This Week on My Street

Last spring and summer I did a few posts I called "This Week on My Street," showing the changes that are happening in the old industrial neighborhood where I live.  I thought I'd bring back the series with a glimpse at the excitement around here this winter.  When Todd and I bought our condo five years ago, we were some of the first fools people to invest in this very rundown part of an old textile mill town.  Some folks lovingly called it Heroin Alley.  It wasn't pretty.  It's still not what you'd call pretty, and to buy a place in one of the old mills on our street, you had to have faith that things would change.  You had to put up with streets lined with litter, graffiti, having your car windows bashed in (yes, this happened to us a couple of years ago, and it still happens regularly to folks who don't park in the new garage at night).  You had to put up with hookers outside (and sometimes inside) the door and addicts sleeping in the mill stairwell.  When we first moved in, our building had no real security.  We still don't have all that much, and the drama six floors down from us on the street often looks like an episode of "Cops."  In fact, some of the dramas inside our building have been, umm, scary.  Were we crazy?  Maybe.  Yet this old mill is beautiful, and we knew that we could make our little loft home.  We also knew that the city had big plans for this neighborhood.

Now, five years  later, we've seen big changes: historic buildings restored; monstrous, windowless cinderblock warehouses torn down; a new garage built; businesses moving into storefronts that had stood vacant for decades.  The new courthouse is going to be constructed just yards from our big old mill, and across the street is the best thing of all.  Above is a photo of the derelict mill that I look out at from my desk.  I took this photo last summer looking through the window screen.  Running in front of the mill is an old power canal that's really quite lovely.  Notice the old windows boarded over and painted green?  They'd been like that for many years.  I've always loved that old mill, but now, some changes are taking place . . .  

. . . gone are the boards, because, at last, the building is being renovated.  The best part is that the developers are turning it into artists' studios and retail space.  We already have lots of artists' studios in this city, but the demand is growing, and this newest development is going to be huge.  Imagine a cool studio of your very own right on the canal!  Yep, that's the canal in the photo above, frozen over.  Maybe we could go for a skate!

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These days, when I wake up in the morning, I look out my window and see these men hard at work.  Right now, they are gutting everything.  I watch them take circular saws to the floor that they're standing on, which wasn't exactly stable to begin with, and then huge cranes lift sections of floor and carry it away.  Magic!  And they do it six floors up without safety harnesses.  This week we're having loads of snow, and they're working right through the storms.  With all those windows they almost look like bees in a honeycomb.

This last shot is the building from street level.  My building looks a lot like this, but with actual panes in the windows and niceties like floors and ceilings.  I know this isn't everyone's idea of home, but it has been a fascinating place to live for the last half decade.  Todd and I never go for the house on a cul-de-sac kind of thing.  I asked earlier, were we crazy.  Yes, I think we were, but I have this thing for old bricks and canals and massive beams and living high up over the city.  Due to some changes in our lives, it's likely that we won't stay here much longer.  Wonder where we'll end up next?  Anyone want to cast a vote?

A Room (or Desk or Garden or Studio or Shed) of One's Own

This morning I worked on one of my writing projects in a coffee shop that I love.  Sometimes I seek noise and bustle for inspiration; blaring music, teenagers gossiping loudly over mochas, and lawyers on their cell phones serve as a great backdrop to certain types of writing that I do.  In fact, they create a kind of rhythm and energy that drives me forward.    
Other times, when I want to write poetry, my first love, I need to come home to the cocoon of my workspace, surrounded by my favorite books, mementos, and flowers (yes, those are the flowers from the last post--they're holding up well).  
My desk is beside a window high above an old canal.  I can hear the noise of the city below, but it is muffled by the walls of the huge old mills on my street.  I am safe and sound and quiet in my old wooden chair.  Books are stacked and arranged . . . well, everywhere.  

I keep on my desk an ever-revolving collection of flea market finds and objects from people I love.  I am particularly fond of the escort card pictured above.  Can you imagine a young man today presenting a girl with one of these?

My muse.

The harmonica was a gift for my eighth birthday from my father.  I can't play it one bit, but I always keep it on hand.  You never know when inspiration (or talent) may suddenly strike.  My brother gave me the amazing cat letter-opener--very Edward Gorey.
I am obsessed with stationery items--paper clips, binders, push pins, and notepads--so the cigar boxes help hide some of the clutter.  In the picture below you'll find my other muse, Dill.  He loves to help me write.  Seriously.  If I'm writing, he's right beside me, sometimes sleeping, other times simply staring at me for a very long time.  It's almost like he's sending me brain waves: "Think, dammit.  Be creative, girl!"
I love my desk.  It's one of the places where I feel most myself, most able to create.  The kitchen is a close second.  Where do you love to work, create, make beautiful things?  I'd love to hear about the place that inspires you to craft your best magic.

This Week on My Street

There are days when the trash-strewn streets in my neighborhood make me want to weep, and there are nights when the endless parade of crime dramas (I'm talking cops with their guns drawn--please don't read this part, Mum) that occur here becomes almost too much to bear.  Some mornings when I see the crowds of folks on the sidewalk outside the transitional living center, I am angry with myself for how accustomed I have become to this sight and to the sight of the long line of people waiting for the liquor store to open in the morning.  Our building's dumpsters are the closet and cupboard for many, many people.  Still, I chose to live here, and it can be a place of great beauty and joy, too.  I've been taking lots of photos of people and places in the neighborhood lately.  It's amazing how much easier it can be to talk to people when you have a camera in your hand--easier for the person taking the photos as well as those being photographed.  

I'm working on a fictional story right now that takes place in a neighborhood much like my own, so I'm taking photos to help me with my writing.  Today I thought I'd share a few pictures from my street.  No people--just buildings.  I'll share people photos sometime soon, too.  Oh, and dogs, too.  So many dogs!

This old ruin above is an amazing place to go digging for treasures.  I've climbed around it many times.  These days it's pretty much fenced off, but where there's a will there's a way . . .

The mills here were all for textiles.  They are laid out along canals that crisscross the city.  The shot below is of the canal across from the mill where I live.  

This old mill is what I see when I look out my windows.  An acquired taste perhaps, but I LOVE this building.  It is going to be redeveloped, which I know is good for the city, but I will truly miss the ruins.  



The shot below was taken looking through a doorway that leads from one mill to the next.  I love how the old randomly boarded-up windows look almost like stained glass.
The two photos below are of sunset from my living room window.  At this time of day we watch swifts race in and out through the old gaping windows.  The number of birds in our neighborhood is awe-inspiring.  I had taken several photos of the blue heron at the nature preserve the other day, but this morning as I walked by the canal, a lovely blue heron flew right past me here on my dirty, bedraggled street.  My whole day was blessed.