If you really believe that the majority of bureaucrats and politicians care about and work against inequality, whatever that means, I think you can look forward to yet another epiphany.
I worked in Albany and its surrounding area from 1984 to 1994. Lived there from 1986-90. The late 1970s up until about the time I left, Albany was a place to thrive for working class youth, with plentiful opportunities for low-cost-to-free cultural enrichment for people who were barely scraping by.
I lived on the corner of Northern (now Henry Johnson) blvd and Washington Ave. The entrance door to our building had a broken lock. As a result, I'd often come home at night to find homeless drunks sleeping in the foyer. The paint was peeling throughout. My bedroom window was propped open with a Bullworker bar. But for me and my roommates, sharing a 3 br flat for $450 right across the street from QE2, it was paradise.
One block south was Washington Park, where we spent countless days at free music and arts festivals, Shakespeare and musicals all summer long. One block north was Arbor Hill; run down with impoverished African Americans, but with occasional bright spots (Kenneth's Taste Bud, you are missed). The Lark Street scene was freewheeling, with people out on their stoops in good weather (which is not expected in late Novemmber, btw).
Over on Delaware Ave is where you'll find the Price Chopper we called, "Ghetto Chopper." Go in at midnight and you would encounter everyone from your musician friends to state legislators and their dolled-up wives, to elderly black gentlemen buying Colt 45.
If Albany is a dead town now it's because it real estate investors and entertainment startups haven't yet gotten around to buying up all the places where low income people can live, taking away everything that feeds their souls, and repackaging it all to sell off to the highest bidder like Nashville has done.
One of the things I have learned as an amateur genealogist is how much of historical development has decayed and vanished. Much of the American frontier, for example, as it moved across the country, is gone. The land grant towns, the promises of small town America. Almost completely disappeared. I amazed to see those images of the old New England mill towns. There are a quite a few giant mill buildings still standing, but most of them are long gone.
I think quite a lot of what you are seeing on these walks is decay. Things constructed for a time of growth and opportunity, that are now shells of their former selves. The question I really have is whether today this decay is any different from any prior period in history, when people have moved on to newer, brighter, environs. I regularly drive around Seattle, where all these growth things are being built now. 40, 50, 100 years from now Seattle may be roamed by bloggers like you, staring at all the signs of what once was and the few remaining villagers. Decay as a kind of permanent condition.
Come visit my home. New Orleans.. unofficial motto is, Third World, and proud of it. This my first read of one of your walks. Got a lot of catching up to do
I came here after seeing you on Breaking Points, and I think this is the exact on the ground perspective I need to supplement all the political and policy oriented information I absorb. I really appreciate your courage in committing to this.
I also would love to hear more about what you think are real solutions to these massive systemic problems. First one that comes to my mind is eliminating the individual financial incentives of being a politician: corporate donations and influence, ability to trade stock, leaving office to go work at a consulting firm or on a board of directors, etc. What else do you think needs to be done?
Jeez, I really love this writing (AND photography AND map of the path). Great work and great eye.
You're probably tired of my over-long comments, but recently, I have like this almost mental crisis. I'm firmly in the front-row. I don't have to do anything different for the rest of my working life, and I retire to easy street. I don't have to care... But I've read about inequality and the economics of inequality throughout my life as kind of hobby. So, I vote Democratic AND nothing ever changes. I talk to a lot of people, and I listen to earnest justifications of the status quo, and I know they are wrong both philosophically and typically on the facts as well. But their confidence in their positions is unassailable. Educating myself and voting, and then going to work and doing my job... that is clearly not enough.
Love the series, Chris. Had to subscribe this time as this is where I grew up (right near the intersection of Rts. 20 and 85). I walked much of your route myself habitually as a kid (not the dangerous parts), just hanging out and exploring. I don’t think anyone in Albany was much impressed with the new downtown and the mega highways, which all went in while I was there. It is a mid-sized city with a lot of state workers just going about their business. I always had the impression that the real decisions were made in New York City. Also, many of the local power brokers don’t live within the Albany city limits.
