A is for Ox

The Thoreau You Don't Know

2008-09-12T10:28:00.003-04:00

http://thethoreauyoudontknow.blogspot.com/

2007-11-24T15:51:00.001-05:00

Though it is against the law to write on sidewalks--and though it is lately against the law to write on sidewalks even with chalk and even if you are a child (at least in Brooklyn, NY)--it is not against the law to read and enjoy what is written on sidewalks. Here is a something. I see it as a loosely drawn letter A.

Park-ing is Around the Corner

2007-07-17T07:55:00.001-04:00

Plan now, park later...
http://www.parkingday.org/get_involved/

Somebody Noticed

2007-07-14T09:17:00.001-04:00

One reason we love Madison, Wisconsin's public library:
http://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/madreads/index.php/2007/07/12/its-summer-road-trip-time/

Bikes, Baby

2007-07-08T17:54:00.001-04:00

Here is some cool bike stuff from The Global Warming Survival Handbook, as noted by streetsblog.org, the coolest street site known to blogging man, as well as blogging woman:

David Letterman, Carl Fisher, and Dropping Things Off Indy Buildings

2007-07-07T09:34:00.001-04:00

Let's look at the facts:
Carl Fisher is from Indianapolis, as is David Letterman.
Carl Fisher developed the Lincoln Highway, the first coast-to-coast highway, while an Indianapolis freeway named after a U.S. senator was almost named "The Dave," in honor of Letterman.
Grocery clerks: both of them.
The most interesting similiarity, perhaps: Carl Fisher dropped thing off buildings (in particular cars, but also bicycles) and so does David Letterman.
To wit, an excerpt from Cross Country, by Robert Sullivan (also author of "Rats") and, following that, a Late Show building drop segment:

Is the car-related building toss an Indianapolis phenomenon? All we can really do at this point is ask the question.

Why I Went Around Indy Looking at Tall Buildings

2007-07-05T07:23:00.001-04:00

Here is why I went to look for the spot in Indianapolis where the first guy to drop something really huge off a building in America first started doing that. (And before I forget, here is a Library of Congress photo of the guy who dropped that something, a photo of him at the wheel of a race car, racing, even though he couldn't really see.)

Indy is notable for reasons having to do with the history of roads as well--for Indy was the home of Carl Fisher. Fisher was a bicycle enthusiast who became a bike salesman who then became a car enthusiast and then a car salesman. He was a builder and developer, building the Indianapolis raceway and inaugurating the Indy 500, as well as developing Miami Beach. He also developed the national road, the first coast-to-coast highway, which became known as the Lincoln Highway. We consider him to be the father of dropping big things off of buildings to great public enthusiasm, in his case bicycles and then cars.

As far as the Indianapolis 500 goes, he developed the raceway because people were dying in auto races, which were primarily held in towns, cars running off into crowds of spectators. As far as the Lincoln Highway goes he believed that America ought to be able to cross itself, he is a country crossing enthusiast in a long line of country crossing enthusiasts, that begins with Jefferson, who sent Lewis and Clark across the country, and winds up with Eisenhower, who, with the Interstate highway system, makes it possible for any of us to be Lewis and Clarks at any time. As far as dropping things off buildings goes, he did it to promote his bicycle business, and then his car business.

Last time I was in Indy, I went to try and figure out where exactly was born the American tradition of dropping giant things off buildings, in particular bikes and even cars.

More on Indy and the Slow Road Movement

2007-07-04T17:41:00.001-04:00

Upon traveling to Indianapolis again last week, visitors could observe the first construction for the Indianapolis Cultural Trail, which, as we said, is going to be very cool. We walked to it, passing several public art installations by Julian Opie, the cross-city series entitled Julian Opie: Signs:

It's not very glorious-looking at the moment, but that it is even being attempted is pretty incredible, given the way most of the country looks at roads. Here we see the construction of a road that is not just for cars, not just for bicycles, even. This is a street that is in part anyway for humans. At least that's the plan:

Taking Back the Streets of Indy

2007-07-04T10:32:00.001-04:00

Indianapolis is a great town, as far as we are concerned, and among the many reasons (the strawberry festival on Monument Circle, the mass for the homeless at the downtown Episcopal Church every year, the Greek restaurant in freeway-wounded-but-now-rebounding area of Fountain Square, just for example) is that they are pioneers in what we like to call the Slow Road Movement. The Slow Road Movement has to do with American planners and citizens and even road engineers redesigning the streets and roads of cities and towns so that the car isn't the only interest served--streets, after all, are for humans too. Indianapolis is doing something that a lot of other cities would not even dare to do, and that is put a walking trail right down in the Middle of their streets. According to people we have talked to, Indianapolis residents can be a little concerned if they are told that a lane is being taken away from cars, but, on the other hand, everyone (from pedestrians to developers to hotel concierges) is pretty excited about the idea of giving a lane to the peolpe. Here is the Indianapolis section of a recent four-part report in Dwell. (The rest of the report is here: http://www.dwell.com/partners/saturn):.

