Talking to strangers | Modern shotgun style houses as workforce housing for firefighters in Ketchum, Idaho + playgrounds

I take a lot of photos in public places, or not so public places, and people wondering if I am up to no good challenge me.  Because "I can talk" (your ear off), usually it's not a problem. 

There's an article in the Washington Post, "The mental health benefit of striking up conversations with strangers," about the value in talking with strangers.  For me, it's an opportunity to learn--to interview and interrogate, even if it doesn't seem like it.  From the article:

Nick Epley was commuting to work at the University of Chicago when he looked across the train and wondered: Why are all these people sitting elbow to elbow ignoring each other?

Epley, a professor of behavioral science, thought about how very lonely people are, and he challenged himself to strike up a conversation with the woman sitting next to him. It changed his life — and led him to write the book “A Little More Social: How Small Choices Create Unexpected Happiness, Health and Connection.”

After reading it, I decided to try the experiment myself. For the past month, on my commute to work, at kids’ birthday parties with my daughter, in the elevator at the office and on the street while walking my dog, I’ve been challenging myself to talk to strangers. Would it actually feel good, or just awkward?

I’ve always been a fairly outgoing person, but the idea of talking to strangers and befriending acquaintances still made me feel anxious. As I contemplated opening my mouth to talk to the stranger sitting next to me on a nearly-silent bus, I felt as if my jaw was sealed shut by fear. What if she didn’t want to talk to me? What if I said the wrong thing, or she felt like I was bothering her?

Ever since my involvement in college student government, I can "talk".  This increased manyfold as I got more involved in urban planning.

In my recent playground study for a grant application, I talked to people at "playgrounds," like the "senior" Fitlot at Columbus Center in South Salt Lake.  

Even though it was built with money from AARP, it turns out an Instagram group called  #slc.calisthenics organizes meetups there and at similar sets of equipment, and lots of people of all ages end up using it--part of my observation is that people/kids play with what's there especially when "more appropriate" equipment isn't present.  I saw a four year old doing pull ups on the same set.

I talked to little kids like this one.  She said the monkey bars are her favorite element at playgrounds.  (So did an older boy at a different playground.)  So I aim to have more types of monkey bars present at the playground.

Observations, analysis, and conversations made the application so much stronger.  Going to about 15 different playgrounds in a couple days educated me fast and deeply about playgrounds--including realizing I needed to be there when kids were, because I didn't know how they used certain equipment.

Young children like learning to bicycle on soft surfaces because it doesn't hurt when you fall.

We need wider sidewalks around the playground oval because there is mixed traffic--kids on scooters, bikes, skates, skateboards, adults on bikes (because we have inadequate bike parking, people walking, people sitting to the side, etc.

Greenhorn Fire Station Workforce Housing, Ketchum, Idaho.  When I was taking photos of these buildings at what turned out to be the Greenhorn Fire Station, I learned the back story, which I wouldn't have known otherwise.

I took the photos because I thought the buildings were an interesting interpretation of the New Orleans shotgun style house, and years ago, I helped write a chapter in a book compilation about the type.

618 Jefferson Street, Flickr photo by Elliott Cowand, Jr.

I learned after being challenged, not realizing it was a fire station, and photographers could be would-be terrorists, one of the tenants came out to ask me what I was doing.  As a result, I learned the back story of the complex, for which I would have had no idea about otherwise.

In an area of ever increasing housing costs because of its being a resort area, it's an effort by the North Blaine County Fire District to provide workforce housing.  They rent the land from Idaho DOT, for the Greenhorn Fire Station, and built eight prefabricated units, mostly with donated funds.  

The 870 s.f. units are rented below market rate to tenants who agree to serve as volunteer fire fighters ("Final housing units arrive at Greenhorn Fire Station" Idaho Mountain Express, "Greenhorn Firefighter Housing Fully Occupied," Wood River Weekly).

What an interesting and important project.

