Evening bike-around: Anchorage remnants
May 8, 2018 at 7:35 am | Posted in alaska, anchorage, photo du jour, Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: abandoned, anchorage, reflections, tour
One gets busy with work and life and forgets to stop and smell the abandoned buildings. Tonight for a couple hours I got back out there and checked on the condition of the less celebrated parts of the city.
When I stopped to take this photo of this small multiplex on San Roberto Ave., three kids playing in the yard next door shyly asked why I was photographing the building. “I like how it looks, with those concrete block walls, wooden bars, metal fencing and pavement. The things we do for cars, eh? How to wreck the front yard?” They laughed a little and probably wondered how long ago I had lost my mind.
Community Park Loop, a street near East High School. It was installed in the mid-1980s and was planned as the future home of a variety of social service institutions and agencies. It entered into an ownership dispute of some sort involving the Alaska Mental Health Trust. I don’t know the details and they don’t matter so much to me. The net result is an interesting juxtaposition of a finished street and sidewalk running through a pristine forested tract of land, an experience increasingly rare.
This little house fronts E. Dowling Road just east of the New Seward Highway. Property tax records show it has 1,035 square feet, two bedrooms and one bath and was built in 1950. The property is owned by the State of Alaska DOT/PF — assuming it was acquired for a future expansion of the roadway interchange. The six lane elevated highway bridge a block away contributes a dull roar and there’s a lot of traffic on Dowling during the day, but not so much when stopped to look. There’s a piece of the residential neighborhood still extant on a couple streets north of this house. Along Dowling, a couple other houses can still be seen integrated into sites of auto repair shops, warehouses and storage lockers. In 1950 Dowling was part of a winding route leading out of Anchorage to the south. The outbound road had only been open a couple years and was rough and partially complete. It must have been quite an expedition, especially in winter to get from this house to the nearest grocery store downtown. It was probably quiet and peaceful most of the time, which is difficult to imagine now.
This building next to the 1950 vintage house was a busy gas station convenience store in the ’90s.
Ten Commandments banner and front of this tidy little church on E. International Airport Rd., directly across the street from the Great Alaska Bush Co. Show Club, a strip bar. Churches are doing a little better than bars at this moment in time. Either this building, or another nearby [can’t remember for sure] was the longtime location of Hansen’s Hubcaps. I must have a photo of it someplace in my film archives. Someday I will organize it. There must be some gems in there!
Part of the street facade of the old Sears Mall Carrs grocery store, opened 1968 and closed 2015. Recently Safeway [owner of Carrs since 2000] announced they will build a new Carrs at the other end of this same mall in the space just vacated by the closing of the Sears store. The mall owner has plans to redevelop the former Carrs for a new anchor tenant to be determined. The new scheme is really nice looking, and updates the exterior while somewhat paying homage to the original gold and dark brown scheme here. Safeway remodeled all the other Carrs locations to a greater or lesser degree, but this one when it closed still looked just like it always had.
Updating Cysewski
March 29, 2015 at 3:46 am | Posted in anchorage, art, Uncategorized | 1 CommentTags: 1970s, alaska, cysewski, now and then, photo documentation, stephen cysewski
This was an idea of Jon Lang’s — a longtime friend who has come into his own as an independent Producer/Director of art films lately. [He and I have talked about joint ventures on art projects before but I’ve never followed through.]
Stephen Cysewski has been getting lots of buzz for a long time about his 1970s photos of Anchorage, Fairbanks, Seattle, Tacoma and other places. Jon’s idea was that he and his wife, local photographer Jamie Lang and I would go around and take contemporary photos matching Cysewski’s four decades old ones — and be able to observe how much the physical settings had changed, or had not.
Some of the locations of the vintage shots are easy to spot, others not so much. But we enjoy a challenge!
Today I got the ball rolling. First I picked out some shots from Cysewski’s site and printed them at approx. 3×5. On the way back home, I stopped at a few of the sites. Prints in hand, I tried to recreate the shot from the same angle, as closely as possible. Some were more successful than others.