Imagine if, in the near future, you could fly to Indianapolis, capital of car-racing America, and abandon your vehicle and tour the city just on foot, on purpose. Imagine if the city built a hiking trail not off into the woods or out to the city park, but right through downtown. It’s an idea that is so radical as far as civic transportation goes that it sounds a little crazy, but that’s what Indianapolis is building, an eight-mile bike and pedestrian trail that circles, in a zigzaggy way, in and through downtown Indianapolis—a trail that links neighborhoods and business districts, that would allow you to hike in the street. This is the plan, and this is the trail that is in the first stages of planning, a separate trail out in the street that is not quite a sidewalk, not quite a traffic lane, a $50 million redesign of how people might use a street. When Brian Payne, president of the Central Indiana Community Foundation, a nonprofit community group that is the lead partner on the trail, imagines the trail, he knows that the transportational stakes are high, since no city has tried this before, since they will be redesigning the downtown of the third-largest Midwestern city. “If you screw it up, you’re going to set everybody back by 30 years,” he says.

Touring the trail is an act of imagination at the moment: You have to imagine the markers, the pavement that is tiled or patterned somehow, the path as it is engineered through busy intersections—which is why Payne picks me up at the airport and drives me the ten minutes to downtown. The wide highway carries us onto equally wide downtown streets. “One of our problems is that we do too good a job of getting people out of town,” he says. “They’re going too fast to notice anything. I’m one of those people who does 50. No one does 25, because the capacity is there to do 50.”

But then, in one right turn, we are in a small neighborhood of Victorian houses and cobblestoned streets, a neighborhood that I have, on previous trips to Indianapolis, completely missed—the kind of neighborhood Payne hopes that the trail will help highlight. “Too often Midwestern cities look to the west and east and say, ‘What do we need to copy?’ Well, we don’t need to copy anything—we don’t want to copy. We want to be unique. I mean, we’ve got to concentrate on what’s unique. That’s what New York and Chicago do so well.”

As we park at his office, Payne describes his eureka moment, the day he was walking the Monan Trail, a hugely successful rails-to-trails project that runs on an old rail line out of Indianapolis to the north. “I was walking the Monan,” he says, “and I thought, We could build an urban version of this right downtown!” At his desk, we pore over a map of downtown, and he shows how the trail would link neighborhoods—it’s as if there would be a hiking path through SoHo, then onto the East Village and down to Chinatown.

With Gail Swanstrom, the director of marketing and communications for the Central Indiana Community Foundation, we start out near the American Legion headquarters, a vast mall in the center of the city, a beautiful war memorial that is like a miniature of the Mall in Washington, D.C. (The downtown of Indianapolis was designed by Alexander Ralston, who as an apprentice helped French-born architect Pierre L’Enfant design D.C.) When Payne takes people around, he is amazed at how many people have never seen this Beaux Arts view of their own place. “I grew up in San Diego, lived in Santa Cruz. I’ve studied cities most of my life. And we’ve got a great downtown. And yet the rest of the world doesn’t know anything about us.”

We head down Walnut Street, to see the old church about to change—to go co-op, to condoize. “People are selling condos,” he says, “on the basis of being on the trail.” I ask if the trail’s potential success kill people’s chances to afford to live near it. Payne points to Fall Creek Place, a downtown neighborhood with an affordable mix of historic and new housing, where residents agree to stay for five years and not turn the place over for sale. “Indianapolis is a community that watches over itself,” he says.

The centerpiece of the trail—and the town and my trip—is Monument Circle, the very center of the city, as designed by Ralston, and bustling with people and cars. The soldier on the 284-foot-high war monument faces south, to troops returning, and around him are buildings of all eras, from chain stores to the symphony’s headquarters, the Art Deco office building, the old Christ Church Cathedral.

In completing the loop, we move along a straightaway section of the proposed trail to Fountain Square, a neighborhood full of vintage stores and old sandwich places and artist’s studios and small galleries that have lately closed quickly upon opening. “Things start up and they get going but then they can’t keep it up and they close down,” says Payne. He sees the trail as helping gallery owners stay open—outside the main square, it feels beat up, cut off from the city center by an interstate. At lunch at a Greek restaurant, Payne talks about his hopes for the trail as an economic development tool and as a tourist destination. He talks about how he envisions it being used. “Eighty percent of all users will be walkers,” he says.

We end up downtown on Massachusetts Avenue. We pass by galleries and shops and pass through a little alley through which the trail will be built. We end up at the beginning of the Monan Trail, where the idea first hit Payne. I’m amazed at how determined he is and at how much he enjoys touring his own city, without any car at all. I’m amazed at how much I really like Indianapolis, after previously having only driven through it. I’m appreciative of him taking time off to tour what is not yet there.

