Last night I read The Public Library, A Photographic Essay by Robert Dawson. I didn’t borrow it from my public library, which is the Carnegie-built Webster branch of the New York Public Library. It’s at the end of my street … Continue reading
Tag Archives: community
I don’t shop Walmart any day. I’m asking you not to shop it today. In 1995, I started a personal boycott against Walmart that lasts until this day. If you revere small town America, then cut back on spending at … Continue reading
My research on indentured and enslaved servants’ lives has led me to mapping out their existence on historic maps of Philadelphia. I’m hoping to better understand their relation to the community, merchants, and manufacturers in their environment. I’ve found some … Continue reading
What’s great about New York City? People on the streets. In June 2012, the NYC Department of City Planning enacted zoning that requires new commercial development to fit within maximum frontage limits in the Upper West Side shopping districts along … Continue reading
Much of NYC’s life takes place underground. Last Tuesday was a holiday for my place of work, and I used the morning to get some errands for some projects done. On the subway, sometimes you are just traveling. This is … Continue reading
It’s something about the light of shops shining out onto the sidewalks, people wrapped in coats, the tall buildings above transformed into shadows, dotted with light. When I conjure the city in which I live, it’s at night. Try listening … Continue reading
Nearly fifteen years after its publication, Sarah Susanka’s The Not So Big House has turned into a movement. Visit the website here. I first encountered this volume when it was brand new, sitting in the gift shop of The National … Continue reading
If there’s one thing I felt after reading the excellent New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg ( eds. Marshall Berman and Brian Berger, University of Chicago Press, 2007), it was a compulsion to challenge the statement that newcomers to New York … Continue reading