Category: Thoughts
Hosta
Our second Hosta is starting to bloom. Although I am finding some things to shoot around our house, I’m anxious to get back ‘out there’ once my bones heal. Maybe August.
I keep thinking I am due to share some stats from this blog with you, subscribers and viewers. Without you the stats would be meaningless, mostly. I will post a couple of stats I think are fun and important. This blog has been going since Feb. 2009. At times I think I should take it in another direction, but the blog seems to have a life of its own and is still a joy for me to share what my camera and I are up to :-).
Be safe and treat each other with kindness.
View from the Pike Place Market
Yesterday, on a Chamber of Commerce weather day, we took our two grandkids to the Pike Place Market to have lunch and to check out the refurbed section of the Market. We traveled by bus from West Seattle; I have to insert that I think comparing NYC Subways and Seattle Metro buses is likely close to happening).
Highlights of the images ( which are all shot on my iPhone, with the aid of a detachable lens are: The Wheel, Mt. Rainier, Elliott Bay, Alki Point in West Seattle and the soon-to-become extinct Viaduct/SR99.
One of the highlights of the outing was viewing and contributing to the new Gum Wall!
Anyway, the foray into downtown Seattle for a few of hours was about all my broken down body could endure. The current Seattle agency in charge of tourism promotion of the city seemed to be doing a bang up job as the Market was jam packed, even for a Tuesday!
Crocosmia and Trespassing
The two leafy images are from our backyard. The other three, of the Crocosmia, is courtesy of our great, next door neighbors. I did trespass to get some images, but confessed ( via email) a couple of days later. The confession included an image from my trespassing adventure which got a response of “cool”.
Thanks Andrea and Chris!
Including a Bush
Since I have been posting flowers from our yard I thought it only fair I post an image of a bush. This bush has been trimmed and shaped by our son in law, who is an Arborists who works for Seattle Parks. This image is actually the first phase of the trim. He finished the trimming last week so now it is sort of a combination bonsai and topiary. This bush image was taken on my phone. The completed topiary will be shot with a ‘real’ camera :-).
Our Garden Window
Since my range of traveling has been limited to home or close to home ( due to health issues: broken bone in right foot, fractured 8th rib and a blood clot causing edema in my lower left leg-phew!) and not in the usual interesting places I find to shoot, I have some images here from our garden window. I love plants from the desert SW, and besides, they easily adjust to my black thumb!
Rose Bush: Me vs the Color Red
Partial view of our rose bush this year. I have been shooting red roses for years and it seems the color red is not my color to capture. Very frustrating. Something about red……no matter what technique or approach I use, it seems to always end in a near miss at best. The proof of that is above :-). My best effort or result to date, in my opinion, is a shot I took 10 years ago with my Minolta X700 35mm film camera. There was a black background and the rest of the image was fairly dark, but the result looked pretty good.
Duwamish Access IV
Some of the non-commercial traffic on the Duwamish River. It’s interesting that one natural resource can be shared by so many diverse interests; from various wildlife, boaters, fishers, fish and commerce.
Duwamish Access III
Two large barges being moved both up and down river by tugs. A lot of containerized freight is staged up river for transport to Alaska. I know of two large operations, one either side of the river, that specialize in collecting and forwarding freight to Alaska ( one of which I actually did a job interview for about 30 years ago-fortunately I didn’t get the job). It’s not unusual to see vehicles of all types perched on top of a stack of containers heading north. What I found fascinating is that these barges draw little water and leave hardly a noticeable wake in the path. A small speedboat, on the other hand, will create all sorts of noise and a wake that sends the ducks scurrying and bobbing about :-).
Duwamish River Access
A couple of weeks ago I went to a spot on the east side Duwamish River that I didn’t know existed. Much of what I have posted, regarding the Duwamish River over the years, has been taken from the west side at various locations. The Port of Seattle owns this access point, adjacent to the new Federal Building above ( something else I had no idea existed as it is set quite a ways back from East Marginal Way).
