Thursday, April 19, 2007

Seeing what is to be Seen


I've never seen a dog more unconcerned with my presence. When I first walked by I was struck by the attitude and expression of this dog, as it seemed so human. I came back 25 minutes later with a camera and nothing had changed.






I've seen this peculiar building a few times, near Marshall St. in the Carver area of Richmond


The spiral exit to a faux highway - the kind that goes through housing projects, is filled with cracks and patches, and only sees a few cars at a time.


Used every day.


A small scale contractor owns that van, and sometimes can't start it for 20 minutes. All the while he guns the old engine, making for a fantastic alarm clock.





This neighborhood still has the cars from when it was a considered a middle-class suburb... obviously inficating that is no more.


Repeated flooding in Battery Park has coated mud all over some areas, and ravaged the tennis courts.

The problem still isn't solved after almost nine months. The pumps are on what used to be a landfill, which itself broke the drainage pipe for the low lying park.






School!


What used to be almost mansions - hundreds of them - are now the crumbling homes of some of Richmonds most impoverished areas, Highland Park and Church Hill


A few new homes constructed amongst the other decaying ones pictured above and below. Personally, I find none of this architecture very pleasing, but it is incredible how the new homes have completely taken this age old and worn out style - except without all the individual flourishes that I find make the others homes at least bearable. This is just ugly



What bland and depressing dwellings most of us have to live in.




At least this one is made quirky by it's extreme length.


Of course many have no homes.


I actually took this dirt path through weeds filled with trash and under the highway bridge as the safer way to get between two streets; the nieghborhood on the hill is one of the most socially devastated in the entire city of Richmond.



15,000 or 20,000 tons of West Virginian and Kentucky coal per train, eight or ten times a day, has started to chip away at this ill-maintain rail. Rail heads really aren't supposed to have such signifigant damage like that.


The Democrats as an anti-war party: rubbish.








WELCOME TO RICHMOND! Brought to you by Wachovia Securites. Isn't it wonderful?


School bus down the type of industrial street that has 1 and 1/2 lanes and blind turns, despite heavy truck traffic.




Asphalt truck from a plant down the previously mentioned street.


Pepsi isn't so subtle. This trailer was labeled "Richmond bulk." It honorably brings thousands of useless, sugary drinks for children, students, and workers all over the area.



O street. Home of the city jail, the terrible food service provider Aramark, the courthouse, two laundry companies, several vaguely used industrial spaces, a few assistance programs, and the new homeless center.





I was in the store with this guy 15 minutes before this photo, waiting for him to finish browsing the "oops we baked to much" shelf so I could get a look.




The connotations the sound of these helicopters must have to the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere are somewhat hard to imagine so far.



A small paint factory on the James River in Richmond, near Hull St.





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