month 2 bedroom at 46th and Osage. I worked at a video store and ate a lot of Rami’s lunch-cart falafel. My deep seething and totally unfair hatred of Penn students was also born.

My then unrealized goal was to move to West Philly and to find a job with Penn. After that I could enjoy their staff benefit of free classes and work my way to a free elitist degree. I eventually found my job and started classes 8 months later.

West Philly was a lot different back then. Penn still had a virtual wall up around its campus. There wasn’t much glitz around. The cute little renovated rowhouse across the street from my apartment was still a rundown place for local crackheads to gather and argue into the night. You could buy a house then for 1/5 of what it would cost you now. The bowling alley next to the video store was still an abandoned warehouse where my colleagues and I went for “coffee breaks.”

The apartment was great. Like any self respecting 19-year-old we socialized heavily. Weekend get-togethers swelled into small parties. There was sex, drugs, debauchery, dancing, drama, video cameras and thank fucking god, no such thing as youtube. But stupid college kids we weren’t. Half of us weren’t even in college. And beside that, there was also plenty of discussion of photography, music, movies, theology and art. But we weren’t a bunch of know-it-all, pretentious assholes either. There was a respectable balance.

Most of all, I liked lying in bed in the dead of night with the window behind me cracked. I loved the sound of the train off somewhere in the distance. I still do.

But back to May 1. In what would become a ritual, when the truck was returned and the heavy lifting done, my roommate and I got a six-pack and some take out. Ten years ago today, I opened one of the windows in my massive new bedroom, cracked a beer with my roommate and sat there feeling something I will never feel again.

Last night I waited 5 hours (3 spent on my feet, completely immobilized by a crowd of 35,000 people… I think the Bush Administration calls that a “stress position.”) to hear Obama’s stump speech and get this um… awesome 300mm shot, which I then cropped down from 12.8 to 0.6 megapixels. All in all, the 15 minutes he spoke was pretty cool. The people I waited in various lines with were all nice, but 5 hours? Damn.

The atmosphere was like a non-competitive sporting event. Next time, I gotta get a press pass.

Yes I’m really saying that I judge my own shots from the pre-”debate” rally at the same standard as the New York Times. Actually Times photographer Béatrice de Géa has a slightly nicer Canon camera and a much wider lens… but in my own defense, I was told by a cop to get back on the curb before I could get the wider shot myself.

Here’s mine:

And here’s hers:

And acting as judge and editor, I like just like my Obama shot better than theirs. Mine:

Times:

And since this is my site, here are a few more of mine:

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On Sunday night I went to and photographed a trifecta of performances at Tritone. The night included a set by the broken-jawed Justin Duerr, a trash bag fashion show put together by Jamie Campbell and her 10 beautiful models and a headlining set by Seizure 17.

It was a great night of performances that produced some excellent photos. Except for the fashion show, I shot without a flash. In a dimly lit room, with underexposed shots, it’s hard to capture much color information outside of red and black. For example, here’s a shot from this morning’s New York Times, taken by Damon Winter at last night’s infuriatingly pointless, soul-crushing talk-radio level “debate.”

Ed Rendell is a red faced man, but in that shot he looks like Satan. And Chelsea should really get that jaundice taken care of. There isn’t a white balance adjustment in the world that could find the right color information in that shot. The information just isn’t there.

My strategy for Justin’s set was to convert to a sepia kind of tone through color manipulation and desaturation. I also did some b&w conversions and some other creative tinkering. All in all, I really like these shots. Fashion show and more are coming soon:

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Back when I was a baby, I used to sit at my parent’s bedroom window and look out onto the street. Few things on Greene street in Germantown impressed me as much as Septa buses. They made such a big impression that I invented my own word for them: “Da!.”

The bus was an impressive beast. It was big, loud and it shook the whole house. When I was 11, lying in a bed on a farmhouse in Northern California, I woke up to an earthquake. In my middle of the night delirium I assumed it was just a Septa bus and went back to sleep. Ancient people believed that earthquakes were caused by the gods. I assumed it was Septa. For better or for worse, Philly’s transit agency has shaped some of the most fundamental aspects of my existence.

