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…
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…
Both Gorgeous & Gruesome in Sicily
Juxtaposed: There’s always more to a place than the stereotypes we’ve heard before arriving or what easily meets the eye… In this case, Sicily’s gruesome history has probably overshadowed the beauty of this part of Italy. Sicily has become synonymous with organized crime, specifically as the home to the Sicilian Mafia (called the Cosa Nostra). But,…
A Tunisian Martyr in San Francisco’s Mission
Much like the assassins bullets that tipped off World War I, the flames that engulfed the body of twenty-six year old Mohamed Bouazizi, a fruit vendor living in Tunsia, on Dec. 17, 2010 tipped off a wave of revolution in Tunisia and throughout the Arab world. As a response to the country’s rampant corruption, Bousazizi’s self-immolation served…
A Sandwich and an Assassination in Sarajevo
What does a sandwich have to do with an assassination? How much do you know about the assassination brought on the beginning of WWI? I can’t say I remembered much about the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria beyond that, other than that it took place in Sarajevo, Bosnia… Until I began snooping around in the…
Now Brought to You from San Francisco
I’d heard the horror stories about finding an apartment in San Francisco. So I was shocked and thankful when I found two apartments in the span of 48 hours that met my needs and were (mostly) within my budget. It was suspiciously easy, and it all happened so fast. The next thing I knew, I…