Today's commercial building facade updates versus the 1950s/1960s

 

A historic corner retail building "improved" with wood accents, like how buildings in the 1950s and 1960s were covered up with panels, NE intersection of 400 East and 2100 South, Salt Lake City.

Corvin Palace Department Store, Budapest, Hungary, with 1950s remodel shown at top, and a return to the classical facade on the bottom.

Store for lease on Kalamazoo Pedestrian Mall in the 1980s, after the JC Penney closed and before.

This building, c. 2005, Mo Pitkins House of Satisfaction bar, storefront, carrara glass, 

34 Avenue A, Manhattan, New York City.  

The business closed and the building sold ("Old Mo Pitkin’s Digs Sold for $4 Million," Observer).

The carerra glass redoing of facades actually started in the 1930s as part of the Art Deco period, and often are attractive.  Sometimes they're kept even as part of historic preservation, to demonstrate the "layering of historic styles."

-- How to Work With Storefronts of the Mid-Twentieth Century:

 A Mid-century Storefront Components Guide, 

Illinois Historic Preservation Agency 

Mid-Twentieth Century Preservation webpage, IHPA

Sometimes carrara glass was used only for the business sign, not the entire storefront facade.

Market Avenue Woolworth, McCrory and Kresge Stores, Canton, Ohio. 1950s postcard

An illustration of house transmogrification that is a neighborhood character deadener

 

Decades ago I was at one of my first conferences, and a speaker made the point that the primary reason that people oppose development is because the new is generally worse than the old.  And that in past eras, when something old was replaced, it was more likely to be better.

After 25 years of experience, I'd say that the speaker is right in terms of attitudes but wrong in practice, because most people oppose everything regardless of design and building material quality.

But there is no question that design and building material quality "stick out" positively and will last decades, contributing positively to the "architecture of the ensemble."

The building facade on the left diminishes the ensemble.

2.  While people "oppose everything" they always advocate "for parks." That's because they want placid spaces.  The default after "no development" is "park/greenspace", not development.

But what if we open pickleball courts instead ("Shattered Nerves, Sleepless Nights: Pickleball Noise Is Driving Everyone Nuts," New York Times).

Given various experiences in DC, I always recommend against tearing down a development, and while the process to build something new goes forward, creating a "temporary use of a park." By the time the project is ready to get its approvals and permits, any agreement about temporary use goes out the window.  The park created an advocacy group by existing, and they will fight the next phase of the project ("Park View Residents Continue To Oppose Redevelopment at Bruce Monroe Park," Washington City Paper).

This happened with the Capital Crescent Trail and the Purple Line light rail project in Suburban Montgomery County.  The railroad there was used to shuttle coal to a power plant in Georgetown DC.  That facility closed in 1987.  The County stepped in and bought the line, "banking it for future transit" while putting in a multi use path, the CCT, in the interim.

Note the shirt.

Caption: President of the Capital Crescent Trail Ajay Bhatt speaks during a final walk at the Georgetown Branch trail, which will close due to construction of the Purple Line. Mike Murillo/WTOP.

Well in the mid 2010s, people fought the Purple Line, ostensibly because of the Trail but really because they didn't want to give up what had become extended backyards ("Friends of Capital Crescent Trail Take Purple Line Fight to U.S. Transportation Secretary," Bethesda Magazine, "Purple Line opponents hope for last-minute stop to Montgomery Co. trail closure," WTOP Radio).  

The service will open in 2027, so 40 years after the concept was first developed. Construction and other delays created by Republican Governor Larry Hogan delayed the project by 5.5 years ("The last bit of track, finally, is laid for the Purple Line," Washington Post).

FWIW, a memo I wrote about creating an "irresistible biking environment for DC" was distributed to the Maryland State Highway planning staff when I was a bike planner in Baltimore County, during the beginnings of planning for the Purple Line.  It influenced their making a commitment to have a trail parallel the entire line.

Stores even in car-centric places should consider making entrances more inviting, with seating, etc.

 

A patio furniture set marked for sale is an impromptu seating area at the Smith's Marketplace in Millcreek, Utah.