This area, like many along the Duwamish River, used to be inhabited by indigenous peoples. Rich in history that is almost totally overlooked by Seattleites today. I know the signs are not readable in the photos, but if you can zoom in and maybe find a few keywords to Google, you might be able to dive deeper into the history of this area. The Duwamish River used to snake its way down to Elliott Bay, but in the past ( probably for reasons of commerce) the river’s curvy path was straightened out to what it is today.
The Duwamish River, which I find fascinating, is the first EPA Superfund Site in the US and is still a work in progress 47 years on. This says something about the scope of cleaning a river estuary. Although the area is much cleaner and less polluted today, it still has a way to go. Many of the heavy polluting businesses that were located along the river have since moved or closed down. I think dredging the river bottom is not a possibility as it would stir up much of the heavy metals, etc. Similarly, in Brooklyn, NYC, I have been following the efforts to clean up the Gowanus Canal, which was declared a superfund site a few years ago. This past Fall, a Portland, Oregon company was awarded the first contract to do a superficial dredging to remove debris that was sitting on the bottom of one small section of the canal, without disturbing the sediment. I was there the week this was being done. It was just a pilot project, but was fascinating to watch. A rep from the Portland company was on site to both watch over the pilot dredging, but to be available to answer questions from the public ( such as me, who pestered her for about 30 minutes, till it started to rain). The Portland company actually contracted with the company that dredged the Love Canal decades ago, as they had the expertise and equipment to perform this sensitive work. With the new administration coming in last January, all work on the Gowanus Canal is up in the air, even though monies were allocated to get the project going.
If interested, there is a lot of info online. If you dig back in my posts to around last November ( 11th and 13th) I think I posted a few photos of the initial dredging of the small section of the Gowanus Canal. I also did a couple of Facebook check-in type postings showing the barge and crane at work.
Will be posting more from this site on the Duwamish River over the next couple of weeks. My apologies for getting a bit sidetracked. There are similarities between the two sites that I find fascinating.
Update: House on the Hill
I’ve posted, in the past five years, images of this house that has been abandoned for years in the South Park area of Seattle. I made a trip down there a couple of weeks ago and took these images. Since I last visited the house it has suffered through two arson/meth related fires.
While I was taking these images a small, wiry guy came up behind me and said ‘Hi’. Through our conversation, I learned he was the night watchman for the owner of the Marina and storage facilities along the Duwamish River. We talked for about 20 minutes. He was quite a character. He has lived in the area for years. He gave me a history of the house or as much as he knew. He witnessed both fires, one set by a person cooking up some meth on the second story wooden floor. The house is actually for sale, as a tear down of course. I tried walking in the house a few years back and the debris was waist high and probably a mine field of syringes; I stopped after a few feet and bailed out of the window I came in from, which I think was the kitchen in the back. Besides, I really didn’t know if there was someone living upstairs-addicts or homeless people.
So, for a little history that was shared with me:
After WWII the house was used as ‘transitional’ housing for Japanese Americans that were interned during the war. They transitioned from the camps to this house in an effort to reintegrate; most of the property they owned prior to internment was lost, sold or confiscated.
Sometime after that a couple bought the house and stayed in it for years. The couple were a bit eccentric, but one of their hobbies was coin collecting. Apparently they hid this collection ( valued in excess of $100,000 back in the 60’s-70’s) in a box somewhere in the house. The man died first, leaving his widow to deal with the house, which soon became too much for her as she aged. So, she moved out, but could not find the box of coins. As time passed, for reasons unknown to me, the house fell into disrepair and ultimately declined into a mess. The lady would return from time to time, looking for the box of coins, to no avail.
After the second fire, the people living in the area( like the night watchman-old timers) went in looking through the debris to see if the box of coins had burned, surfaced or whatever. They did find the box, but it was empty. It was assumed that one of the homeless people who had wandered in, had found the box, after the fire, and walked away with a pocketful of dreams.
A rich and tragic history for what was once one of the better homes, with quite a view, in South Park.
Music Update
I’ve updated the Music Bar, on the bottom right hand column, to include the full EP, Inburst, by our son ( aka: Missing Vwls). His music can be found and purchased on Bandcamp.com. Years ago he was in an instrumental band in Seattle, WA called, Autofirelife.
