To walk through an airport terminal in any major city is to experience a World’s Fair for the 21st century. There are people from foreign lands, retail emporia plugging the latest gadgets, and foods that are both haute couture and humble. As the railroad station once was, an airport just is.

Airports may not be as egalitarian as a bus terminal, but they give them a much speedier run for their money. Slightly preoccupied Masters of the Financial Universe trying to catch the 6:10AM shuttle to DC jockey in the same lines for coffee as tired parents escorting a clutch of youngsters to Orlando, students hoping to get home in time for a reunion in Buffalo, and a pair of young paramours on their first flight together to someplace mildly exotic. Shall we say Grand Bahama perhaps?

Just one such queue may reveal much about the shared human experiences that go on, relentlessly, day after day, hour and after hour in these transit hubs. Yea, the density and diversity of airports is what makes these exchanges possible, frequent, and intriguing. Airports are really cities writ in a hub and spoke system of terminals and gates.

Down each path one can discover something altogether different, but at the same time there is reassurance in seeing lovers embrace, frustrated parents, and businesspeople who have been know to find themselves poking at a Blackberry, hoping to coax out a stronger signal by which to transmit what can only be the World’s Most Important Email.

To my mind, airports do not have their own character, per se. They are full of a rotating cast of flesh-and-blood characters that spill forth from livery vehicles, subways, taxis, and the occasional private vehicle of a kind friend who will drive one up to the departure gate, regardless of traffic. 

If you haven’t spent time in an airport, I would recommend doing so soon. Keep your eyes open and sit down close to a group of band leaders from Des Moines. Or perhaps a pair of friends going to visit the Grand Canyon for the first time. If you are fortunate enough to be an international terminal, you may huddle close to a cadre of Rotarians going forth to Tokyo.

I can guarantee that any of these scenarios will be better than sitting at home. There are flights leaving as you read these words, so pack your bag and go. You have new friends to meet and stories to share.

But please: share them with me first.

It is a hot day in Washington, D.C., but that is no surprise. It is late May, and as the seasons change and the ice caps slouch to the surrounding blue expanses, it is inevitable that it will be some type of warm.

On a day like this, the Hirshhorn Museum is most attractive to me. It is a salve, a release valve, a tonic to the dominant mode of architecture around the Mall that seems to look eastward and backward to ancient Rome and Athens for comfort, reassurance, and architectural familiarity.

A certain cool modernity (yea, some would give it Bru-tal-ity) is the dominant mode here. One does not have to crouch to walk underneath its elevated ellipse, but to do so offers a new perspective on its forms. Here there is an orderly pattern language of windows punched into its very being.

What is behind these windows, you ask? Art of the Modern and Contemporary variety prevails. You will find no dentured George Washington portraits, no Radio Flyers of mid-20th century America, and nary an homage to Bob Hope, that Essential American who started off life in Britannia. 

The Hirshhorn is different from the rest of those other institutions that dominate the Mall. It is not any better or any worse. For what I crave on a day like this, yea, many days like this, it is exactly what I need. A place that is quiet, a place with fewer visitors and a place that is dedicated to Our Recent Artistic Past and Those Impulses That Emanated Forth From Those Closer Decades

For that reason alone, it is a Minor Miracle on the Mall. 

It should not be missed. 

A confession: I love Chicago’s flag.

The field of white, the blue stripes, and the four stars with the stories behind each of their respective six points. It’s all good.

I was recently on Vocalo Radio to talk about the history of the flag and whether we might consider adding a fifth star to commemorate some aspect of the city’s culture and history (e.g. the reversal of the Chicago River, O’Hare Airport, or perhaps the blues)

Here’s that conversation for your listening enjoyment.

The story of Boston’s growth and development is one that involves the interplay of private developers, conscientious citizens, and a raft of public government entities. It’s a complex story, and one that is expertly told by James O’Connell in this volume published by the MIT Press. 

As someone who has taught urban studies and related subjects for years, I knew I had to reach out to James to see if he would time for a brief interview about his work. He was most generous with his responses and here’s what he had to say.

For the uninitiated, what’s the value of planning to society? 

Planning creates a framework for urban and suburban development. It provides transportation, water supply, sewers, parks and open space, and public buildings. Infrastructure and zoning allow private actors to build out housing and businesses. Planning, in the case of Boston Emerald Necklace and the Metropolitan Park System, also provides the beauty, landmarks, and attractive recreational areas that make the city appealing.

