Tag: photo essay

• 1970s New York, through the lens of a taxi driver

  

  Even if you never experienced it yourself, we have all heard the lore of 1970s New York City. It was a raw, dangerous, and unpolished city that was simultaneously teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and providing fertile ground for artists and many other forms of expression (some suspect and some not).

  Jane Jacobs is famous for saying that “new ideas often require old buildings.” And the New York of this era was exactly that kind of city. Artist Donald Judd (a favorite of mine) bought his five-storey cast-iron building in Soho (on Spring Street) around this time (1968). He paid just under $70,000.

  So it is perhaps easy to romanticize this more accessible (and equitable?) version of New York. But there were many other things going on the city at this time beyond minimalist art in Soho loft buildings.

  This photo essay by Joseph Rodriguez does a great job at telling some of those other stories in a decidedly humanistic way. Joseph was a New York cab driver from 1977 to 1985. And his final years, he had taken up photography and had started documenting the people and the city through his windows.

  His incredible photos are also available in this book called, TAXI: Journey Through My Windows 1977-1987.

  Photo: Joseph Rodriguez

  2022.07.15

• Largest airport in the world

  

  I just finished scrolling through these photos (from the Atlantic) of Beijing Daxing International Airport, which is currently under construction about 46 kilometers south of Tiananmen Square. The first phase is expected to open in the second half of this year. It will be about 7.5 million square feet and be capable of handling some 72 million passengers per year (100 million at full build out). 

  Supposedly all of this will make it the largest airport in the world, which is pretty impressive considering Beijing Capital International Airport is already one of the busiest in the world. It too moves around 100 million passengers a year and is likely to overtake Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta in the near term (if it hasn’t already).

  But in addition to being the biggest and baddest, two other things stand out to me about the design of Beijing Daxing. 

  The first is its starfish design. This was done to minimize the amount of walking between security and gate. Check-ins happen in the middle of the starfish and then the most you’ll ever have to walk is 600m (to end of one of the limbs). That’s in line with what most people would consider a reasonable urban transit radius.

  The second is the fact that the check-in area provides an aerial view of the gates below. You can see this layering in the photos from the Atlantic. This was done to create a visual connection between passengers and their family and friends. Usually, the goodbye waves happen at or before security. Here you get a bit more time. (Will security be an issue?)

  For the full set of photos from the Atlantic, click here. I have a thing for airports, so I thought this was a great set.

  Image: Wang Mingzhu via the Atlantic 

  2019.01.23

• Art is the new steel — a photo essay of Hamilton, Ontario

  Today, myself and a few others spent the afternoon urban exploring Hamilton, Ontario with Thomas Allen of the blog, Rebuild Hamilton. If you don’t read his blog, you should. Since he started writing about 3 years ago, he has really emerged as the online voice of Hamilton’s urban resurgence.

  If you’re from Toronto, you’ve probably been hearing rumblings about good things happening west of the city. Rumblings about people leaving overpriced Toronto for greener and more affordable pastures in Hamilton, and even that it was destined to become the Brooklyn of Toronto. That basically means Millennials, trendy coffee shops, and beards. (For the record, Thomas’s beard is very nice.)

  With all this talk of affordable housing and beards, I decided that it was time to make a pilgrimage. Below is a short photo essay of what we saw.

  We started the day east of Hamilton where we found this beauty along the waterfront. I don’t know who designed it, but it’s called the Cube House and it was construction managed by Toms + McNally Design. You’re going to want to click through to their website to see the interior photos. 

  

  We then made our way downtown to Jackson Square. Jackson Square is one of two downtown malls (the other is the post-modern City Centre Mall). It has seen a lot of investment in recent years and I was impressed to find a thriving grocery store. 

  

  Then came a taco and craft beer pit stop at The Mule. I would definitely recommend this spot if you happen to find yourself in the area.

  

  Following this, we walked James Street North, which we were told has only really come up in the past 5 years or so. And alongside with this resurgence has come the slogan: Art is the new steel. This, of course, is responding to the fact that Hamilton is the steel capital of Canada, but that the industry is facing many challenges. I think it’s a neat slogan.

  

  On James Street we stopped in at Saint James Espresso Bar & Eatery, and it was everything we had hoped for and more. It was more because not only was it a cool space with great coffee, but they had some fancy thing called steam punk coffee.

  

  After James Street, we then drove around checking out some of the other areas in the city such as Kirkendall and neighboring Dundas.

  All in all, this afternoon was a great reminder that we are truly living in an urban century. It’s not just the Toronto’s, Berlin’s and Shanghai’s of the of the world that are laying down bike lanes, investing in art and culture, and generally reimagining their city centers. It’s also happening in smaller and mid-sized cities such as Hamilton. And that’s really exciting.

  2016.01.03