Check it out!
Shameless plug! :-).
Enjoy!!
West Seattle Vanished
West Seattle actually had a working flour mill, Stone Ground Mills. The mill produced Stone Buhr Flour, which we have used for years. The mill* is located at 26th and Yancy St., adjacent to what is now Nucor Steel. This area is technically known as Youngstown ( or North Delridge Area). The Steel mill was originally named Bethlehem Steel, one of the many owned by this large corporation years and years ago. Nucor Steel produces mostly rebar these days.
Here is a link to a thread which has additional photos of Stone Ground Mill. Stone Buhr Flour is still a viable product, I think. I haven’t been by the site since I took these photos, but according to the link above, it was there in 2010, which is about when I was tramping around the site (probably before the year on the watermark). The building was in bad shape 7 years ago, so I would suspect it is either gone now or …….?
*The mill is now located in Kent, Washington, approximately 10 miles south of Seattle.
Where are You?
In todays world it seems easy to connect/reconnect. Saw this guy texting on the cobblestone streets of DUMBO, in Brooklyn. After a few minutes of standing alone the gentleman was reconnected with his companion.
Outdoor Plumbing
There is a bit of history regarding this photo. Photo was taken in July of 1970, using film and decades later, scanned into PC.
Location: East Oakland, CA. A friend had recently remodeled her bathroom and the remnants of the old bathroom ended up in her backyard. She lived on Oak Knoll Rd., a few blocks from the Oakland Zoo. Across the street from her lived Sonny Barger, the head of the Oakland chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. An interesting neighborhood!
Had to crank up the “Way Back Machine” for this one :-).
House on the Hill: Update
In March of 2016 I posted a couple of photos of an abandoned house in the South Park neighborhood of South Seattle, near where I live. I resisted the location this past week and you can see the ‘changes’ that have taken place in less than a year. I couldn’t get in the house in March as it had about 3-4 feet of debris in each room-who knows what was in that mess? Now, the house has suffered a major fire ( arson, most likely) and it is mostly a charred ruin. The lot it sits on has been cleaned of dead cars and all sorts of other trash and is now barricaded off with huge cement blocks and cable. At one time this house had a great territorial view and was probably someones pride and joy.
Geometry is Everywhere
In the Dumbo area, Brooklyn. Geometry is everywhere.
End of Year
Best wishes to all who take the time to stop by my blogs!
One of my fellow bloggers ( and follower for years!) in Seattle did a post today that mentioned both of my blogging efforts. Thanks so much, Wedgewood in Seattle!! The blog is centered around the Wedgewood area of Seattle, historically and contemporarily. Great blog with all sort of information.
Locally, I seem to cover two neighborhoods in South Seattle that I am fascinated with; South Park and Georgetown. Neighborhoods change so fast. When I first started documenting, through my lens, I had a feeling these two neighborhoods were on the cusp of change. I felt someone had to document the old buildings, bridges, street art, etc. I’m so glad I did as I now have a record of ‘what was’. Maybe someday this archive of images will be interesting to someone doing research on the two neighborhoods. Seattle, in my opinion, doesn’t do enough to restore and hold onto its past; developers swoop in, demo beautiful brick buildings and put up a ‘mixed use’ structure of glass and steel.
My last op-ed for 2016 :-).
Wishing all a happy and healthy 2017!!!!
Confused?
Spotted on a building in the Dumbo area of Brooklyn, NY.
I have no idea what this means. Curbing one’s enthusiasm I get….., but this?
Coney Island/Stillwell Ave. Station
This station is the end of the F and G lines. Subway trains pull inside the large covered area and then proceed to head out in the opposite direction. The station actually faces Surf Ave. but for whatever reason, it is named Stillwell Ave. Station. I think the station got a major facelift a few years ago. Stillwell Ave. may be the street on the left ( as you look at this image) of the Station. I have entered and exited from both sides and they both work just fine, however more shops can be seen if you enter via Surf Ave. You can imagine the throngs of people heading to the beach in the summer, cascading out of the two exits. In October it is deserted, aside from a few odd travelers such as myself :-).
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