For a couple of years now, I’ve wanted to write my own Septa autobiography. My idea was to use public transit as the yarn with which to weave together my own Philadelphia experience. Shitty metaphors aside, it’s actually not a bad idea. I don’t own a car and didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 27. I’ve lived in this city my entire life and have ridden Septa to nearly every corner of it. These are my stories.

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The 23 Trolley

Wikipedia used to say that the 23 was the longest trolley line in the world but since the last time I checked, someone has removed that sentence. Either way, at about 14 miles it’s a long line. Starting way up at the top of Chestnut Hill in the northwestern corner of the city, the 23 travels southeast on Germantown Ave, hops over to 12th near Broad and Erie, winds its way down center city and South Philly before terminating a couple blocks from the stadiums.

You could drive to New York in the time it takes to ride from one end to the other. Until high school, I never rode it out of the northwest.

While the XH on Greene Street was the first Septa route to get my attention, the 23 was the first line that I actually remember riding.

It was Germantown in the early 80’s and I was with my mom near Germantown and Chelten. Considering my age (about 3) I remember it well. The thing that made the 23 stick in the mind of a toddler was that it was a trolley. It ran on tracks. It was loud. It threw sparks where the trolleywheel met the overhead wires. It was fucking awesome.

The cars were the very same 40’s era airstream looking things that were recently refurbished, painted green and put in service on Girard Ave. In the early 80’s though, the 23 trolley cars were in prefurbished condition. The floors were dirty, the seats were ripped and they smelled like 4 decades of mildew.

In other words, they were built to last, but maintained by Septa.

As a very young child, I only rode the 23 trolley a handful of times. As far as I remember, all the trips were from my home in Germantown up to Chestnut Hill. Other than the way it looked, felt and smelled I remember very little about those trips.

I noticed that people in Germantown were mostly black and people in Chestnut Hill were mostly white, but I didn’t know why that was, or how that mattered. All I knew was that I liked how the trolley glided awkwardly up the cobblestone road. I liked the open space in the middle and the plush seats that curved with the body of the car. I liked the ribbed rubber mats on the floor and the big windows that looked out over Germantown Avenue. I liked how high above the street I was and how people looked at the big orange trolley as it rumbled past them.

When I was 11, my family moved to Mt. Airy, the neighborhood between working class black Germantown and rich, waspy white Chestnut Hill. In Mt. Airy, we lived a block from the Avenue. I’d go to the corner with my friends and put pennies on the tracks. I know this sounds cliqued, but we really spent afternoons that way… sitting on the corner, smashing pennies with streetcars. At night I’d lie in bed and listen to the trolley rumbling at top speed towards Chestnut Hill. There was a downhill straightaway just past my block, where the drivers could hit 40-45mph in the middle of the empty Mt. Airy night.

In 1992, after years of fits and starts, the trolleys were officially discontinued. By the time I was riding the 23 to high school, the route was all buses.

Next up, the 23 buses.

I recently browsed over to planphilly.com and read Thomas J. Walsh’s article on how to fix the Ben Franklin Parkway. In case you haven’t noticed, the road has never really lived up to its full potential. Like the waterfront or east Market street it just sort of sits there waiting for greatness. While Walsh’s article is full of nice, modest ideas, he doesn’t go nearly far enough.

If done right, the Parkway has the potential to transform the city. It borders everything from City Hall to Fairmount Park. It’s surrounded by busy and vibrant neighborhoods. It’s lined with world-class museums. And right now, it’s basically a highway. If I was an omnipotent city planner and I had a billion or so dollars to play around with, here’s how I’d fix it.

1. I don’t care who makes noise and how much noise they make. First and foremost, I’m closing the center of the Parkway to vehicular traffic from Logan Circle to Eakins Oval. People can drive on the Philadelphia-sized 2-lane streets that abut northern and southern borders of the new grand pedestrian mall.

