Ha, you probably thought they were actually doing something productive. No, not that Congress. Next week the 20th annual Congress for the New Urbanism kicks off in West Palm Beach. CNU 20 is going to be highly active, reactive, proactive, hyperactive... the place to be for serious urbanists who also like to party... a marvelous meeting of the stormy brains.
For links to sessions of particular interest to Transect planners, Smartcoders, sprawl retrofitters, and even photographers, visit the latest TCC News. This Street Tripper is involved in these three:
The Misunderstood Transect
Photographing the Building, Street & Town
Across the Transect (Geeks & Grounders: High and Low Tech Transect Analysis)
In case you are missing your weekly (ish) dose of frontage pictures, I posted a bunch of new ones here at the Transect Collection, taken a couple of weeks ago in the nearly car-free community of Saltaire, on Fire Island, New York. They have boardwalks for streets! Here's their T5 Village Center with boardwalk plaza.
Yesterday we promised you a better infill project than the one with all the utility meters on it. This one is just across the street from the bad one. Meters and parking in back, check. Windows in front, check. Contextual T4 building type, check. Calm block face, check. On the last point, some might say the porticos look stuck on, superficial. Perhaps. But consider this:
"If you know it is useful, and feel it is beautiful, repeat it." - Adolf Loos on architecture
Reasonable people will disagree on whether the porticos are beautiful. But there is no doubt they are useful (if it ever rains here again). Those balconies, on the other hand, WTF? How do you get to them?
All in all, though, a nice addition to the block.
We had to study this carefully to make sure it wasn't the back of the houses, but no, this is 15th Street and that's the principal frontage. The up-and-coming Francisville neighborhood has some good infill and rehab, but unfortunately this project thumbed its nose at the public realm. Let us count the ways: 1. There are blank garage fronts, instead of windows for eyes on the street. 2. The one window is strange. It's sort of a retail frontage with no sign of retail. The Home Inspector was with me and he commented that it was a "walk-through risk" because the glass comes too low. Instead, a low "knee wall" is advised. 3. Every garage represents a curb cut where communal on-street parking is forbidden. 4. Utility meters scream "back alley!" so why should we be surprised that there's trash on the sidewalk and a dumpster in sight? Tomorrow we will post a better project on the next block.
On a recent visit to Missouri, I photographed the wonderful tiny town of Blackwater (pop. 199). It sits on a rise like a boat on a sea of farm fields. It has a real traditional Main Street, a telephone museum, and one of those abrupt and thrilling T5 to T2 juxtapositions you see in Mediterranean hill towns like Pienza. Here's the view from Main.
This abandoned grain elevator stands just a block behind Main. I was intrigued by the frontage that someone had added to it, which looked like a produce stand.
I wrote to the town website for information, and here's the reply:
Hi Sandy, this is Bonnie Rapp, Blackwater 'historian' 'former city clerk' and all around 'volunteer'. You are right on both counts. The tall structure is (was) a grain elevator. It was built in 1919 by Amos O'Neal for grain to be shipped out by train. Part of it holds grain the height of the building, a low chute on the railroad side delivered the grain into box cars. On the opposite side there was a scales for the vehicle bringing in the grain, to weigh before (full of grain) and again after unloading to determine the amount of grain deposited. Of course those days are gone, as the trains no longer stop as they did back then for livestock, passengers, mail, etc. More recently, you are right again, we put a little roof over what we hoped would become a farmers market and sometimes it is. But like everything else, bigger towns with better chances for commerce has damped the idea, though sometimes a farmer will bring in melons, sweet corn, asparagus etc. The railroad even put our depot out for bids, as they did at all the small towns, and it sold for less than $100, square nails and all. It was torn down and the lumber used for a barn in the country. In the late 1990's, our mayor wished we had it back and longed to build a replica. In 2004, a bachelor, who was very community minded, starting our community theatre and other projects, died and left some money to be used 'for the good of the community'. It wasn't enough to build a new depot, but using it as matching funds for a grant, we were able to build one by the blue prints afforded us by the railroad. Of course it had to be placed back on city property and raised to get out of the flood plain, but we get great use of it. The local organizations, 4-H, Girl Scounts, Lions, Community Club use it and people rent it for birthday or wedding parties. I am happy you liked our little town. Come back to visit us again!
My frequent Street Trips around this T4 zone in Roxborough have often been profoundly depressing, because of all the block-busting, anti-urban, anti-neighborhood infill. Contrast the first condition, with its out-of-context deep sub-urban setback, its paved private frontage, and its first story for cars removing eyes on the street, with the second condition, occurring just a few blocks away. Which public realm you rather walk in? Which is safer for the neighborhood?
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Regular readers of Street Trip have probably noticed that we fall into the black hole of bloglessness from time to time. This is not for lack of anything to say. But I have as much to say in photographs as I do in words, and that requires leaving the blogspace to get into the placespace, the cameraspace, and the printerspace for awhile.
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"Anything more than 500 yards from the car just isn't photogenic."
- Edward Weston
I feel sorry for towns without stoop culture. The variety of stoops and their use as social staging areas are endlessly entertaining for the urban frontage maven.
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