“Are you kidding?” Payne says. “This is fun.” The trail might not be finished until 2009, but when you see Payne walking it, you can see him seeing it anyway, and you can see him seeing a whole new way of visiting and living in a downtown. “We want to create a journey that’s beautiful and inspiring and wonderful and as good as the destination,” he says.

Writing Your Way Out of A Paper Bag

2007-07-03T16:02:00.001-04:00

It's not as easy as it sounds...

Byrne on Biking

2007-06-29T09:05:00.001-04:00

Aside from writing persuasively about the joys of city cycling (for transport, as opposed to sport), he does a great version of "Don't Fence Me In," that old song written by a Montana state highway engineer, Robert Fletcher, and Cole Porter. Here's a link (that I first saw on streetsblog.org):
http://www.streetsblog.org/2007/06/28/david-byrne-on-bicycling-in-nyc/

The Power of Tension

2007-06-28T10:35:00.001-04:00

One of the things that is great about not having a car is that walking is a lot less stressful than driving. I sure don't miss the honking, and, for that matter, is it just me or are cars driving closer to cars these days? I was walking around Saint Louis last week, heading to their new excellent light rail

when I came upon this traffic accident, a block or so before the light rail station. (I kept calling the light rail a subway, which seemed to upset the Saint Louis residents--they didn't want to be associated with subways, for whatever reason.)

No one appeared to be hurt, but the wheels of the middle car had been lifted up off the ground, as if my car magic. I saw it as a measure of tension, the anxiety raising the car, a superhuman strength. It was the power of the dark side.

Park-ing!

2007-06-26T07:30:00.000-04:00

Just because you've sold your car doesn't mean you have to stop enjoying a parking space.

George Washington on the Erie

2007-06-25T19:15:00.000-04:00

I was in Cleveland the other day, enjoying a lunchtime stroll, enjoying the spacious downtown, the vast public squares—the summer light from the lake reminded me of Saint Petersburg or some other Arctic Circle city in the midst of an all-night-long day, not that I've ever been to Saint Petersburg—when I spotted what I thought was a pretty cool statue of George Washington. I don't know what it was exactly that caused me to stop; I think I liked the Art Deco aspect; I'd never seen such a curved George Washington. I stopped in my tracks, and then grabbed my camera. As I began to photograph, I realized in the precise moment I was looking at George Washington in the digital frame that something was happening in my peripheral vision. When I turned I saw the security guard, guarding the federal building, who then asked me what I was doing--you are not supposed to take pictures of federal building, apparently. "Taking a picture," I said, “of, uh, George Washington." (George Washington was standing right in front of the federal building being guarded.) I was a little shocked, that I was being stop mid George Washington picture taking, and I wanted to say something else, but I knew immediately that that was not necessary. I felt as if the security guard and I simultaneously realized that we did not want to do the wrong thing; we were on a very similar page at that very moment. I am merely postulating, of course, but what I was thinking was that we both did not want to wind up on some talk show or in a tabloid newspaper or anything along those lines, talking about freedom and George Washington and security. “Just don't take a picture of the building,” he said, in a kind way. “And we’ll be OK.” I agreed, and tried to talk about how much I liked the sculpture with him, but there was to be no further discussion. Our understanding was over, in fact; I could feel us parting brain ways. Here is the photo, with the building Liquid Paper-ed, of course, for security purposes. I think I'm cool with the tree.

The Death of the Cross Country Trip?

2007-06-25T09:44:00.000-04:00

Here is an Op-Ed piece from the Los Angeles Times...

Goodbye to 'Are we there yet?'
Bidding farewell to the cross-country road trip.
By Robert Sullivan
June 25, 2007

THE SUMMER DRIVING TRIP — the pack the kids in the car and set out for the West or the East or possibly the Grand Canyon trip — is once again in jeopardy.

Of course, it's been endangered before, especially during the first energy crises in 1973 and 1979, when people spent good portions of their vacation lined up at the gas station. But this time the death of the car-bound family vacation feels real to me. (It feels real to some tourist destinations, such as Aspen, Colo., where tourism officials are offering free parking, free bicycle rentals and a voucher for $50 worth of free gas.) Thus, as a 17-year veteran of epic car trips, I'm officially hanging up my cross-country driving hat and looking back, like an obituary writer, on the cross-country summer vacation.

Though it is difficult to discern it through the clutter of portable DVD players and GPS devices that today accompanies the typical long- or even short-distance driver, the cross-country trip was born about the time the idea of America was born, mostly in the mind of Thomas Jefferson, who sponsored several failed crossings before Lewis and Clark finally made it all the way to the Pacific.

For Jefferson (and the Spanish soldiers who were looking to arrest Lewis and Clark), the idea was this: He who mapped it and described it in journals would own it.