There is a bit of a science/medicine/tech industry there because of the schools. I had an awesome database class with the guy that built one of the first Medicaid systems and I didn’t know then that I would still be doing that decades later.
Twenty-one years ago I worked for an Internet start-up on the fringes of Silicon Valley. The company had its own call center which was almost entirely staffed by young black people from Oakland. Transportation was problematic for them, so the company sent a shuttle bus to and from Oakland. Only a few years later, most of those types of jobs were outsourced to India or elsewhere. Those jobs were a ladder to the middle class and now they are gone. No one put up a sign in their yard protesting about that.
Chris, I appreciate what you're doing. Question about today's post: are the kids really so underdressed on these cold days, or were these shots not taken recently? I know we have warm days sometimes but these look like summer.
Also I wonder if there a lot of people who would say "I was middle row as far as education goes but I'm being treated like back row now, that's not right". I think that would explain a lot of the anger of the ... middle row.
This series of walking explorations has been exceptional. It could really be something as a documentary series. Using video to expand your photography. Hearing your conversations and thoughts as you go. Anyway, that probably sounds very front row of me :) Thanks Chris.
Many of us agree with you about inequality. Inequality is the direct result of Republican Party policies. Inequality would be much less in this country if the Democrats had guided the policy. You should support the Democratic party in your writing. You should at least meet with local Democratic politicians in the cities you walk in and get their view on things.
I hope you make it out to Palo Alto sometime . . . a fifteen mile walk from downtown over to East Palo Alto and back would make the inequality in Albany look like a socialist nirvana.
Chris - These are so awesome. If you walk in downtown, midtown, Dunbar/Fort Myers/North Fort Myers - Florida this winter the weather will be perfectly mild - and you will meet some interesting people escaping the cold up north. Happy holidays to you and yours.
If you really believe that the majority of bureaucrats and politicians care about and work against inequality, whatever that means, I think you can look forward to yet another epiphany.
I worked in Albany and its surrounding area from 1984 to 1994. Lived there from 1986-90. The late 1970s up until about the time I left, Albany was a place to thrive for working class youth, with plentiful opportunities for low-cost-to-free cultural enrichment for people who were barely scraping by.
I lived on the corner of Northern (now Henry Johnson) blvd and Washington Ave. The entrance door to our building had a broken lock. As a result, I'd often come home at night to find homeless drunks sleeping in the foyer. The paint was peeling throughout. My bedroom window was propped open with a Bullworker bar. But for me and my roommates, sharing a 3 br flat for $450 right across the street from QE2, it was paradise.
One block south was Washington Park, where we spent countless days at free music and arts festivals, Shakespeare and musicals all summer long. One block north was Arbor Hill; run down with impoverished African Americans, but with occasional bright spots (Kenneth's Taste Bud, you are missed). The Lark Street scene was freewheeling, with people out on their stoops in good weather (which is not expected in late Novemmber, btw).
Over on Delaware Ave is where you'll find the Price Chopper we called, "Ghetto Chopper." Go in at midnight and you would encounter everyone from your musician friends to state legislators and their dolled-up wives, to elderly black gentlemen buying Colt 45.
If Albany is a dead town now it's because it real estate investors and entertainment startups haven't yet gotten around to buying up all the places where low income people can live, taking away everything that feeds their souls, and repackaging it all to sell off to the highest bidder like Nashville has done.
LOL. Gotta save some of this shit for when you reach Washington DC. Albany is small time
One of the things I have learned as an amateur genealogist is how much of historical development has decayed and vanished. Much of the American frontier, for example, as it moved across the country, is gone. The land grant towns, the promises of small town America. Almost completely disappeared. I amazed to see those images of the old New England mill towns. There are a quite a few giant mill buildings still standing, but most of them are long gone.