Maybe we’ll work on this some more, refine the approach and technique? But this seems like a decent start! Kind of fun, isn’t it?
This was easy to place because there’s another photo of it on Cysewski’s site of a sign in the front yard that includes the address [cropped out of this view]. There was a fortune teller in here when Cysewski wandered by [on W. 6th Ave. between H and I Streets] back in the ’70s. This little house and the one to the left of it are now gone, but the one on the right [at 825 W. 6th] is still there and in recent years was a Chinese restaurant, though it now appears to be closed. The front yard was decreased by a widening of 6th Ave.
Same location today.
This one was easy to composite, by matching the Capt. Cook Hotel tower in the background, and the dormer on the house that’s still there.
This scene has hardly changed at all. For a long time in the ’80s and ’90s the tile was covered up with beige paint, but later they had the sense to strip it off. The building is owned by the Catholic Archdiocese. The owner of the tile business was Elmer Eller, as I recall. He moved it out of downtown in the early 1980s, and then went out of business.
The first Denali Tower, at 2600 Denali St. The business development of Midtown was just getting a head of steam, and when this tower was completed in 1977 it looked out of place among small houses and low-key side streets. Cysewski’s view is from Cordova St. looking east.
Today the houses are gone and their lots are part of an expanded parking lot. A second Denali Tower with 13 stories was finished next door at 2550 Denali St. in 1983.
This place just seems like the archetypal Pipeline era establishment [at E. Fireweed Lane and Fairbanks St.]. In the ’80s it was a branch of El Toro Restaurant [they had a bigger one in Wasilla] and later it was Steve’s Sports Bar. Recently it’s been vacant. Last year somebody stripped the exterior and began renovations that have since stalled.
This place on E. 4th Ave. just west of Gambell St. was suffering a lot of deferred maintenance issues but nonetheless seemed to be some sort of State offices, judging from the Chevy Nova staff cars with State of Alaska seals on the doors.
It looks quite a bit better now, and it and the larger building to the right are a seedy residential hotel [but it’s better than living on the streets].
Used car lot where a boxy low rise state office building now sits [it’s just a little newer than this photo] and a fast food place, Malay’s Sandwiches that today is Burger Jim. Looking east at 4th and Gambell.
This was the hardest one to create a composite from the two images. The original was taken with an SLR from inside a car, the one today with an iPhone 6 standing in the street. I was able to sort of line up the mountains, but the rest of it looks a bit unconvincing.
Side note on this one: The large building-mounted sign on the sandwich place in the old photo was only recently removed. I took its photo in 2009.
The last stops on today’s tour will be Mt. View. Here’s Cysewski’s candid looking east from Mt. View Dr. and Bragaw St. in the ’70s. He was probably standing right where I was, at a short section of solid wall next to large plate glass south facing windows of a laundromat. The gas station that’s just cropped out of the view was torn down in 2009 in favor of the Credit Union 1.
This one includes what was then Alaska State Bank and is now McKinley Services in the foreground and Jamico’s Pizza [that is still there, remarkably] beyond. Mt. View Dr. just east of Bragaw, view looking SW.
Insomniac writing studio, Part I
November 30, 2014 at 1:00 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: experimental storytelling, insomniacs studio, substitution of terms, third person, writing
The locas twittered drunkenly outside his window, hopping on limbs of the bare winter lilac, and he became distracted.
He was considering another trip to middle America — in the stairway to the roof, the last trip? He wasn’t sure, but he felt ready to do it again. Partly as a way to make good on the bluffing of the last couple trips; partly just to get away; partly an opportunity to plan photo safaris in increasingly bleak [to him, compelling] Rust Belt scenarios.
He wondered about the schedule of Jackeen J. O’Malleys. Would it be Seattle straight through to Chicago again? Or cheaper to go some circuitous path — Salt Lake, LA, Phoenix, Memphis? He wondered whose job is it to dream up these chicken fat connections? It must be a computer logarithm, because what human would think it made sense to veer hundreds of miles off in another direction? The more direct the better, he told himself — the crawl space at an apartment construction site just made him weary.