My book The Hub’s Metropolis: Greater Boston’s Development from Railroad Suburbs to Smart Growth traces planning efforts for nine distinct eras of suburban development as well as Boston’s later 20th and early 21st century redevelopment. Each era’s planning paradigm has a distinctive approach to real estate patterns, transportation, housing styles, business location, and open space in shaping the built landscape. The eras are:

• Traditional Village Centers and Proto-Suburbs (1800-1860)
• Country Retreats (1820-1920)
• Railroad Suburbs (1840-1920)
• Streetcar Suburbs (1870-1930)
• Metropolitan Parkway Suburbs (1895-1945) 
• Suburban Mill Towns (1820-2012) 
• Postwar Automobile Suburbs (1945-1970) 
• Interstates, Exurbs, and Sprawl (1970-2012) 
• Smart Growth Era (1990-2012). 

Each model of suburban development has left its imprint on the landscape. In some places, a planning template complemented an earlier model and in others replaced it.

What brought you to this particular project?

When I moved to Boston from Cape Cod in 2000, my family and I were driving through Milton and I was struck by the Blue Hills Parkway and the adjacent early 20th-century development. I recognized that this artery was similar to others in the Boston area and wanted to learn how they came about.

I became interested in learning more about how the metropolitan region had developed and how it functions today. Living in Newton, working in downtown Boston, and seeking recreational and cultural opportunities in other communities, I recognized that we live regionally, but do not always think regionally. Besides Sam Bass Warner’s book Greater Boston: Adapting Regional Traditions to the Present, I could find no book that provided an overview of Boston’s metropolitan area. There are hundreds of books on the city of Boston, but little on the region. To satisfy my curiosity, I researched several topic areas that turned into articles, talks, or book chapters—regional planning, the Metropolitan District Commission, public transit, regional development patterns, open space conservation. My wife and I took weekly expeditions to explore the region’s cities, towns, open spaces, college campuses, shopping areas, etc. After about a decade, I had a book on my hands.

I should confess that I am a regionalist at heart and have written books interpreting regions where I have lived. Residing in Springfield, I wrote The Inside Guide to Springfield and the Pioneer Valley and edited The Pioneer Valley Reader. I also have written the only history of Cape Cod’s development as a resort—Becoming Cape Cod: Creating a Seaside Resort.

What are three of the defining moments in the history of planning for the Boston region? (laws, acts, movements, technological innovation, etc.)

Creation of the Railroad System—The railroad system created during the 1830s and 1840s spurred development of the region’s pre-World War II suburbia. Investors started New England’s first railroad, from Boston to Worcester, in 1834. They built rail lines to Providence and Lowell (1835), Salem (1838), Newburyport (1840), and Plymouth, Fitchburg, and Fall River (1845). This truly made Boston the “hub” of the region and created the commuter rail system that still exists and provides the development framework for transit-oriented development.

Metropolitan Parks and Parkways—The Metropolitan Parks and Parkways, which were long managed by the Metropolitan District Commission, provided a magnificent open space and parkway system. It formed the development framework for the first-generation automobile communities within the Route 128 beltway. Designed by landscape architect Charles Eliot in 1893, this system was the country’s first example of environmental regional planning. The forest preserves included the Middlesex Fells, Blue Hills, Stony Brook, and the Waverly Oaks. Eliot set out to preserve the banks of the region’s three major rivers—the Mystic, the Charles, and the Neponset—as well as Revere and Nantasket Beaches, which were the first publicly-owned beaches in America. Within seven years, the metropolitan park system conserved 91,000 acres of open space, 13 miles of oceanfront, 56 miles of riverbank and built seven parkways. Now, that’s using the public sector to get things done.

1948 State Highway Master Plan—The postwar blueprint for highway construction in Massachusetts. The Highway Master Plan laid out a highway system that included the Route 128 and the I-495 beltways, the Massachusetts Turnpike, Storrow Drive, Central Artery, Southeast Expressway, I-93, as well as the unbuilt Inner Belt. This system took a couple decades to be built and transformed metropolitan Boston.

What two or three things (such as infrastructure improvements, policy tools, etc.) would you like to see happen in Boston proper? (a wish/dream list, if you will)

Urban Ring—A decade ago, the state was planning a circumferential transit route two miles out from downtown Boston. The Urban Ring would cross all the subway lines and numerous bus routes, facilitating cross-town transportation and encouraging transit-oriented development. In its initial stages, the Urban Ring would be bus rapid transit service on dedicated lanes. By its final phase, the Urban Ring be a fixed-rail system. With the ultimate cost reaching into the billions and the challenges entailed in maintaining the existing transit system, the state suspended the visionary project in 2010.

