From: shannon stoney (sstoney@pdq.net)
Date: 04/13/02-04:03:50 PM Z
Judy wrote:
> >
>> With all due respect to Houston, which must have some redeeming features
>> and some fine sections, I spent a week there in 1978 -- for the "Women's
>> Meeting," we were "arts delegates," and Bella Abzug was the wicked witch
>> of the east. I never imagined a city could be so oppressive -- everything
>> was in highrises -- no street life, no street food, no pedestrians, no
>> sidewalks, and if you did walk, nothing to see at street level because
>> everything was 15 stories up in a tall building. Actually, the sight of
>> some trash would have been a relief... all we could see was "moderne"
> > architecture -- metal and marble.
Ha! Admit it Judy! You are defeated!!!! I win in the Connoisseur of
Ugliness department. I photograph Houston, the ugliest city on
earth. By comparison, NYC is charming, bucolic, pastoral, and merely
picturesque. Houston's ugliness is SUBLIME.
I bet you a dollar my photos are way uglier than yours.
> >
>
>I have lived and worked in Houston for over 10 years now, and I can say that
>it may be one of the ugliest cities in the U.S. Yet at the same time, it can
>be beautiful in some places, often within a few blocks of the ugliness. It
>is a shining example of the results of a totally laissez faire, no zoning,
>unplanned, freewheeling metropolitan development. Housing is cheap, the food
>is great, the traffic awful, and the people are unpretentious for the most
>part. The weather is brutally hot in the summer and beautifully mild in the
>winter. It's a total contradiction. It's so homely it's interesting. Lyle
>Lovett is from here.
That's it! It's so homely it's interesting!
I live in an old neighborhood near downtown. My favorite thing to
photograph is people's yard art. This IS a pedestrian
neighborhood--one of the few that's left--built in the late 19th,
early 20th century. The sidewalks are fairly close to the porches,
so there's lots of decoration. One of my neighbors has a toilet in
her front yard decorated with ceramic ducks and an agave plant in a
pot on the seat. This is par for the course.
Until a few months ago there were some old rusting warehouses just a
few blocks from here that I also loved to photograph, but alas,
they've been torn down to make spiffy new townhouses. Alas, will
Houston go the way of NYC?
(I have to say, I don't think housing is all that cheap here, Clay.)
--shannon
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