In addition to closing the midsection of the road, I’m tearing up the asphalt and putting in a wide path lined with gardens and outdoor vendors. Artists, musicians, performers and food trucks will be encouraged to descend on the space. There will be benches, stages and public plazas. There can be bike lanes and bike rentals. People can rent a cruiser near the Franklin Institute, pedal the Parkway and Kelly Drive, go to a museum or 2, grab some food/drink and call it a day.

Why do this? There will never be street life on what’s now basically a 6-lane highway with 2, 2-lane roads on either side. Traffic absolutely has to be secondary to the Parkway’s purpose. Think of what it could be. Think of something like la Rambla in Barcelona… only bigger.

2. All in all though, I’m not completely deaf to the needs of commuters. And we also need a quick, fast and easy way for people to get to the Art Museum and this grand new space. That’s why I’d take the old rail bed that runs under Pennsylvania Ave. and turn it into a subway. The infrastructure for a new line is largely in place. Making the Art Museum easily accessible would benefit everyone. I discussed this (with pictures and diagrams) here.

3. Move the Youth Prison out and move in the Barnes. No offense to Youth Prisons or prisoners, but a looming kid-jail can be a real drain on the festivities.

4. Bury the parking lot at Eakins Oval and turn it into a park / plaza.

5. Keep some of the green space that lines the Parkway, but also encourage residential and commercial development.

6. Drop a MOVE style bomb on the Philadelphian and let that beast burn to the ground.

Actually that last one isn’t really essential. But the rest is…

This city has the population and the ability to sustain a grand public boulevard. If the Parkway were designed according to these plans, the throngs of people that clog up Kelly Drive would bleed into it. The throngs of people that run up and down the art museum steps all day would bleed into it. The throngs of people that live and work in Fairmount and center city would bleed into it. And aside from all this, people that don’t go to any of these places would be drawn to the beautiful new space. The Benjamin Franklin Parkway is empty by design. It’s time for a radical redesign.

Hello loyal readership. On the off chance that you read this site and you don’t know me personally, I’ve been gone because it’s been my birthday. As an unrepentant narcissist, I chose to celebrate the occasion of my birth by taking a few days off from all things normally scheduled.

But anyway, the word art, or artist is discussed way, way too much. The discussion is incredibly dull and about as pointless as anything I can think of. Art is art, and life is art and nothing is art and everything is. If I had my way, the word would be deleted from the language and people could stop talking about it and getting on with experiencing and creating it.

With all that said there are a few people who – for lack of a better term – I’d call artists. Justin Duerr is one of them. Justin was recently assaulted randomly on the street and injured pretty badly. Everything about it is sad. Here’s his first creative response. (copied and pasted from a myspace bulletin) If you don’t understand some of the terms in the description, by all means, google them.

Just the first in what I’m sure will be an avalanche of little creative projects born of being at home/resting up for a few days.

This is a video for my solo project, currently incarnate as THE AURIC DOVES OF AVALON.

This video features a cellular automata program written by my father.

Basically it’s that, and shot of a bunch of my large posters collected together, plus a few incidental pieces.

It’s a ceremonial video to help activate healing, peace on the streets, and positive life-force.

The music features samples from EVP records, shortwave, bass, and harmonium.

Filmed at home, and my first real attempt at “editing” video….. enjoy!

JUSTIN DUERR & THE AURIC DOVES OF AVALON - “ONE WHO IS NOT DEAD” :

ONE WHO IS NOT DEAD.

On Saturday I was out on Market Street when I noticed a crowd of about 70 people at the corner of 11th. I could hear a street drummer and a horn player, but I couldn’t tell what else was going on. As I walked up, I saw that it was a team of performers.

For a street show, the production was tight. There was music, breakdancing and circus sideshow style stunts. The guy leading the whole thing had a huge crowd presence and kept everyone thoroughly entertained between acts.

The grand finale involved a spectacular jump/flip over a bunch of randomly selected audience members. (There were 7 at one point, but I think he sent a couple back.)

I had my camera, but failed to get a decent shot of the pre-finale jump. (over the heads of 2 small children) I hit the shutter a split second too soon and got a shot of the performer’s airborne back.

As they were gearing up for the finale, one of the performers saw me and my big camera and assumed I worked somewhere important. He designated me the official photographer and made sure I had an unobstructed space to shoot from.

