During the 1930s and 1940s, times of struggle resulting from the Great Depression and WWII, the term kitchenette was used to describe the conversion of existing houses or apartments into much smaller units by predatory landlords in neighborhoods predominately occupied by African Americans on Chicago’s South Side. Entire families lived in one very small, single…
Archives for August 2012
Miles of Walkways, Aerial Shots & Vintage Sedan Chairs in Hong Kong
Hong Kong, The City Without Ground, via Atlanta Cities: “There are now miles of walkways and usable space that create connections throughout some of the most crowded and central areas of the city. “It’s bits of private development, bits of public development, a little bit of city streets, a little bit of foot bridge, a…
Tourists’ Locks of Love in Paris
On a dreary May morning during a recent trip to Paris, I made my way across the Pont des Arts enroute to the Jardin des Tuileries and ultimately the Orangerie for my first viewing of Monet’s famous lilies in all their glory. Somehow I’d missed them on previous trips to Paris, and I wasn’t going to…
An Unconventional Life of Algebra & Adventure in Pakistan
Chitral is anything but accessible. It’s located at the foot of the highest peak in the Hindu Kush mountains, which spans about 800 kilometers across central Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. Chitral itself has escaped much of the violence due to its isolation, but the surrounding areas have seen some of the toughest fighting between the…
How to Evade Extradition In Cape Verde
A con man escapes the custody of the FBI and flees the US with a huge amount of wealth and his trusty, sarcastic sidekick. They seek a comfortable place to hide where they can enjoy the finer things in life (i.e. the spoils of their supposed last score) and where they are outside the reach of…
Garish Mobsters Graves in Yekaterinburg
I’ve been following the work of Russian journalist and activist Masha Gessen after listening to an interview with her on NPR about her recently released biography of Vladimir Putin, The Man Without a Face on a road trip to Oklahoma City (from Dallas, not San Francisco). Even though I was half a world away from Russia, I still…