His friend in Springfield, Missouri had suggested a road trip to NOLA in a Studebaker Avanti — but he wasn’t getting his heart set on the idea in case it is drawing dead. He thought, what would that be like, anyway? A bit like ‘Sideways’ only with rednecks, truck stops, motels and roadside kitsch, instead of wine bars and boutique restaurants and the Napa Valley? A shmoo on a branch outside turned its head and looked at him with a reassuring face, as if to say, you want to be all in on that one, even if there’s ample opportunity to fold.
At the base of a rock wall next to train tracks, it seemed as if it would take multiple trips to really scout out the surroundings and find the images others couldn’t or wouldn’t. The difference, on a picnic table in a closed campground was he knew what subject matter and images he was seeking — thanks to fruitful mentoring by an extremely creative and imaginative artist/photographer.
He decided he was as prepared as he was going to be to Drinky Crow the skies to the heartland. Suddenly, swiftly on the living room floor all that was needed was [of course!] money — for a plane ticket and to get around on the ground — for this not to turn up snake eyes.
Back to work, he whispered. In the attic of the garage much needed sleep.
5-8-14
May 10, 2014 at 5:25 am | Posted in photo du jour, Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: avocados, daily photo, grocery store, ripe, stickers
Checking out the sand dune at Kincaid Park
May 4, 2014 at 8:19 pm | Posted in anchorage, Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: alaska, anchorage, kincaid park, sand dune
The denuded area of Kincaid Park along its southern coast had been there for many years, but in the ’90s sometime the authorities started to get a bit more concerned, and wondered [with good reason] if a large part of the park was turning into a desert? I’d heard about the sand dune for years, and seen signs of its presence but had never seen it in person.
These geo-cachers give a pretty good basic explanation of what happened there.
And Alaska Dispatch has a good photo gallery and description of the area from 2011. Their headline might seem alarmist, until one sees this landscape in real life. Descriptions and even aerial photos don’t really do it justice. The dune head seems like it could swallow the Anchorage bowl.
Here’s a few of my photos from Mayday evening.
Reinventing Edith Macefield
April 22, 2014 at 5:21 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: ballard, edith macefield, nail houses, seattle, story ideas, writing
Recently somebody randomly contacted me through Flickr about my 2008 photos of Edith Macefield’s house. [I happened to be visiting Seattle the week after Macefield’s death and I went by there and had a look at some notes people had placed outside her house.] They were looking for info about Macefield for an article in the Architecture section of a Czech web site.
This is what I wrote to them [hastily, including every grammar and sentence construction mistake in the book]:
I didn’t know who Edith Macefield was but I noticed her house for the first time in 1988 while working at an architectural firm a couple blocks away. The Seattle neighborhood was really a mixed bag — charming but gritty mix of industrial waste, marine infrastructure and support businesses, auto shops, vacant lots overgrown with blackberry vines and cars rumbling over the 1912 vintage Ballard bridge. Her tiny, square house with pyramid-shaped roof and little dormers was modest and well kept. There was a blue Chevy compact parked on the street in front of the house. A small yard, a tree and a clothes line; and rose bushes behind a low wire fence.
In 2008 I learned a lot more about Macefield when her story was publicized in the news media. She put up with a lot of changes in the decades in the house — a warehouse next door became a refuse transfer facility, then an abandoned, graffiti covered eyesore. Homeless people roamed the streets and camped out in old RVs under the bridge. Still, I can totally see why she stayed. The house was well sited on a low traffic side street, just far enough from the bridge so the noise wasn’t too annoying. Great south facing sunny lot.
She became a local and then national folk hero by refusing to sell out to the mall developer. As much as $750,000 was offered, as I recall, but Macefield said the place was priceless to her.
