D etroit
Sidewalk Tour, Skate Travel Journals
March 2010
to Surface Motion Skate Tour
Sidewalk Tour Feb-Mar 2010
Southwest & Plains
February 2010
Feb 17
Trying to Leave: Santa Crz CA
Feb 18
Poor Sdwks, Nc Views: Phnx AZ
Feb 19 3:30 AM
Hullucntry Entry: Amrllo TX
Feb 19 10 AM
Alongside Textures: AZ, NM
Feb 20 10 AM
Sidwalk Pics on 66: Tulsa OK
Feb 20 1 PM
Red Barrel Downtn: Tulsa OK
Feb 21
Rainy Sidewalk Day: Tulsa OK
South
February 22-25 2010
Feb 22
Skipping to Memphis: Memphs TN
Feb 23 1 AM
Waiting for Morning: Memphs TN
Feb 23 2 PM
Vance St Revisited: Memphs TN
Feb 24 2 PM
Finding the Funeral Hm: Memphs TN
Feb 24 6 PM
Encounters on Beale: Memphs TN
Feb 25 8 AM
Leaving Memphis: Memphs TN
Feb 25 12:30 PM
Familiar Aves in Nashville: Nshvill TN
Feb 26 10 AM
Germantn, Farmers Mkt: Nshvill TN
Feb 26 6 PM
Decoding at Rippy's: Nshvill TN
Feb 27 10:30 AM
Last Sidewalk Mileage: Nshvill TN
Feb 27 3 PM
Through Otherville: Xville TN
Feb 28
Looking like the east: Roanoke VA
NY to Detroit
March 12-16 2010
Mar 12
Leaving NY: New York NY
Mar 13 6:30 AM
Akron Revisited: Akron OH
Mar 13 9:30 AM
Odd Shapes nr Toledo: Sandusky OH
Mar 14
Sets and Other Hats: Detroit MI
Mar 15
Woodward Ave tour: Detroit MI
Detroit to West
March 17-20 2010
Mar 17
Leaving Detroit: Detrt MI
Mar 18 6 AM
Skate Revisit St. Louis: St L MO
Mar 18 1 PM
Brief Revisit Kansas City: KC MO
Mar 18 4 PM
Kansas Still: Salina KS
Mar 19 12 AM
Unreachable Salt Lake: Denver CO
Mar 19 8 AM
Force Majeure: Denver CO
Mar 19 2 PM
Red Dirt Under White: Pueblo CO
Mar 20 8 AM
Calif Via South Rte: Indio CA
Mar 20 9:30 AM
Homeward Hassle: San Bernadino CA
Mar 20 3:30 PM
New Color Scheme: Coalinga CA
Sidewalk Tour 2009
Tour Inventory 2009
Backpacks
Clothes
Gear
Boards
Phone/PDA
Mobile blogging
Northwest: June 2009
South: Mar-Apr 2009
East: March 2009
Bridge Skate Training
Oct 08-Mar 09
March 12 - 17, 2010: Trip West from New York to Detroit
Akron, Toledo Ohio. Detroit Michigan.
Ferndale, MI. Alignment Shop
Friday, March 12, 2010 - Leaving NY, Who Knows Why
3.12 For tonight's tour revisitation we have Pittsburgh bus station. Last year about this time I was sick with diarrhea after a poor choice of Blue Plate Special. I spent quite a bit of time in the bathroom here, so I made a point of going in and completing the loop so to speak. It's not as clean as the St Louis bus station bathroom, that one is really a palace. It also brings back memeories of the bathroom in the Museum of Country Music in Nashville, another extremely clean bathroom that I was greatful for.
This trip I've very careful about eating, sticking to salads and grilled meat or poultry, and carbohydrates. While riding the bus I'm trying to avoid the condition I constantly suffered last year, having a stomach ache or upset stomach. You want to avoid getting the "bottled up bus ache", which I now believe comes from sitting on the bus and building up stomach pressure because of the confined seating. The thing to do is to get up frequently and visit the bathroom in the back of the bus, and certainly get out and enter the bathroom at stations whether you need to go or not, to try to build up a pattern of gas relief, rather than retention.
Leaving New York last year was an escape, trying to recover from a string of defeats. This time I just feel stupid, leaving my friends and promising projects and the possibility of work. On the other hand, with all the working and running around I started to wonder if I stayed in NY would I get run down and sick again. I figure it's best to go back to California and regroup for another few months to a year before perhaps returning east to tackle the arts scene that I used to thrive on.
Heading to Detroit. I guess even this trip to Detroit could be entitled revisited. I visited Michigan in 2001 and covered it on Surface Motion. It was part of a surf tour and was the first time I had ever surfed on fresh water waves. Skateboarding was not a part of that tour at all and the idea of sidewalk tour was years yet to come, but the outline was set for the future skateboard tours. That tour was the first long trip I made by bus in the US.
That visit was before the great housing bust, and even then the housing was becoming abandoned to the point of returning to nature. Should be interesting to see how much more of Detroit nature has reclaimed in 2010. HW spoke of new meadows where blocks and neighborhoods once stood.