Promote Development in Suburban Town Centers—Encourage more compact mixed-use development where development and infrastructure already exists. This objective can be promoted through state zoning reform legislation and state and local development incentives. Such initiatives could be especially useful for redeveloping Gateway Cities—older industrial cities—and stimulating development in established suburban centers which have been static in recent years.

In your experience, what’s the best way to get people out of their automobiles and on to other forms of transportation (buses, subways, bikes, etc)? 

More Extensive Transit Service—Modernize the existing transit system. An expansion of transit service, by extending the Green and Blue Lines and introducing the Indigo and South Coast Commuter Rail Lines, could fill out the region’s public transit system and entice more drivers out of their cars. It is also important, through zoning, to encourage transit-oriented development , which makes public transit a more attractive mode of transportation.

Create Dedicated Bike Lanes—It is estimated that bicycle use could increase by 600% if cities provided dedicated, low-stress bike lanes. There are a certain number of bike riders who will brave city streets and use striped bike lanes, but there are large numbers of casual bike users who do not feel comfortable jostling with motor traffic. Separate bike paths are a means of attracting this broad audience of bicyclists. A clearly marked network of discreet bike path routes around the city and environs should be further developed.

Recently, there has been a great deal of talk about the resurgence/reinvention of Downtown Crossing. What do you think is currently missing in terms of the commercial (or other) mix in that section of the city?

I work downtown, on State Street, and think that the redevelopment of the Filene’s block, which is supposed to start this year, will do a lot to spur surrounding development. I think it would be a mixed blessing if most of the spinoff commercial development were national chains that are already present in the Back Bay. I like the mix of locally-owned stores and restaurants that currently exists on Washington, Bromfield, West, Summer, and Winter Streets and Temple Place. We need more funky independent stores, such as Bromfield Camera, Bromfield Pen, The Watch Hospital, and the stamp & coin stores on Bromfield Street. Eateries such as jm Curley’s, Stoddard’s, Herrera Mexican Grill, Pizzeria Rico, The Marliave, and The Silvertone create unique downtown magnets. I think Downtown Crossing, though a shadow of its former self, is under-rated and should build on its recent achievements. In some ways, it has the vitality of the locavore culinary movement, seeking authenticity in local life and culture.

One theme I noticed in your book is the debate about density in a range of communities around the region. You’ve mentioned the cultural import of the single-family home and its seemingly bucolic and in some sense, agrarian origins. Are we seeing a shift of people away from this ideal?

A large swath of young singles, couples, and empty-nesters desire urban living in townhouses or apartments. Christopher Leinberger, in The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream, cites a market survey showing that 40% of Greater Boston residents desire “walkable urbanism,” while 30% prefer “drivable suburbanism” and 30% would accept either. Only 25% of the current metropolitan Boston housing stock can be considered “walkable urbanism,” so there is a gap in the market. Leinberger estimates that 60% to 70% of all demand for walkable urbanism will be met in suburbs. The new downtown Boston and Seaport District housing is too pricey for most of this market.

The market segments that appreciate urban neighborhoods are attracted by “third places,” which are the pubs, cafes, restaurants, libraries, cinemas, gyms, and similar social hangouts. Besides the urban neighborhoods of Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville, many suburban town centers have been redeveloped as concentrations of “third places” in recent years. They include Salem, Melrose, Arlington, Lexington, Concord, Waltham’s Moody Street, Newton Center, Wellesley, Needham, Norwood, and Hingham. Such places are magnets for residential development.

Right now, many multi-family units are being built by national developers like Arborpoint, Avalon, Archstone, and JPI outside town centers. Suburban communities should work with such developers to encourage new housing to be built in town centers. In some cases, this would entail raising height limits to four or six stories, something which most suburbs have avoided. In addition to building housing in traditional downtowns, communities should also encourage housing to be built in lifestyle shopping centers like Dedham’s Legacy Place or Hingham Landing. I think that rebuilding commercial strips with compact mixed-use developments, like the housing units at the Natick Mall, will be another trend.

If you were to single out two or three instances of thoughtfully designed planned areas within the city of Boston, which ones would you recommend people explore when they have time?

