This topic could be covered so many ways, and you got to lots of them! A couple books / projects I like when I think about cities are Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs, Cityscapes of Boston by Peter Vanderwarker and Robert Campbell, and the photographers Charles Marville followed decades later by Atget covering Paris' 19th to early 20th century transformations which then inspired Bernice Abbott to create changing New York in the 1930s. The list goes on and on. All manage to pin down some part of the intangibles of cities. Oh, and LA Plays Itself is an amazing documentary showing how even when you're not making a documentary you capture documentary details.
Great topic, Kate. I love reading literature set in the city and always find it difficult to connect to books and films set in the countryside. I also love living in a city, and am lucky in that where I live in the UK is purported to be the greenest city in Europe, where the trees outnumber people - a fact I love! - as well as being right on the edge of the Peak District National Park, so there is plenty of greenery as well as urban architecture. It is also a vibrant university city (with 2 large universities) and we live right by one of them. It means that the city always seems to be in flux as the students leave and return, and it makes for a multicultural as well as multi-generational population.
Still playing catch-up with your posts, this is probably my favorite story so far. I got stuck for days reading and exploring and checking out all the links. There's so much food for thought here.
My favorite bits this time around were two projects: smellscape mapping and the Midnight Run. Would love to try them myself. I even mailed Kate McLean but she doesn't know any Japan-based smelly projects. She proposed to work together on a Tokyo smell map. That would be fun.
Nov 1, 2022·edited Nov 1, 2022Liked by Dr. Kathleen Waller
"New York oozes life."
I love the verbiage, "...oozes" for the Big Apple. It's basically a movie trope to "ooze" in NYC...from Urban Cowboy to the Ninja Turtles. It's all ooze. Grime. Slime.
When I worked in the Village, Sullivan always felt so clean and crisp...take one step over near the Comedy Cellar and Mamoun's on MacDougal...where there was culture (and people)...you could practically feel the dirt on the street...clinging on you.
"New York oozes life." I liked it when it did that.
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Your prose is incredible. And your travels/knowledge are breathtaking.
I'll be posting my Track #4 "Old Bridges, New York" in a few weeks!
Thank you for posting this art 📖 and thanks for the like ✊
This topic could be covered so many ways, and you got to lots of them! A couple books / projects I like when I think about cities are Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs, Cityscapes of Boston by Peter Vanderwarker and Robert Campbell, and the photographers Charles Marville followed decades later by Atget covering Paris' 19th to early 20th century transformations which then inspired Bernice Abbott to create changing New York in the 1930s. The list goes on and on. All manage to pin down some part of the intangibles of cities. Oh, and LA Plays Itself is an amazing documentary showing how even when you're not making a documentary you capture documentary details.
Great topic, Kate. I love reading literature set in the city and always find it difficult to connect to books and films set in the countryside. I also love living in a city, and am lucky in that where I live in the UK is purported to be the greenest city in Europe, where the trees outnumber people - a fact I love! - as well as being right on the edge of the Peak District National Park, so there is plenty of greenery as well as urban architecture. It is also a vibrant university city (with 2 large universities) and we live right by one of them. It means that the city always seems to be in flux as the students leave and return, and it makes for a multicultural as well as multi-generational population.
Fresh from the oven, a piece on how we can make our cities more sustainable:
https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/g02235/lessons-from-old-japan-for-sustainable-living.html
Still playing catch-up with your posts, this is probably my favorite story so far. I got stuck for days reading and exploring and checking out all the links. There's so much food for thought here.
My favorite bits this time around were two projects: smellscape mapping and the Midnight Run. Would love to try them myself. I even mailed Kate McLean but she doesn't know any Japan-based smelly projects. She proposed to work together on a Tokyo smell map. That would be fun.
"New York oozes life."
I love the verbiage, "...oozes" for the Big Apple. It's basically a movie trope to "ooze" in NYC...from Urban Cowboy to the Ninja Turtles. It's all ooze. Grime. Slime.
When I worked in the Village, Sullivan always felt so clean and crisp...take one step over near the Comedy Cellar and Mamoun's on MacDougal...where there was culture (and people)...you could practically feel the dirt on the street...clinging on you.
"New York oozes life." I liked it when it did that.
-----------------
Your prose is incredible. And your travels/knowledge are breathtaking.
I'll be posting my Track #4 "Old Bridges, New York" in a few weeks!
Thank you for posting this art 📖 and thanks for the like ✊