Cuenca is a university town, and it shows on the streets, which are covered in bright, beautiful murals and spray-painted political slogans and anarchy tags. Every 100 yards or so, I’d come across another cool painting or intriguing phrase, and out came my camera. Here are some paintings I enjoyed:
May it be spent in pursuit of magic.
Street art on the sidewalk in Brooklyn, September 2013
Monday after I visited the New York Public Library, I walked along the High Line. It’s an old freight train line that was converted into a walking path in 2004. I was surprised by how much the bustle and noise of the city faded away only a little above the streets. It was busy up there, and it was quite narrow in places so it was pretty crowded, but it was still a quieter world.
View from the High Line
Plants in the train tracks
There were plenty of places to sit, and several spots where the path branched off in an outlook over the avenues. Near 14th Street, there were a bunch of food carts set up overlooking the Hudson River, and benches set up like deck chairs where people were sunning themselves in the late afternoon light.
An old black-and-white bursts into color
Art on a rooftop
I saw lots of different artworks up there, and a guy making counter-cultural miniature paintings on cardboard, and a kid who tried to pet each blade of grass he came across. It was a lovely mile-long walk on a beautiful September day.
On the West Side
I went to Chicago this weekend, visiting friends and family I hadn’t seen for a year. I had a wonderful time catching up over delicious meals and drinks, especially as the weather gradually warmed up to proper August temperatures. I didn’t have much time on my own, but Thursday afternoon I went back to my old neighborhood, and I finally took some pictures of an art studio I’d seen from the el but never found on the ground before. Here are some shots of the great paintings I found there.
Near the California blue line stop, in case you want to find this corner for yourself
Ferrets! Right?
It’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re going (I wonder how many people leave them notes about the “your”)
This looks especially cool as the el is coming in from the city at twilight
Toronto, Canada; July 12, 2013
It’s a peculiar thing to visit a place still recovering from a natural disaster. Khao Lak was badly hit in the tsunami, but by the time I went there, it was built back up again and was a thriving tourist town. Christchurch, on the other hand, is far from reconstructed. The earthquake of February 22, 2011 hit the town center hard, and a huge part of downtown is completely shut off as workers dig up the rubble and reinforce the remaining buildings against future earthquakes.
Central Christchurch
Walking past the no-go zone is eerie; shops have been left just as they were on February 22. The neon sign for an Italian restaurant lay tipped over in the overgrown grass, and weeds poked through the pavement on a walking street that no one’s walked on in two years. I looked through the smashed window of a barbershop and saw a perfectly preserved mirror and a chair facing the outside, as if someone had been in the middle of a haircut and turned to see what that rumbling sound was.
A modern-day Pompeii
There’s a lot of controversy about how to rebuild the city, in terms of how funds are allocated and which neighborhoods get priority. Condemned buildings stand alongside brand-new constructions (which actually reminded me of some neighborhoods in Chicago that are gentrifying quickly). Insurance companies were apparently unable to pay out to everyone who was affected, and anyone who wants to buy a house now can’t even get earthquake insurance. So you invest in the city’s recovery, but you can’t get protection for potential damage to that investment. Not a great situation.
The city was bursting with art, a lot of it graffiti or pop-up displays. Some of it focused on the earthquake and the city’s resilience, and some of it was unrelated. One of the more moving pieces was a permanent-looking display on the site of St. Luke’s in the City, a church built in 1859 and destroyed beyond repair in the earthquake. The congregation have erected a small wooden bell tower, a labyrinth for reflection, and a circle of stones from the rubble of the church—one stone for each of the 185 people who died on that day.
Memorial to the 185 killed in the 2011 earthquake
I stayed with Biz, a friend of a friend from back home. She put me up in her flat near the center of town and fed me veggie burritos—perfect! The next day I walked past the destruction to the botanic gardens, which are remarkably well-preserved. The visitor’s center and greenhouses are shut indefinitely, but kids were running around the playground, and a modern sculpture rose, gleaming, from one of the ponds.
Punting along the Avon
Before the earthquake superseded whatever else anyone knew of the city, the tagline for Christchurch was that it’s more English than England. The gardens are the greatest example of this. Carefully maintained flower beds, a river named the Avon that you can punt along, and a museum built in the style of Cambridge. The park was too big to explore in one afternoon, so I focused on the famous rose garden, which is a giant circle of 250 varieties of roses, all of them wonderfully colorful and in full bloom. I had a pleasant walk around the gardens and got back to the flat just before the inevitable rain started.
Central Rose Garden
I was going to make the last paragraph something about the resilience and spirit of the people of Christchurch, and how they’re going to make their city great again. But that’s self-evident, and there’s not much to add except I admire the folks of Christchurch and wish I could stay longer to see what that rebuilding looks like.
We will smile again
Auckland, New Zealand; November 28, 2012
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