Emerald Necklace and Charles River Parks—For shear enjoyment, explore the Emerald Necklace parks and parkways, starting at the Boston Common and the Public Garden and proceeding up Commonwealth Avenue to the Back Bay Fens. Then follow the Emerald Necklace through the varied landscapes shaped by Frederick Law Olmsted, including Jamaica Pond, Arnold Arboretum, and Franklin Park. This is Boston’s city planning masterpiece. One wonders whether such magnificent public spaces could ever be created again.

Stroll the Charles River parks from the Charles River Dam to Soldiers Field Road past Harvard Stadium to Watertown Square. You don’t have to try these walks in one effort. Take them in short snatches. The Charles River at the Charles Eliot Memorial Bridge is one of my favorite places in Boston. It seems so sylvan.

Neighborhood Commercial Centers—Returning to my discussion about vernacular planning paradigms, I would suggest exploring some of Boston’s neighborhood commercial centers, such as Brighton, Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, and West Roxbury. You could say that they are not planned in the sense that Government Center or the South Boston Seaport District have been planned, but they represent a combination of municipal/neighborhood planning (including Main Street programs) and many private initiatives. An important reason to engage these neighborhoods is that they are models for lively mixed-use centers that could be replicated in Boston’s far-flung suburbs. These organic neighborhood centers are incubators of small independent businesses that help create unique and sustainable communities.

Anything else?

In The Hub’s Metropolis, I trace the relationship between Boston and the suburbs to explain today’s metropolitan condition. From the 19th century until World War II, the suburbs were bedroom communities, single-function subsidiaries to the multi-functional central city. From 1945 until the 1990s, city and suburbs were in opposition. It was an era of “urban flight.” Thousands left Boston for the suburbs out of anti-urbanism and in search of the “bourgeois utopia.” Defenders of the city regarded suburbia with antagonism. By the 2000s, Boston became a national leader in urban redevelopment and there was broader acceptance of the legitimacy of both cities and suburbs. Greater Boston is a metropolitan mosaic, which should be appreciated as a sum and in its parts. There are still tensions around localism, NIMBYism, and class segregation, but there is a growing sense of interdependence and the need for a regional perspective on planning and development.

For more information on James’ work and this book, please take a look at his professional site, The Hub’s Metropolis.

The ballroom here at 10th and Market Street in downtown Wilmington, Delaware is empty now. Chandeliers gleam, mirrors reflect, and there are velvet ropes that mark off low grey risers.

If you close your eyes and listen you can imagine the sounds and sights the ballroom at the Hotel du Pont has experienced over the past 100 years. Throngs of curious visitors sneaking a peek when this grand hotel opened in January 1913. The litany of distinguished guests from lands near and far, including John F. Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Henry Kissinger. 

No one thinks about the gunpowder that made this glamorous pile and its interior spaces and posh rooms possible. That rare combination of charcoal, sulfur and potassium nitrate that E.I. du Pont was cooking up in those early years of the 19th century not so far away on the banks of the Brandywine River made It Happen.

That so-called I”t” was a vast empire of chemical production, that magic elixir of product that would bring the du Pont clan mastery of Delaware politics, Gilded Age wealth, and a vast portfolio of factories, land-holdings and employees that was so very, very global in scope.

Looking at this ballroom today, one thinks about the rich meals served in the ballroom, the cotillion balls, and perhaps a more mundane IT keynote speaker extolling the virtues of 128-bit encryption and beyond.

Here’s my recommendation when you visit the Hotel du Pont.

Close your eyes and smell the gunpowder.

The passage of time is inevitable and no anti-aging cream or well-intentioned pop culture media assemblage (e.g. “I Love the 80s”) can wrench us back completely into the past. This thing we call the past is, as one scholar wisely observed, a “foreign country” and no elaborately stamped passport can offer us full passage back to That Time. 

This is a very, very good thing, as such a passage back inevitably offers us a chance to open up cans of worms that should have stayed closed firmly shut in the bait shop of our cerebellums. On the occasion of my own upcoming (and inevitable) 15th year college reunion I am reluctantly taking a short peek back into my own worm-can for your gentle consideration. Let us use the hoary convention of starting at the beginning of that year, a mere ten and five years in the past.

My 1998 began on January 1st, which, I have been told, is not uncommon. I did not have any clarity that day thanks to a wide array of spiritous beverages that ranged from apertif to zombie in that fine Mr. Boston’s narrative. I did happen to remember a few basic facts that foggy morning: I was at a fine college in the Middle West, majoring in geography and history with a keen interest in urbanology. Additionally, my keen and unflagging sense of place nudged me and reminded me that I was in the relatively docile section of the Rogers Park community on Chicago’s North Side.

