The catch-up continues in Canada: http://www.otherstream.com/2013/11/01/toronto-photos-2/
Only a few more trip albums to post, so I may go somewhere tomorrow so I can get back to being behind…
This is a really great post and I love anything that will push locals to know more about the history of there they live. That’s always been important to me wherever I’ve lived. But there are a couple of factual issues I must address because I’m OCD that way. I’m posting this here where a maximum of twelve people will ever read it because there doesn’t seem to be a comments option on the article (EDIT: There actually is a comments option but it doesn’t show up in the mobile version and also involves Facebook platform apps).
It’s kind of a stretch to suggest that Glenwood was ever the “center” of high-end shopping and social activity in Greensboro and to compare it to Friendly Center. Glenwood was, at best, a nice streetcar suburb with a small neighborhood shopping area, most of which still stands (albeit in some disrepair) along Grove Street. Similar districts still exist on Tate Street by UNCG, at Walker and Elam Avenues, and other areas. It was more analogous to today’s small shopping center with a grocery store and a drug store (think Golden Gate, for example) than to a major shopping area like Friendly Center. There was, I believe, a popular recreational area in Glenwood as well.
Also, the downtown bypass was not really a precursor to the Greensboro beltway; they were both planned around the same time and were to have coexisted. The one downtown just got funded and constructed several decades earlier. If I’m not mistaken, most of it was built more or less as planned, with Murrow Boulevard feeding into paired one-way streets (Fisher and Smith, then Edgeworth and Spring) to create a surface-level “loop” bypass. The part that was not constructed (and it’s probably a good thing) was the southern leg that was to be built as a major expressway, running parallel to Lee Street all the way to the Coliseum area. This part was scrapped for lack of demand and funds in the 1970s. The big mound of dirt and awkward traffic pattern at Lee Street and Murrow Boulevard live on as a reminder of the interchange that would have been there.
Last but not least, it’s “O. Henry”, not “O’Henry”.
So ends my unsolicited history lesson for the day…
So while I’m at it, after posting the Richmond photos, I figured it was time I started catching up on some older photo posts. I’m about a year behind.
When I got started this afternoon, I realized that my flickr plugins on both sites had stopped working. Apparently, the flickr API switched to SSL-only just a couple of days ago, breaking lots of people’s plugins and apps. After panicking, I decided to be bold and try something stupid–changing all the “http://” references in the PHP files for my plugin to “https://”–and damned if it didn’t work!
So here are some more pretty pictures. Even more to come, including more DC, maybe more NYC, Virginia Beach, and (of course) lovely Florence SC:
Photos from from this past weekend after the jump.
Eighteen-plus years in, I’m even less sure what this website is all about than I was in 1996. I’m also even more sure that I won’t stop updating anytime soon.
But with what? And who’s reading it?
Turns out I’ve embraced Twitter a little more easily than I expected. It works nicely when one wishes to quip, which is something I do pretty often…much more often than I post anything substantial that requires an actual attention span to write. Twitter hasn’t exactly been an audience generator, although I did pick up a couple of batshit crazy teabaggers, both of whom got scared and ran away pretty quickly.
I feel like I used to be a content creator but that I’m starting to be just like everyone else online, just sort of recycling other content in my own way, via Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, while contributing very little of my own voice. Maybe after all these years I’ve done enough creating and it’s OK that I’m not doing much now. Besides, my lack of attention span for writing the stuff pales in comparison to the average person’s lack of attention span for reading any of it.
More navel gazing. Sigh. At least my navel is less prominent since I lost all that weight.
I’m still here and some of you still are too, so let’s just things as they are for now.
But does anyone care about the music videos?
it’s gonna be a long, sticky, obnoxious week.
The biggest, oldest queer bar in Greensboro is closing.
Literally. As I type.
It’s been here, under various names and owners, for nearly thirty-five years. I haven’t set foot in the damned place in over twenty. But I’m here tonight for the farewell as a favor to a friend. Hated the place in 1984. Hate it even more now. Enough said. I won’t miss it. Big “one size fits all” queer dance clubs like this are from another time, and I’m really okay with being on the back end of that scene.
Non-surprises:
- Crappy music.
- Annoying drag show.
- The realization that no one I still know (or would ever hope to meet) can be found in a big queer dance club in Greensboro NC.
Worst Saturday night ever. Or at least since 1984 or so…
Quick updates in case you missed them in the other spots:
- Great weekend in DC. Met a new old friend. Walked. Ate. Pictures to follow.
- Quite wonderful show Monday night in Raleigh with Tokyo Police Club (been obsessed for a couple of years), Said the Whale (been amused for a couple of months), and Geographer (I didn’t dislike them but they were an odd addition to this lineup).
- Still pondering a major road trip in August.
- Next week’s exciting destination: a conference presentation in (hold on…) Columbia, South Carolina!
- Planning to buy a new desktop in the next few weeks. And a new bathroom.
- Major project winding down and hoping I’ll be maybe a little less overextended for the next year and I can focus a bit more on both the websites rather than just on the short attention span posts.
…I announced officially that San Francisco was over for me. It came as no surprise to anyone who had been paying attention. I’d made it abundantly clear for several years that I had come to despise the place where I’d once planned to live the rest of my life.
Most of what I wrote at the time still holds true. I don’t regret having lived there and I don’t for a second regret getting the hell out when the time came. I came to know a lot of what now defines me while living there; I was very much shaped by that environment. But nine years after leaving (and three years after my last visit), I still don’t really care if I ever set foot inside the city limits again.
As predicted, it’s LA and other non-San Francisco parts of California that I really miss now, as well as “the lack of overt religion and the cool, foggy weather.” I have, as I’ve mentioned on a few occasions, realized that what I believed was a distaste for urban life was actually just a distaste for San Francisco’s version thereof
It’s interesting that many of my friends there have also left the city. It’s even more interesting that two who remained (my ex and my ex-roomie) were originally among the most vocal members of my circle in their distaste for the place. They’ve both managed to make lives there and good for them. I couldn’t do it.
Life hasn’t been all peaches and cream for me back east, but I stand by my decision.
April is crazy time for me the past few years. This year’s tally:
- The public launch for my big grant project is Tuesday night. it’s become quite the affair with many state-level library dignitaries attending. Thus I really should finish up the web interface and decide what the hell I’m going to say at the program.
- The morning of said program, I also have to do a conference presentation 90 miles away. Haven’t really started putting that together yet. Probably should.
- I have another conference presentation in May. haven’t even contemplated that, nor the book chapter proposal I’m supposed to submit by the end of this month.
- I’ve taught two classes in the past two weeks. I have to teach one more in two more weeks.
- I believe there’s a house I need to go ahead and get back on the market.
I think R&R is out of the question this weekend. But just to make it more fun (relax? me?), I also did my annual posting of draft entries I never actually took live last year. In most cases, I have no idea why I never took them live. Maybe I just though they weren’t “done enough”. Anyhow, check out 2013 if you care. I also popped up a couple of remaining stragglers from 2011 and 2012 in case you care.
A least there’s no ice outside…