The Corner

Posted by jdg | 8:10 PM | , ,



There was a photo floating around last week of the great Tiger shortstop Alan Trammell staring through a hole in the fence at what's left of the stadium where hundreds of thousands of fans cheered him during a career that spanned three decades. I was one of them. Balding, gray, and old, he had to view the crumbling ruins just like the rest of us. This photo was widely discussed; it seemed to distill the weird, pointless nostalgia of caring about the fate of this old building down to a single image. Here was an unstoppable hero hobbled by time, staring at the little that's left of a building that was full of memories but had no remaining purpose. Fuckin' mortality.

Much of my own childhood mythology took place within its confines, but my concerns about the demolition of Tiger Stadium were more practical. Why spend so much money to demolish a building that's not hurting anyone when there are so many dangerous abandoned houses and apartment buildings throughout Detroit's neighborhoods? Why not tear down the Packard Plant that is almost always on fire, filling a neighborhood with toxic smoke and attracting scum and lowlifes year round?

Last year I took the kids to say goodbye to what my daughter calls "Old Tiger Stadium." We walked around the whole thing a few times, took lots of pictures, talked a lot about the stadium and what was inside and why they were tearing it down. I'm grateful for that day, and those photos. We've only been in Detroit for a few years, but I'm amazed at how quickly the city disappears around you.

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King Cobra

Posted by jdg | 11:07 AM





Well, it turns out she wasn't quite tall enough for this one (about three inches short). But a little boy who was about three inches shorter than her climbed aboard and the guys working the ride never questioned it (I don't think they spoke English) so she was able to ride the cobra not once, but twice. The second time she had the ride all to herself.

What a change from last year.

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West End, Cincinnati

Posted by jdg | 10:36 AM | , ,





When we went past these two tenements, my daughter said, "Man, one of those definitely has a ghost."


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. . .but when it's 87 degrees and muggy as hell, you realize that this guy is the personification of summer.

Seen in Cincinnati.

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"Great Sign" , "Dude"

Posted by jdg | 10:29 AM | ,






While you get five bonus points for extending the tail of the G into a swirling heap of dog turd, it's completely offset by your use of unnecessary quotation marks.

Seen in Northside, Cincinnati.


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Gram at Sixteen Months

Posted by jdg | 12:50 PM |





RIP, Kindermullet.

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We're just back from spending the week in Cincinnati. Again, what a beautiful city. On Tuesday the kids and I spent the afternoon at the incredible Children's Museum underneath the awe-inspiring train station, and it was with some melancholy that I considered how well the city and preserved this landmark and found such a great use for the expansive spaces, and how poorly Detroit's similarly beautiful structure has fared.

So I'm trying to get the pictures on this part of the site to appear larger; if things look strange to you, please let me know and I'll try to fix it (sweetjuniper at gmail.com).

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. . .doesn't have a neighborhood anymore.

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Wind dispersal

Posted by jdg | 1:10 PM |





We rode the bike to the Heidelberg Project the other day and the sky was filled with some kind of wind-dispersed seed (milkweed?) poplar seeds (thanks Nancy) that were as thick as a snowstorm. I tried to capture the scene with the camera but could only get them floating past the sun with a low exposure setting.

It was incredibly beautiful. This is how plants and trees grow inside and on top of abandoned buildings, I thought, where no one remains to fight off an onslaught of invading paratroopers.

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When we first passed him he didn't see the white guy on a bike with two kids, busy as he was mowing down 18-inch grass in the fields next to his house. On our way back, he stopped us to ask about the bike and we talked about his two dogs standing watch at on each side of the porch like jackals guarding the entrance to a pharaoh's tomb. We talked for awhile about dogs, and pheasants, and mowing acres of land one doesn't even own.

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No Sleeping

Posted by jdg | 11:36 AM | ,





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This is now how we get home from the Saturday market. My wife became so envious of the popscycle that she went right out and bought a matching 1970 burgundy Schwinn breeze (one-speed). She had a big basket installed up front and a rack/child seat in the back. She took this photo on the way home.


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Saw these fellows on the bike ride to pick the kid up at school the other day. Although I may have once vowed never to use that stupid internet cat language, when I was looking at the photo and saw who was in the bushes near the growling alpha's head, the first thing that popped into my head was, "Oh hai!":


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VHS Bouquet

Posted by jdg | 9:59 AM |





When you've seen trees going from books, you hardly blink when you see flowers growing from a pile of discarded video tapes.

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Posted by jdg | 10:07 AM





Sitting on a porch, across the street:

"They for sale. They ain't free."

"They came from a bar I think."

"He wants $100 for the whole mess."

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