Scenes From A Bicycle Ride
11:47 AM 3/09/2009I've been selective in choosing these images, but DC always impresses me for being weirdly rural for vast stretches. Where did my idea of a city even come from?
My old bike was not a joy to ride. Through a combination of factors, I didn't ride as much as I used to - I didn't feel the need. So when presented with a loaner, I was worried I might not be in shape anymore.
Well, I think I can stop worrying... Two days in a row I went for vast treks, not intentionally avoiding steep hills. On this particular day, I only intended to achieve Grant Circle - a moderate climb from my neighborhood. At the top of the hill on New Hampshire Ave., I stopped to take pictures of the cemetery before returning home. And then, I went further.
This is my indictment of this city: So much wasteland. Places that are neither used nor useful. And we're looking at a place right across the street from a subway station! I doubt the health of this community garden in the foreground, but I'll bet there are plenty of weekend soccer games on the field behind it. On the other hand, I do enjoy the antennas growing like weeds behind all the weeds growing like weeds. I also asked out loud the day before: I live in the city, where would I compost?
Neither am I sure that this enormous lawn serves any real purpose, natural or recreational. I assume it is the backfill from the Green Line Metro - once again, we're looking at an undeveloped parcel one block from a station.
I've seen this house by the railroad many times from the Metro. I know almost nothing about it, but it was built at one end of a rail yard when tracks needed manual switching. It's a fixture of the DC landscape to me - an abandoned railroad house - It stands in for my memories of the decaying tracks that have since been removed. As with most of my memories, I'm not asserting the claim that we turned our back on a better time, just whining that I can't visit the original stuff.
But, when I arrived to get a photo, it was clearly occupied... Somebody was fixing up the railroad house!
I took aim from under the bridge, framing the house between some shipping containers stuck in the gravel, then worked my way closer for a serendipitous correlation of light, angle, and background clutter. I love the sooty 19th century stone block with the smooth edges and rough faces. Spray paint on a board warned "Big Dog" and "No Loitering", but there was also a plastic slide propped up against a short brick retaining wall beneath the sidewalk.
Walking past, I discovered an outdoor workshop at the other end of the building - I was startled by the clean white coffee mug on a workbench. There appeared to be welding equipment and a kiln. An artist, no doubt. In the first photo, you might also be able to make out the wind chimes hanging from the steel beam - I could hear them from a block away.
As I was riding away up 8th St., I tried to recall the location of the apartment I looked at with my girlfriend in summer 1992. Three blocks look similar enough that I may never work it out, but it was a lovely little second floor unit on the end. I'm sure the trains constantly rolling past behind the light industrial warehouses across the street would have bothered us. I thought the kitchen sink looked old-fashioned then, but I've got the same sink at my place now - for most of the time since.
The only souvenir from this day to mark that memory was thanks to my habit of shifting to the most abstract concept or imagery I could find... A funky little coil of coaxial cable hanging from a utility pole.