Daily Commute: Actual Commute Photos

The city of Philadelphia has emerged from its brutal month-long winter (remember the 70+ degree days in January?), and spring is fully up and running. Extra long lunch breaks outside, beautiful women shedding oversized outerwear, unpredictable winds that make sitting in the sun a requirement, this is such an easy time to live in Philly. I'm a big fan in all seasons, but spring seems to be when everything is at its best here. Accordingly, there should be plenty of photos coming throughout the season. I've established a working relationship with my new camera (now with 1/3 less megapixels!) and hope to have taken my last subway ride for a while. The pictures from the past week's commute:

Save

Catacombs under City Hall

First blossoms, seriously I'm a geek about spring in Philly.

Ahem

I also love when business spills on to the street.

Daily Commute: The Resurrection

Following in the proud tradition of Fantastic Four: Rise of Silver Surfer, Rocky V, and Long John Silver's, I am resurrecting a franchise that maybe should be left in the archives. My work commute photos have been on hiatus as a result of a broken camera, but Seth was nice enough to ship me his (quite) old Olympus so I could start up again. To prepare you for the upcoming return of more poorly composed, badly lit, and clumsily executed pics you may or may not have despised before, here are five pictures from my personal archive. Appropriately, the theme of my morning crossword puzzle was a quote: "Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm."

30th Street Station, Philadelphia

War Eagle Mill, Arkansas

Great Sand Dunes National Park - Middleofnowhere, Colorado

Just off the 16th Street Mall - Denver

Denver Botanic Gardens - Um, Denver

Actual commute pics will be back next week!

Daily Commute, The Denver Edition

Another bitterly cold week in Philadelphia, combined with a lack of gloves, kept me from taking any new photos this past week. I've decided to pull out a few from the archives; I did something similar for the year I lived in Denver (there are lots of older posts on the subject if you look through my other writings on this site). The two cities have a starkly different look and feel, and I think can be seen in even a random picture of trash cans. Maybe that's just because I took it. The thin air in Denver made me forget to turn off the date stamp thing.

Just a note to visitors who may not have been following this series, I know these are not "good photos." There are plenty of sites out there that provide them better than I ever could. This is documentation of finding something interesting or worthwhile in the midst something mundane, walking to work.

I'm not sure if the person who put the Welch's can there was trying to make some sort of statement, but it made me laugh.

There was nowhere near as much street art in my Denver neighborhood, but the alleys did stay pretty well-tagged.

The different building styles by era are really crazy; there was never any attempt to make the new fit in with the old Cap Hill buildings. Every block seemed to have both a 1890s old money stone manor and a 1950s aluminum sided high-rise eyesore (not the one pictured).

There are no houses in the alleys of Denver, only banged up trash cans.

I only took this one because someone had taken the time to chain up their shopping cart with a nice lock.

Daily Commute - Part 3 February 5, 2007

This past week has been entirely too cold to pause for very long en route to the subway. I did get a few pictures of the most substantial snowfall we have had; it amounted to about a half-inch and was all gone by 2 p.m. that same day. Here are five of my favorites.

There are a few of these guys standing guard outside the Presbyterian Historical Society, which I manage to forget exists despite the fact that it is across the street from my apartment.

A lot of maintenance goes into upkeep of the brick sidewalks and walls along the streets, especially when a car plows through the wall at 3 a.m. one morning.

Did you ever notice that In-Sink-Erator has a complete monopoly on the garbage disposal industry? I have never seen one that was another brand, at least when I've looked, which hasn't been all that often.

Getting a head start on the art of tossing cigarette paraphernalia on the street.

Another one of the half-dozen very old cemeteries that I pass every day. I've read that hundreds of soldiers were buried in Washington Square, as well. One day Philadelphia will be a huge oil reserve.

Monday Mosey

This quote may be a bit melodramatic for a Monday morning, but since I've decided to make the photos I take to and from work everyday a regular feature on SixTalkingHeads (click here for the initial entry), I thought I would share a bit of the underlying philosophy.

I have learned that what I have not drawn I have never really seen, and that when I start drawing an ordinary thing, I realize how extraordinary it is, sheer miracle.

- Frederick Franck, " The Zen of Seeing"

It was easy to see things differently this morning, as they were blanketed by the white stuff for only the second time this winter. But here are five photos from the five snowless walks to work last week.

This is across the street from my apartment and is said to be the most haunted place in Philadelphia. I think that all stems from the Nicholas Cage movie, National Treasure, that was shot here, because it was scary bad.

They just don't make paint like they used to.

He's a chip off the old block.

This corner is a free publication bonanza with about twenty different honor boxes.

More broken ankles than an And1 Mixtape Tour video.

Daily Commute

I've been back in Philadelphia for nearly four months now, and on most days I have made the trip from Southeast Center City to the area right around City Hall for work. Assuming twenty work days a month, this works out to 160 times that I have had to cover a certain strip of the city. I try to vary my route as much as possible, but you can only cover eighteen blocks a very finite number of different ways. In an attempt to keep this art of my day interesting, I started bringing my camera along several weeks ago. Although I enjoy taking pictures, I'm by no means a photographer. The photos are more for recording something that caught my eye than for artistic expression. It is a really old camera. The batteries are taped in place, and I'm convinced that it's insides are not resistors and circuit boards but pulleys and levers. Perhaps a squirrel is involved. Regardless, it does the job of documenting my daily commute. Have a look.

Washington Square Park is surrounded by high-rise apartment buildings that make you dizzy if you look at them for too long.

The blueprint sign is in blue print. Clever, no?

Graffiti and the weather seem to be two of the biggest variables for the commute. New tags and paste ups appear every day if you look for them.

Ol' George Washington stands guard at an eternal flame in the square that bears his name.

The great thing about a city with so much physical history is that you never know who might have used the same set of steps that you are walking up. It could have been Ben Franklin or an 18th century homeless guy. Steps don't care who you are.

On to part two of the walk, click here

Daily Commute, Continued

Continued from part 1
Some more shots from the second leg of my walk to work...

I call this first one Hipsters Are Bad for Business. Just kidding hipsters.

I'm very thankful for our forefathers' impracticality in building, all the extra detail and decoration give a lot of personality to the structure itself, which ends up adding to the personality of the city as a whole.

Rodin's The Thinker gets a super close-up. I went to his museum a few weeks ago and was taken aback by the depth and volume of naked old men (Balzac in particular) sculptures. This is not an artist who shied away from the realities of the human form. Definitely worth a visit, though.

The Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul has always been one of my favorite Philadelphia buildings, although it is tucked away along the Ben Franklin Parkway. The contrast of the oxidized dome and sculptures with the dark rich stone exterior is striking.

Rising up in the background is the soon to be completed Comcast Center, which will be the tallest building in the Philly skyline. The tower will feature waterless urinals and other energy efficient design aspects. Well done.

There it is! Now that it is getting cold, I've been taking the subway more often, and everyone knows nothing could possibly make that experience more interesting.