From "The Strange Beauty of New York’s Bodega Ramps/These humble, concrete blobs, designed to ease entry into delis and other stores, can resemble glaciers, pancakes or clamshells and affirm the civic compact" (NYT)(free-access link).
Wilson = Tom Wilson, "the earth science teacher who was also the unit photographer for his brother’s HBO series, 'How To With John Wilson.'"
Since I am (I think) the world's biggest fan of "How To With John Wilson," I'm going to mute my criticism of this DIY mess and go with the Wilsonesque flow:
He told me he had come to regard these ramps as “urban geology,” comparing one ramp’s imprints of shoes in drying cement to fossils, or splatters of discarded gum on another to meteorite craters. Their wear and tear and layers of concrete represent to him analogous markers of geologic time. Geology aside, the photographs are deadpan, modest love letters to these messy little avatars of the urban compact....
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19 comments:
Those ramps without railings on both sides are lawsuits waiting to happen. Somone walking down the street, looking at a phone, trips over a ramp, and bingo = trip/fall lawyers will descend en masse.
The NYT condescending to “discover” ramps: it’s another anthropological incursion into “The Lives of [Strange] Others”.
What is in the thin air of NY and D.C.?
It's a ramp-control business property in NYC
"Those ramps without railings on both sides are lawsuits waiting to happen."
I once saw a large woman in a wheelchair tip over as she tried to make her way up a normal sidewalk ramp. She misjudged where the edge was and it was horrible. I called 911....
That's what becoming proficient in field geology does for you. You can look at almost any physical object and based on its state and appearance make actionable decisions based on its history. The major downside is you become a very dangerous driver around spectacular road cuts.
This is how you survive in blue cities, by ignoring city hall. If you get caught or sued, go back to Guatemala and cool off a bit, then sneak into a different city. Your landlord will get stuck for a months rent.
"as if they had been there forever, like Manhattan schist."
The Taconic Orogeny, the metamorphic event that produced the Manhattan schist, occurred 450 Mya. So, not forever. Not even close.
NYC bodegas also known for their cats. Pictures all over the net. But they're also a health hazard. Pictures of the ramps show some odd shapes and obvious sloppy construction. Imagine being a senior citizen with a cane and trying to make it up those things.
Remember when Clint Eastwood ran for mayor in California because he had to install handicapped ramps somewhere? I like pushback to regulations, just to ensure they're really necessary, but that stance didn't age well.
Anyway, this is actually great journalism. "Ever wonder about ______ that you see every day. Here's the story behind them."
So many great stories waiting to be told.
Forever is a very long time, especially near the end.
We're staying in a major (in importance) midsize (in actual size) American city at present, and everything is just so crappy. Yet everyone here is so blithely dismissive of everyone and everything everywhere else.
We used to live in this city, years back - when it first became major (in importance). Back then, everything was still crappy, but people here hadn't yet decided that they were better than the common run. It was fun back then, and the run-down-ness gave it a certain scrappy charm. Today, now - my husband and I agree that we're over it.
By contrast, take New Orleans: everything - at least in the sense of everything that ordinary residents deal with every day, not necessarily everything in the tourist hotspots - is crappy, but the residents wouldn't live anywhere else. They definitely are hugely chauvinistic about their city. But New Orleans has this storied past - a past that was both elegant and sophisticated and seedy and underground - that makes us willing to gloss over its crappy present, and it's still a lot of fun because those bon temps continue to rouler there. It's like an aging streetwalker who used to be a courtesan - she was always engaged in something questionable, but she used to be better at it and more sought-after, though now her old clients might indulgently stop by for a quickie up against the wall or something, for old times' sake.
The city we're in, not so much. It was also always a degenerate place, but the people here now have leaned way out of that, so the fun is gone, leaving only the crap.
Jamie: “ her old clients might indulgently stop by for a quickie up against the wall or something, for old times' sake.”
That’s also how the Democrat party views the American citizenry.
Time we stop giving it away.
RR
JSM
Those ramps look like DIY fails.
Shady Post apprehended.
Bodega Ramps still at large.
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From the headlines:
"Scientists discover a 220‑mile‑wide ‘hot blob’ beneath New Hampshire, drifting towards NYC"
That's gonna make one heckova big bodega ramp.
For a while, there was a cottage industry in NYC of class action lawsuits against retail stores alleging non-compliance with state and federal disability law requirements which (inter alia) mandates access for wheelchair-bound shoppers. It had a shakedown aspect to it, as a litigation mill would use the same plaintiff to sue dozens of establishments, and then quickly settle for a sum much smaller than what it would have cost to defend the case. Some of these ramps were installed in response to that. A frequent complication arose if the store was in a landmarked district -- in which event any change to the outside had to be approved by Landmarks Commission, etc.
Progressive culture is schizophrenic. On the one hand, we have the gushing admiration for the noncompliant "organic" POC workarounds for regulations and functionality.
On the other hand, we have the long-existing, rarely used curb cuts around my area - all being ripped out and replaced by much larger, code-compliant cuts. I estimate that work to cost the city $10,000 per corner, MINIMUM. Probably north of $20,000.
Pure incompetence and neglect on the part of the NYC public safety authorities. It's a cool new art form for the architectural blogs to gush over and write articles about until the whole f****** thing results in another Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which by the way was also NYC.
"On the other hand, we have the long-existing, rarely used curb cuts around my area - all being ripped out and replaced by much larger, code-compliant cuts."
Around here, they put in curb cuts on lots (but not all) the corners. The thing is- there are not sidewalks everywhere. On the corner across the street, there's a cut on both street corners but no sidewalk on either, and if you walk from the street up one of the cuts, there's nowhere to go but down the other, back into the street.
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