Saturday, March 13, 2010 - Akron Revisited
Akron bus station and entrance hill in distance
On the bus I'm remembering the trip of eight and a half years ago when I was passing through Ohio at night and huge plumes of flame were going up out of the steel or oil refinery smokestacks. That would make a photo, if I saw it now.
To refresh your memory of my memory, or if you haven't read it, check out 2009 Sidewalk Tour journal on my first visit to Akron bus station and my ride down the entrance hill.
6:30 AM Reached Akron, the cool bus station I shot and skated last year. As the bus was pulling into the station I paid attention because I knew it was going down the perfect skating hill I'd traversed and skated down and run out just about a year before. Last year I was in Akron in broad daylight, but this was dark, early morning.
I shot in a direction I hadn't before, into the lit roof outside, and also toward the entrance hill.
Interesting parallel lines and contoured columns, Akron bus station
Saturday, March 13, 2010 - Odd Shapes Near Toledo
9:30 AM Sandusky, OH. The variety of shapes and sizes of bus stations never fails to amaze me. I think of the western general store style of the Weed, California station, or the historic, tiny station in Twin Falls, Idaho. The station in Sandusky was a simple A frame that managed to be quaint dispite being covered with ads and signs. It was a cafe and limousine stand, with a banner that subtly included bus station among its functions. I liked the simple deck out front and the placement behind a row of mountain-shaped bushes. Very cool.
Passengers wait outside Sandusky bus station
A frame design and placement behind shrubbery
Way in the distance something else caught my eye. Someone had built a little movie prop sculpture zoo. I zoomed in as far as my camera would go, probably beyond optical zoom, and was able to make out a dinosaur, a bear, and a hippo. I showed the pictures to a lady on the bus and so shared the sights that were a bit too far to see.
A hippo, apatosaur, and grizzly bear, 55 miles from Toledo
Whereas revisiting has thus far meant entering a familiar bus station, or riding along a familiar sidewalk, at Sandusky I revisited a sculpture shape strikingly reminiscent of my rainy day visit to the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. The Sandusky sculpture park green dino was a color variation of the black apatosaurus guarding the natural history museum.
11 AM At the Toledo bus station I noticed the nice color scheme, a kind of party palette, created by the grey-green of the building faced, a pink awning over a boutique called Sophie's Sister and a reflection of the awning in the store windows and a puddle near a metallic blue pickup truck. The colors were softened by the gray skies.
Colorful awning by the Toledo station
Noon. My friend HW met me at the station. Immediately he showed me buildings and sights I had visited last time and revived in my mind the rebirth and simultaneous fall of Detroit. The number of vacant lots and expanding fields is amazing, and the variety of abandoned buildings rivals the Bronx in the 80s.
9 PM Dearborn. We went for a drive through the Detroit sprawl to find food and a bar. The rain, lights, and signs along the road made for some nice Sidewalk Tour (from car) shots.
Detroit lights and raindrops play on the windshield
Sunday, March 14, 2010 - Building sets and other hats
Off the sidewalk into the Detroit art world. My friend HW works in theater, wearing many hats. The hats include director, actor, set designer, and conflict resolver. I took a few shots of him and his set design creation for the production of "Two Point Oh." He recounted the various agonies of directing and designing this show. The large scale of the set design is reflected in these photos. The producer suggested using a simple wooden frame to symbolize a character on TV. The character would have been onstage behind the frame. HW thought the scale of the image should be bigger than life, going along with the large set pieces. He also thought the frame was too much like an old Ernie Kovacs gag, and decided to use a large monitor, which ended up working well and thrilling the audience. Also evident is his Stonehenge themed environment and a clever rotating table which when turned allowed four different sets to be arranged from the single table prop.
HW building rotating table set centerpiece for Two Point Oh
HW with Kovacs prototype of large monitor set piece
Monday, March 15, 2010 - Woodward Ave, Detroit
Sidewalk tour of Royal Oaks and Ferndale district of Detroit
Automotive themed visions abound in Detroit. I chanced across a few while on a sidewalk tour of Woodward Ave, which I rode down from Royal Oaks to Ferndale. This areas aren't densely populated, are well kept and could be described as upscale. What kept them from seeming suburban was the presence of uniquely quirky three dimensional signs, sculpted or constructed on top of roofs of businesses. For instance, Memphis Smoke, a rib joint, had large colorful gas burner shaped adornments on the roof that made the place look like a giant stove.
Sidewalk route by Main Theater, Royal Oaks
Stove theme roof decor, Royal Oaks
An alignment shop farther down Woodward in Ferndale presented an image of automotive landscape at its most pristine. At Wetmore's alignments a clock tower had been remodeled, inserting an entire car where the bell had been, or as a conceptual bell replacement. The clock had been removed and with a bit of subtle humor, replaced by a tire and spoked wheel. The car body was carefully painted with a blue flame trim.
Ferndale, MI. Alignment Shop
The encounter of Wetmore's made Woodward Avenue in Detroit a standout Sidewalk Tour.
