travelogue
| philadelphia, pa28 august 2002 | |
current weblog entry | |
part one | the ride down | Last weekend, I'd gone to start cleaing out Peggy's garage ~ first serious attempt since 1996 | During the drive down I take the oft avoided Jersey Shore
photo from NJ Parkway Picures -->
routes ~ Garden State Parkway and the Jersey Turnpike | The trek, even though taken on a Friday afternoon during New Yawk
megalopoli rush hour, when city habitues are all fleeing to their personal woodscapes ~ was completed in a little under 6 hours Enroute down, music and auditory distractions were successfully provided by a series of NPR affiliated through 
CT, the New Yawk metro area, NJ and donw near Philly | While it was heartening to find a Jersey shore station doing two hour broadcast of Canadian programming I was particularly thrilled with the Bop-era jazz music while sailing through Newark and New Brunswick | It put a great upbeat tone on the drive |
<-- pix o' the day | doorway in philadelphia | © 2002 - wbrady --v
Primitive me, without a cellphone, I forgot to snag a phone card before leaving CT and discovered it would cost me what I'd though to be way too cost prohibitive ...finally got one at the Mickey D's on the highway | Dining enroute was modest | A meal from home eaten cold augmented by McD coffee while watching a wedding-ringed burly blue collar guy discreetly check out the dense privacy of some bushes still within full view, while waiting for his assignation's arrival | No, I didn't go to see what they were doing in there | 
Once in Philly, I shut down the raido and took off my hat in respect to lost souls while passing Byberry Hospital | Though I can guess at the horrors, I preferred not to image their details | (photo credits here go to Shaun O'Boyle, who maintains an impressive website on Modern Ruins that's well worth the visit) |Not long after that slight side trip, I was home | More about the weekend shortly | PECO substation photo art | I don't know who took this picture | Someone who worked with my Dad took it | It has been in my Dad's garage for years, occupying a place of recognition over the garden hose and adjacent to the 
tool cabinets ...well, actually the lubricant, motor oil, weed killer, Miracle-Gro™, hose clamps, old epoxy tubes, stacks of emory cloth, ancient paints, thinners, lacquer and nuts-n- bolts storage cabinets... to be more exact. But I digress
Click here for more photos from PECO Power plants
Point being, that those same solvents and chemicals he worked with at home, he worked with on the job | And while I know it was always some measure of pride for him ~ working at Philadelphia Electric Company, I've always had the nagging suspicion that tosome extent the chemicals he used all the time on the job, no doubt increased his susceptability and eventual succumbing to, cancer | Don't get me wrong | I'm no fan of frivolous litigation | Besides, my Dad was from that generation who may have thought putting on safety goggles and gloves while in the middle of something was a pain in the butt and a monumental waste of time | But seems to me that something's wrong with this picture | And if this thread seems unfinished, well that's because it is | 
cleaning the garage | On Saturday, after a full day's lugging out boxes, old venetian blind slats, paint so dried out it was sculptural, old straw wearths hosting some kind of mite, band-saws, hand saws, a drill press and still more Hummels [I'd though she'd gotten rid of all of them years ago], deciding what to keep and what to toss with Gareth's assistance | But we did it under Peggy's watchful eyes for she's hauled out a folding chair and a thermos of ice water to stand guard over the clean up efforts |
Afterwards, we are treated to a torrential rainstorm and an atmosphere so charged that the hairs raise on my arms the same time a bolt of lightning hits an old television antenna down the block | For dinner ("...or is it supper?" Gareth asks Sienfeldesquely) we get cheese steak hoagies at Carmine's, the local deli, beer and soda store | Going there provides a fleeting glimpse into the neighborhood's changed demographics ...night-time rough trade boys with piercings and lots of attitude make our sandwiches | Outside, a potential crack-whore on Buselton Avenue tries to flag us down after we round the block twice trying to find a place to park | Stupid we are ... of course she thinks we are cruising the block for a trick | When we combe back on a fourth round, she is gone, only the memory of her billowy hawaiian print skirt in my memory | Once home, I partly listen to Gareth and Peggy good naturedly argue about small business operators, corporate crime and whether or not Abuela can take his son to church on Sundays | He is also adamant about clearing out years of clooective pact-rat detritus from the garage, all the while keenly aware that the two of us are inveterate collectors ourselves | And as for me, I'm still not certain what I'm going to do with two truckloads of Junk and Goodies | Sunday's surprise expedition | northern liberties | The surprise trip came after, by chance, I called up Philly's Northern Liberties artist and community activist Mitch Deighan [look for his mention in the article] who showed up on my mom's door steps early Sunday afternoon and took me off for a tour of the area he knows and loves so well | We drove down re-discovered cobblestone streets, past the stables that serve the carriage rides from Independence Hall tourists | Saw the site of the old 2nd Street Market, made note of several locally renowned neighborhood activists, got a glimpse of the Liberty Lands public community gardens and we looked at the now vast vacant lot that once had been the Schmidt's Brewery | We passed many chi-chi pubs, nighclubs and eatries | I wanted to see where they'd filmed 12 Monkeys segments, but we never got to that | Some of the streets we traversed were too small for the pick-up truck and we had to get out and walk
| Mitch regaled me with stories about neighbors battling with drug dealers and city hall alike (but for different reasons), talked about the efforts of cleaning up EPA Superfund sites, of the still present plight of residents without housing, and of fantastic scavanger hunts for architectural elements in long abandoned buildings |  But by far the most exciting part of the tour, was the
visit to a hidden urban forest on a street I won't name here | Already the residents are fighting against Kudzu but there are trees saved from some landscape renovations made near I M Pei's Society Hill Towers as well as a quirky sculpture garden at one end of the hidden urban forest |
Gotta admit, the site visit was altogether too brief | It was a productive chance to see how "open space" gets saved in urban settings, and a glampse of thedynamics of community renewal while remaining sensitive to history | I'll look forward to coming back for a more detailed tour in the future | OTHER SITES DEVOTED TO NORTHERN LIBERTIES
the long ride home | The ride was long, but this'll be short | Seems that I've been driving with a slowly dying battery, which decided to crap out right in front of the centermost tollbooth lane on the Pennsy turnpike in Bristol PA | I waited about an hour for the tow guys to arrive [fron Bob's in Bristol] and have to deal with a no-zone attendant who first wants me to push a truck full of table saws, big band records and other heavy stuff across about 10 lanes of traffic so he can continue collecting fares | 'No way' said I | His tollgate cohorts were making rude circling gestures around their ears, indicating I should stay right there so I ate the first of the hoagies I'd bought for the trip |
Once the garage guys got there, the three of us did push to truck off to the side, as dozens of cars and passengers waited for us to get this done | It mush have taken another half an hour before these two guys anaged to get my failing battery bypassed and the S-10s engine revved up again, and I was off | But almost as soon as I got onto the Jersey t-pike I was greeted with night-time bumper to bumper parking lot and a sign greeting me that said "Next exit 8 miles" | And I crawled to that and drove off, not knowing what road to take except north | I eventually got home at 2 a.m. | |
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