This was all well and good, but suddenly I had to get the shot. There would be 1 chance. I increased the ISO (800) and chose a fairly wide aperture (3.5) to ensure a fast shutter speed (1/1000th of a second). I shut off autofocus and picked a mid-jump point to set the camera to. He ran, he jumped, I waited a split second and hit the shutter.

When I was just a wee child, City Hall was the tallest building in Philadelphia. Being a kid, I judged it to be about as tall as the Empire State Building. I was also under the flawed understanding that the Society Hill Towers were generally the same size as the World Trade Center. As I got older, I realized that my sense of space and proportion had been a little bit off.

But anyway, during the 20th century, while downtown centers bloomed and economies exploded in places like New York and Chicago, Philadelphia reacted a little differently. Instead of embracing urban growth, the city treated it like some kind of danger, stifling it before it could sink the dangerous teeth of success and prosperity into the hearts of ordinary Philadelphians.

And so for more than 8 decades developers agreed not to build anything taller than William Penn’s hat. With limited downtown real estate, the only place you can build is up. In Philadelphia you couldn’t do that. For decades, the city’s downtown sat around like a stagnant larvae infested puddle.

That’s why yesterday’s HUGE announcement of the American Commerce Center is so un-fucking-believable. While Philadelphia broke the City Hall gentleman’s agreement in the mid-80’s, we still shy away from thinking and acting really, really big.

But ACC is really, god damn big. Take the newly completed Comcast Center and put City Hall on top of it. Give or take a foot or 2… it’s that big. As a matter of perspective it’s taller than the Empire State Building, it’s taller than the WTC (RIP) it’s taller than the Sears Tower. If it appeared today, it would be the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. By the time of its hypothetical completion, it will be the 3rd tallest.

What does this mean? Actually it means quite a bit. One 1500’ tower would do a lot to change how people view the city. Perception brings money. So do 1500’ towers. The building would become an icon. People would want to locate to it, work in it, spend money in it, live near it. It’s more an investment than a skyscraper.

And recession, depression or whatever, it actually might happen. As the Philadelphia Business Journal noted today:

Walnut Street Capital, a Philadelphia development company, and a pension fund from Washington state are allying to develop the project. The pension fund, which has $6.18 billion in assets, is financing the project, Miller said. This enables the project to skirt around the current credit crunch that is starting to put a damper on commercial projects.

Finally I can’t end this without mentioning that this story broke on phillyskyline.com. Brad Maule scooped absolutely everyone in getting word out on this yesterday. If and when this building does get built, you heard it from him first. Although a few blocks to the northwest of its proposed location here’s an approximate view of the new tower from Brad’s house:

Thanks to Drew Mathes at the skyscraper page forum for the rendering and Brad for the original photo.

On my way to work, I spotted former Mayor John Street out for an early morning stroll along the Schuylkill River trail. While some might say this is tantamount to seeing Lynne Abraham buying frozen cod at Trader Joe’s, or catching Hurricane Schwartz browsing porn at TLA, spotting the elusive Mr. Street is a rare and thrilling experience.

Like a mountain lion or an Ivory Billed Woodpecker, the retired mayor keeps a low profile, rarely appearing in public. I actually wouldn’t have ID’d him today if it weren’t for the noisy swish, swish sound of his read windbreaker. Why?

Mr. Street was in disguise. He wore his hooded windbreaker over a hooded sweatshirt. Both hoods were up, obscuring his trademark hair. On top of this, he wore a pair of sunglasses. To the untrained eye, he might have gone unnoticed enjoying an anonymous morning walk. Instead he suffered the invasion of privacy that comes with someone seeing you and thinking to themselves, “Hey that was John Street. Does he think he’s Tom Cruise or something?”

But faults aside, I was having warm thoughts of the Street administration while on the Schuylkill River Trail earlier this very week. I saw a plaque affixed to the Walnut Street bridge with his name on it. Street was Mayor when the trail was built. I’m a big fan of the trail. Sometimes you can only see the good after the relationship is over.