One of the aspects of Seattle I really appreciate, and part of what makes it a great place on Earth [despite all the changes] is that by and large they have allowed the old and new parts of the city to mingle and co-exist. At least this has been the case lately and for a while now. Perhaps this partly resulted from a rather overzealous approach to redevelopment that prevailed from the late 19th century at a furious pace through the 1930s, and to a lesser extent until the mid-1960s. The tidelands between downtown and West Seattle were filled in, the forests of Ballard and the North End knocked down, creeks undergrounded/ducted, the Duwamish River was channeled, and a series of street regrade projects ensued including the destruction of Denny Hill [chronicled in the novel ‘Madison House’]. Later the demo of lots of downtown buildings along the route of Interstate 5 fomented another round of growth shock — the Pike Place Market [the most famous and loved Seattle landmark] narrowly escaped the wrecker’s ball in this period.
I don’t really know but assume all this contributed to people being in less of a hurry to mow down everything that’s old and in the way.
And that was why, in a few days following her death, scores of people who didn’t know Macefield stopped by her house to leave anonymous notes on her fence expressing admiration for her steadfastness and lack of greed and crass calculation; and for having the good sense to know when she had a good place and sticking with it through good times and bad.
And recently I received a follow-on message with a link to the resulting article. It loses something in translation but is still compelling and, um, sort of hilarious!
Reflecting on it more, I am starting to think we are all getting Macefield wrong. It’s been difficult to find out anything about her via casual reading around on the web. She was 83 when she became a story. And by most accounts, she didn’t care for the attention. Perhaps she felt like she was living in a ‘Twilight Zone-ish, end up in hell’ scenario where she was surrounded by people who had lost their minds? She was doing fine with her books and her opera records and probably just wished everyone would leave her alone. Certainly wouldn’t care about hipster tattoo tributes to her tenacity and principles.So I am considering trying to dig a little deeper, and write a story about her house and property with less emphasis on what happened after 2006, and more about the 106 years the house was there before 2006.
AZ
May 13, 2013 at 5:20 am | Posted in Uncategorized | 2 CommentsTags: arizona, AZ, R&R, recharge, travel, vacation
It was supposed to be a week in Mexico, but airfare from Anchorage was prohibitively expensive. So, Michele traded it for a week in Scottsdale, Arizona. I had never been to AZ at all, so it was a new experience.
The first place we went was Jerome. We headed north on Route 17, got stuck in standstill traffic a couple hours… finally got moving again. Turning west on Route 69, through more desert [and Prescott] and then climbed up through the trees to the mighty Mingus Mountain! Something like 200 turns in 12 miles. Here is Michele negotiating a blind curve in our rented VW Beetle.
Jerome is a funky little town that was a 19th century mining town, then later was nearly abandoned. Today it’s a mix of full time residents and accommodations for tourists [B&Bs, wine bars, shops and galleries]. Steep switchback streets and buildings clinging to steep rock cliffs. Totally charming.
We went back on our last day. Next trip, maybe we’ll just stay here [Scottsdale was nice, but it’s a little rich for my blood].
A rock formation near Sedona.
One of the newer museums in the area is the MIM [Musical Instrument Museum] in Scottsdale. We were overwhelmed by it. Lots to see — too much, really. Built by the former CEO of Target, it is a first class facility. It’s organized by continents, and runs through a musical history of the world with displays and accompanying video clips. Here is a Hammond B-3 organ. You’ve heard this in a lot of popular songs, even if [like me] you didn’t know what it looks like.
Custom turntable and mixer from the Hip-Hop section of the MIM.
The beginning of a 90 minute tour of Taliesin West. This was my trip highlight. It was all I’d imagined and more. I really appreciated the perspective our tour guide gave to Frank Lloyd Wright’s life, work and character. All the anecdotes and stories — priceless! He was, and continues to be an outsider — designing against the current and the European tradition.
Most of Wright’s art collection isn’t on site anymore, but there is this dragon. I almost wanted to come back for the evening tour so I could see it spit flame! It was funny to think of the old man and some Hollywood actors hunkered down watching movies in one of the theaters there in the 1940s.