Next came the stagecoach, described by Mark Twain in his travel adventure "Roughing It" this way: "How we suffered, suffered, suffered! … We sat absorbed and motionless through four long hours….Hunger asserted itself, but there was nothing to eat…."

As soon as the railroad laid tracks across America, railroad owners employed public relations teams to plant articles about the restorative powers of the scenic viewpoints along the line. Montana was the new Switzerland and Santa Fe, N.M., the new Orient. "See America First" went the campaign line, hand in hand with the revolution in landscape painting that saw God in the American landscape, Manifest Destiny in the view from the dining car.

The automobile arrived as an antidote to the urban, factory-fueled culture that produced it; drive a car and you restored your soul, your city-weakened spirit. Touring the countryside, the first cars were towed out of mud by farmers; in the '20s, cars camped anywhere, to the further ire of farmers; then car camps on the edge of town became car parks, then mo-tels, then motels. Roads were mostly for farmers, to get vegetables to market; parkways were for tourists.

Problematically, people began to go everywhere and do everything with cars. We got more and faster roads, roads that quickly seemed too few and too slow.

By 1956, when construction began on the first interstates, these Autobahn-inspired roads offered the promise of access to a cross-country system of cloverleafs and limited-access expressways. It meant freedom from traffic. It meant going anywhere at any time. For the summer vacationer, the trip that Lewis and Clark took became a breeze: two lefts out of your East Coast driveway, then straight for 3,000 miles.

The problem is, the cross-country trip became the everyday trip. Motels, which in the 1950s advertised new products for your home (air conditioning, wall-to-wall carpet) began to look like homes, or vice versa. It also created a new kind of settlement — a big-box store, fast-food chain, Gas & Go, chain motel — that is the perfect oasis of amenities for the interstate cross-country traveler. Except that its existence eats away at what the trip-taker has gone to see, which is the United States.

Meanwhile, our state roads have begun to resemble interstates, leading us to malls — each filled with the kind of places I used to see only way out near the highway. When my wife and I began driving cross-country together in 1989, we visited towns because they were different from ours: Oh, to eat huckleberries for breakfast in that old drugstore in Butte, Mont., again!

Now these towns feature roadside food stands writ large, as in really large, as in Costco giant-mayo-container large. Today's version of Lewis and Clark's trip — Interstate 90 — is used to get us to work and back. The ability to go on the cross-country trip has resulted in there being a lot less country to cross.

What's a cross-country driver to do? I have recently informed my family that we will not be making the cross-country drive ever again. No one believes me, and you wouldn't if you knew me and my wife — we were married after a year of cross-country-trip dating. (Total cross-country trips: just shy of three dozen.) But to prove that I mean it, or that I mean something, anyway, I sold our car.

We live in a city, so we can do it, no problem. But I felt a sense of urgency in that even New Yorkers are driving their kids a mile to school. I have to say, I feel like a radical, which I am not.

In the 1970s, when people were worried that the interstates would change driving from a sport into a government-regulated hassle, with seat belt laws and speed limits and rules they equated in part with Big Brother, the Cannonball Run was an act of protest, a seat-beltless road race from coast to coast. Today, I think that a good way to capture some of the Cannonball spirit is to walk, or bike, or even just rent a car once in awhile.

We'll take a train across the country, or fly to grandma's out in Oregon, which is at last cheaper than driving. But we're going to mainly spend time closer to base — vacation-wise and for life in general. After all these years of seeing America, I feel as if I have to spend some time seeing what's left of what I call home.

ROBERT SULLIVAN is the author of "Cross Country," just out in paperback.

Sold

2007-06-13T13:59:00.000-04:00

Finally, we sold our car. And may I just say that, so far, one of my favorite things about selling my car is handing in my license plates and getting the little slip back from the division of motor vehicle that says, "Surrendered."

Nature Behind Bars: Springing!

2007-05-09T22:16:00.000-04:00

If you spend a lot of time crossing the country, if you spend years and years traveling, sometimes you just want to sit at home and stare out the window, past the fire escape. Sumer is icumen in, but before that: Spring!

A Note on My Typewriter

2007-05-09T15:17:00.000-04:00

We take a typewriter with us on the road cross country. We take it into the motel rooms for postcards, for making excellent faxes, for fun, if I am awake enough to see or too coffee-ed up. A dream: to carry-on the typewriter, to take it up in a plane, to pull down the seatback tray and begin banging away, another kind of Mile-High Club. We probably don't have the nerve.

Overview

2007-05-01T09:28:00.000-04:00

So many times have we crossed the country. So many times have we left the Atlantic Coast, climbed the Appalachians, made our way through the Midwest and into the Great Plains, busting through the Rocky Mountains and the Cascade Range to Oregon. Likewise backwards. So many times have we said we would not do it again and did. And so this year the same. Or maybe not.