Of course, January 2nd followed, as did 363 other days just like it. Most of it made followed no predetermined pattern, as is the life of a 22-year old precious person who was thinking simultaneously about grand plans and meaningless minutiae.

The confusion of “What next?” dominated many of these days and weeks, as one moment I wanted to go to graduate school straight away and other days I contemplated signing up for the French Foreign Legion (no, really). Regrettably, there was little information about joining this august group on the Internet at the time, save a rudimentary website that noted you had to report to Marseilles to even be considered for such a commission. Marseilles? I had barely been to Canada a handful of times by that point in my life, so such a Gallic gallavant was out of the question. 

I spent some of my time that calendar year working for the business school at my alma mater researching wealthy alumni. This job tested my patience as I could have cared less about such alumni, excepting for the fact that Ron Popeil (he of the celebrated infomercials) was listed as a “prospect”. He hadn’t gone to said business school, but he was a Son of the Windy City, so there was still hope.

The best job I had that year was working for Amtrak as a waiter. Ahem: I should say “Service Attendant”, because that was my official job title within the rank-and-file employees who worked on-board the long distance trains. One week I would go to Emeryville, California, and the next I would be train-ed out to Seattle. My folks would pick me up in Seattle at King Street Station and it was always welcome to be close to family, who would always take you in, regardless of what dervishes were swirling around your head.

Soon it was December 31st, and I found myself at a relaxed gathering in one of those shot-gun style apartments that ruled the day across the Hyde Park neighborhood. We made merry, a pleasant buzz ruled the evening, and we sang along as the ball dropped in Times Square on a small television that no one paid much mind. 

As I look back at it now, I have fond memories of 1998 and the evening when we gave a warm embrace to 1999. Of course, this is just nostalgia holding me tight and slamming the rose-colored glasses onto the bridge of my nose. 

When I sit back with a type of Objective Distance, I realized that I only knew one thing for certain on December 31st, 1998.

I had started the year 22 and I was now 23. 

When I encountered this painting of F. Scott Fitzgerald in the National Portrait Gallery, I thought that he looked happy. In a bemused fashion. Or in a bemusedly-depressed fashion.

I got close to the placard that accompanied this rendering of the Original Great Gatsby. I didn’t care to read anything but the date the work was completed. Ah, 1935. By then Fitzgerald had written his Great American Novel, experienced brief periods of adult sobriety, lived on the French Riviera, and also declare his own rather sybaritic and productive young adulthood the “Jazz Age”. The name stuck around, as did that Great American Novel.

My thoughts wandered back from the past into 2013. Who did we have to write our Great American Novel? Did someone sum up my own experience around the fin-de-seicle of this century with a novel that made us all stand up and cheer? (or text, perhaps?)

Such a work was not forthcoming and it will never come because the age, the moment, the feeling has past. Of course, maybe we do not know this work yet. Maybe it was “Prozac Nation” Or yea, it might have been the instructional manual cribbed from a “Sex in the City” escapade known as “He’s Just Not That Into You”. 

No book can sum up any One Age in any One Masterful Narrative. This much I know, for the Great Gatsby did not address the plight of the poor Poles of Chicago (my people) or the world of domestic servants. But what Gatsby did do was detail in exquisite, lavish, and at times, painful particulars of the best upper-set of the Roaring 20s. It was aspirational for many, in the same way that a television show such as “Sex in the City” seemed to be aspirational through its promise of martinis then marriage, and perhaps a pied-a-tierre.

We need these aspirational tales to inspire us. People flock to them in any age and if they will find them in song, television, web series, tweets, and perhaps a novel, now and again. Eventually the tales will settle out from the past few decades and there will emerge some type of Aspirational Novel of the late 20th & early 21st century.

I wonder what it will be.

Small towns by the water are are the source of great summer amusement and pleasure for most visitors and I’ve spent my fair share in a number of them from Ilwaco, Wash. to Old Orchard Beach in Maine. 

Within these towns, scattered among the fudge shops, the olde-timey ice cream emporiums, and the bric-a-brac-ery a problem lurks: what is there to do for young people?

Some of them will stay on to work as civil servants, tourism, and a handful of other fields and endeavors. But what about the rest of them? Many of them will leave, and in fact, they will have no choice to do just that. 

I thought of all this as I recently visited the rather charming Tangier, Virginia in the Chesapeake Bay. It’s the kind of place that people visit for an afternoon and end up leaving thinking “Ah, yes, when the kids leave home, we could live here.” It is the type of fancy that probably entices many day-trippers to do just that.