I think quite a lot of what you are seeing on these walks is decay. Things constructed for a time of growth and opportunity, that are now shells of their former selves. The question I really have is whether today this decay is any different from any prior period in history, when people have moved on to newer, brighter, environs. I regularly drive around Seattle, where all these growth things are being built now. 40, 50, 100 years from now Seattle may be roamed by bloggers like you, staring at all the signs of what once was and the few remaining villagers. Decay as a kind of permanent condition.
Come visit my home. New Orleans.. unofficial motto is, Third World, and proud of it. This my first read of one of your walks. Got a lot of catching up to do
Shally
Hey Chris,
I came here after seeing you on Breaking Points, and I think this is the exact on the ground perspective I need to supplement all the political and policy oriented information I absorb. I really appreciate your courage in committing to this.
I also would love to hear more about what you think are real solutions to these massive systemic problems. First one that comes to my mind is eliminating the individual financial incentives of being a politician: corporate donations and influence, ability to trade stock, leaving office to go work at a consulting firm or on a board of directors, etc. What else do you think needs to be done?
Jeez, I really love this writing (AND photography AND map of the path). Great work and great eye.
You're probably tired of my over-long comments, but recently, I have like this almost mental crisis. I'm firmly in the front-row. I don't have to do anything different for the rest of my working life, and I retire to easy street. I don't have to care... But I've read about inequality and the economics of inequality throughout my life as kind of hobby. So, I vote Democratic AND nothing ever changes. I talk to a lot of people, and I listen to earnest justifications of the status quo, and I know they are wrong both philosophically and typically on the facts as well. But their confidence in their positions is unassailable. Educating myself and voting, and then going to work and doing my job... that is clearly not enough.
But what? What do I do to really fix it?
Keep it up.
Love the series, Chris. Had to subscribe this time as this is where I grew up (right near the intersection of Rts. 20 and 85). I walked much of your route myself habitually as a kid (not the dangerous parts), just hanging out and exploring. I don’t think anyone in Albany was much impressed with the new downtown and the mega highways, which all went in while I was there. It is a mid-sized city with a lot of state workers just going about their business. I always had the impression that the real decisions were made in New York City. Also, many of the local power brokers don’t live within the Albany city limits.
There is a bit of a science/medicine/tech industry there because of the schools. I had an awesome database class with the guy that built one of the first Medicaid systems and I didn’t know then that I would still be doing that decades later.
Thanks for walking Buffalo (in the past.) I was born there and got out because I could.
The eleven miles from Trenton, NJ to Princeton, NJ could be worthwhile. Another state capital....
Twenty-one years ago I worked for an Internet start-up on the fringes of Silicon Valley. The company had its own call center which was almost entirely staffed by young black people from Oakland. Transportation was problematic for them, so the company sent a shuttle bus to and from Oakland. Only a few years later, most of those types of jobs were outsourced to India or elsewhere. Those jobs were a ladder to the middle class and now they are gone. No one put up a sign in their yard protesting about that.
Chris, I appreciate what you're doing. Question about today's post: are the kids really so underdressed on these cold days, or were these shots not taken recently? I know we have warm days sometimes but these look like summer.
Also I wonder if there a lot of people who would say "I was middle row as far as education goes but I'm being treated like back row now, that's not right". I think that would explain a lot of the anger of the ... middle row.
This series of walking explorations has been exceptional. It could really be something as a documentary series. Using video to expand your photography. Hearing your conversations and thoughts as you go. Anyway, that probably sounds very front row of me :) Thanks Chris.
Many of us agree with you about inequality. Inequality is the direct result of Republican Party policies. Inequality would be much less in this country if the Democrats had guided the policy. You should support the Democratic party in your writing. You should at least meet with local Democratic politicians in the cities you walk in and get their view on things.
I hope you make it out to Palo Alto sometime . . . a fifteen mile walk from downtown over to East Palo Alto and back would make the inequality in Albany look like a socialist nirvana.
Chris - These are so awesome. If you walk in downtown, midtown, Dunbar/Fort Myers/North Fort Myers - Florida this winter the weather will be perfectly mild - and you will meet some interesting people escaping the cold up north. Happy holidays to you and yours.