We went to the Heard Museum in downtown Phoenix. An amazing place. Loved how they have integrated modern galleries without changing the classic exterior. There was a whole world of native artifacts and some contemporary exhibits too. This shot is from an installation about Indian boarding schools, in all their ghastly horror!
The development pattern in the greater Phoenix west valley is kind of shocking — a low scale pattern of strip retail, large lot residential and high speed arterials spreads out for miles and is still under construction. But I noticed that in 50 to 75 ft deep buffer zones along the arterial roads there is still a functioning desert environment with all kinds of plant and animal life.
Michele at the Desert Botanical Garden. I like this photo for the atmosphere, even if it isn’t the greatest portrait and has a blown highlight.
There’s nothing like getting out of Alaska once in awhile! I always stop and marvel at large trees, because in Southcentral we really don’t have any.
Another highlight was Cosanti, the home of architect Paolo Soleri and the place where wind chime bells and other handcrafted art pieces are produced. This was really worth seeing! Next trip, I will go to Arcosanti!
My old co-worker, friend and real estate guru Peggy tipped me off about Cosanti. I had a nice lunch with her and caught up. And she gave us some great tips on restaurants. We had a grilled artichoke and I had a ‘Macho Salad’ at Bandera in Old Town Scottsdale. Man, was that good! Wow.
So long, AZ! I had a great time and will be back!
Wheely dream
April 10, 2013 at 3:51 pm | Posted in alaska, Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: alaska, dream, random, what does it mean?
I became concerned when I got close. Something had gone wrong at our cute little split level while I was away for a few months. Maintenance was out the window. The yard was littered with junk cars. Windows were broken, doors displaced and hanging loosely, trash everywhere. Water trickled from a hole in the wall. Inside the place looked like it had been ransacked. Unattended children and others were milling about.
I found a woman who seemed to be my stepmother. She looked ashamed and began to explain. I said, ‘Wait! Hold that thought! I just need to go up to my room for a few minutes.’ In my 11×11 room in the back corner of the upper floor I found my friend Bruce sitting on a little cot in the corner. There was also a hastily and badly built large bed that filled up most of the rest of the room, with three sleeping positions in a row with light blue wool blankets with dirty white pillows. Boarders from Russia, to judge from the style of the blankets and the few personal items.
‘Bruce, I have to have my room back immediately. Isn’t there someplace else you and these guys can go?’
We walk downstairs to the basement. Only it isn’t the same basement. It is as big as a football field with a 24 foot high ceiling. On the far end there are some big gates and it appears to be open to a light filled valley beyond. There is nobody around but there is some earth moving equipment parked there, and some walls have been framed. We walk to a spot on the far wall. ‘The Russians could move down here,’ I suggest. ‘They could each have a suite as big as a house, instead of sharing my small room.’ Bruce looked at me with a frown, as if to say that isn’t going to happen and I can’t tell you why.
Such a strange atmosphere. It’s like the owners have become tenants. The house is part of a huge project, but the profits are going to an absentee slumlord who is letting the property become a rundown health hazard!
Awake and thinking about it for awhile, I decided the whole dream was a metaphor of Alaska.
Sudden, unexpected death of a friend
February 27, 2013 at 11:16 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: anchorage, john woodward, obituary, tribute
I didn’t know John Woodward before the accident. Sometime in the 1980s he was thrown from a car in a crash and suffered brain damage. After that he was prone to seizures, had to take lots of prescription medications and occasionally experienced blackouts. Nevertheless, he impressed friends and family by putting his life back together, and advocated for other disabled people to be able to live independently.
I met him for the first time in 1989. I would rather hang around with him than a lot of other people I knew. Communication wasn’t always the most linear, but I found him genuine in a way I find few of my other friends — he lacked a tendency to back stab or toward actions justified by moral relativism. He was enthusiastic. He always asked about my two sons and wanted to hear all about them, as bad as the news sometimes was. He would tell me to support them as much as I could and to be a good role model.
He was on the way back to his sister’s house from a grocery store a few days ago when he experienced a seizure, and then cardiac arrest.
Rock on, John! Wherever you may be now.
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