In conversation with a number of locals, I quickly discovered that there is a bit of a demographic conundrum facing the community: young people just don’t want to stay around after high school. The traditional crabbing lifestyle that has dominated the community’s economic, cultural, and social lifeblood is increasingly expensive, due to state regulations, the cost of fuel, and a raft of other considerations. The entire population of the island is around 400 or so souls, and commuting back and forth to Maryland or Virginia is virtually impossible given the limited number of craft available to head back and forth and the vicissitudes of Mother Nature.

So they leave. And there is talk of change. One man I talked to said he would sell his property to a big hotel operator in a second. “Get out of this business and retire far way”, said he. Did I mention that the island is also losing ground? The estuary waters combined with inclement weather take away more of the tiny amount of land that sustains the community each year. 

It’s easy to see why a newly-minted high school graduate would seek his or her fortunes elsewhere. Some have become tug boat captains. They are intimately familiar with the waters of the Chesapeake and their facility with the water around them serves them well in such a craft. Others will join the service, become teachers, or find another occupation that seems enticing.

This is the dilemma faced by hundreds of towns just like Tangier around the United States. It’s an uphill battle and one that doesn’t have a simple solution. 

One thing is for sure: you only need so many people to run a fudge store or ice cream emporium. 

                        A Main Street of Note: Market Street in Onancock, VA

The notion of a Main Street has always fascinated me. This main stem is the center of town, the main artery for passage through on the way to someplace else, and the focus of small town life. You’ll find the post office here, a fraternal order or two, a clutch of antique stores, and a occasionally a movie theater that somehow manages to hold on against the tidal wave of Netflix and their ilk.

In the same way that American was Once Upon A Time an agrarian nation, cities in the United States used to be dominated by the allure of a Main Street. It was where everything happened, for good and bad. A place to gossip, a place to be seen, a place to sit in a public square, and a place for communal gatherings and festivals. Even a quick glance at any number of sepia-toned postcards in a garden variety antique store will reveal images of shared ice cream socials, Odd-Fellows parades, and band concerts.

All of these events took place downtown on Main Street.

Today, the Main Street concept is a curious one. Why should anyone come downtown to such a place? Everything I need can be found online. The flicker of a screen and a few strategic clicks can produce millions of items, experiences, sounds, and relationships, sometimes all at once. 

Main Street can’t compete in this regard. Even the grandest and most bodacious shopping mall can’t compete on this score. But never fear: there is hope. Main Streets can provide that one thing that even the most vivid virtual reality cannot currently provide: a place for all people to come together to interact, converse, and just plain old get-together. 

This is their saving grace, their wild-card, their ace-in-the-hole. If we do anything for our Main Streets we must make them places where this can happen all the time, without exception.

Let’s work together to make this happen. So many already have and I know we can do even better by these special places. 

On Mulberry Street in Baltimore, you can find some very hopeful blues.

It may be difficult to imagine that a color so strongly associated with a downturn in mood, a flattened 7th, or a certain melancholia might indicate hopefulness, but yea, it does, it does.

A face looks out here, surrounded by one rather deep blue, reminding me of a voyage on a boat out on Lake Michigan. It was the kind of blue that seemed to say “Come to me, swim with me”. This was not an option, as I am not a strong swimmer and a dip in this truly Great Lake in April would have been the end of me.

This face, these surrounding blues are part of a broader project that is going on here in Baltimore and all over the United States. The widespread application of art to all sorts of public, private, semi-public, somewhat-private spaces throughout areas suburban, urban, and rural.

It is all the more timely in Baltimore as money, resources, and people scurried away from the city in the last decades of the twentieth century. What was left behind in many cases was a veritable trail of tears, complete with bold newspaper headlines announcing gang shootings, vast tracts of semi-abandoned housing, and the flatlining of civic institutions, including a troubled public school system.

But in this abandonment there remains room for opportunity.

Just look at those blues again.

There are many more pieces like this all across Charm City from Grove Park to Cherry Hill. Public art has a long history in Baltimore, and it will continue to be a part of this urban renaissance, wherever there are two or more people gathered with a brush, some tile, chunks of metal, or perhaps a pile of PVC piping. 

It’s exciting to think about how Baltimore’s residents will continue in this tradition that is both as grand and lofty as the days of the Italian Renaissance and as close to the ground as a few people gathered around a brick wall with a few art supplies.

I will definitely be back to see all of the blues, yellows, greens, and any other colors that end up on these red brick walls.