Washington Metro

The Washington Metro is an excellent system. The trains are quiet and spacious compared to many other cities. The stations are intelligently laid out and transfers are easy. None of the long walks found in New York, Paris, Tokyo or London. It's cheap. The stations all have the same look, as you see here: concrete honeycomb rounded vaults, often much higher than they need to be, lit from beneath with very dim platforms. It is unusually quiet. A colleague wondered if it was designed for crowd control, to soothe the commuting masses. I find the stations at once spooky and magnificent.

If your system has a metro or subway, what are the esthetics like?

By the way, there is a folder of pictures I took in Washington on Flickr here.

TOMORROW: The Thursday Arch series takes a break. Instead, more from Washington.

Washington: Seat of Power

Greetings from Washington, D.C. Across from the White House in Lafayette Park a group of people has maintained a daily peace vigil since 1981. This man told me that it was started by a couple now in their 60s. Volunteers take shifts. I asked him about his views. He said something about nuclear waste dumps in Africa and Iraq causing a nuclear winter and that Baghdad is the point on the planet closest to the sun at the perigee of Earth's orbit and that this has something to do with why it snows in Baghdad now, which it hasn't done for millennia. The clarity of thinking across the street is of the same order.

He sits and stares at the White House all day. Not many people talk to him. I'll talk to anybody; you hear the most interesting stories that way. The Prez must be out of town. Between the protester and the house of power, a district of Columbia motorcycle cop gets a political update from the newspaper.

TOMORROW: Metro

Trade Your Old Waste For Shiny New Waste

Another interesting find along this small section of North Broadway. I took this picture on a Saturday when no one was around and nothing was going on. No clues about what actually hapens here. I can't decide if this is eco-friendly or a toxic pit. What's your guess about who is trading what for what?

TOMORROW: The Seat of Power

Sunday Night Supplement

So, the flight into Washington National was fine. I get to the hotel and check in. Odd things begin to happen. After she runs my credit card, the clerk presses a warm cookie in a little paper bag into my hand. That's different. I don't eat cookies but I am surprised and accept it. Some US hotels have the TV turned on when a guest checks into the room, usually to the hotel info channel. But a few hotels anticipate your every desire and my TV - how did they know! - is showing an Austin Powers movie. Strangest of all, I am assigned Room 666. I am shocked that any US hotel would have a Room 666. Some of my fundamentalist countrymen and women would completely flip out. For those of you from non-Christian societies, the reference is from the last book of the New Testament, Revelations, full of mystic symbolism about the end of time. 666 is "the mark of the beast," a numerological representation of Satan or the Antichrist. The room is quite comfortable but if I notice sulfurous fumes emanating from the vents I may ask for a change.

TOMORROW: Such a waste.

Crystal Grill

Well, there wasn't much enthusiasm for yesterday's picture of city life. So let's go a couple of blocks down Broadway and change to color. I never heard of this place before. It's not even listed in our town's exhaustive web directory of restaurants. It is obviously in business and makes its living on three hours trade a day. If you zoom in on the red-on-yellow sign to the right of the door, it says "Open 11 AM to 2 PM." I'd like to go there for lunch.

The Crystal has great design. I love the decorative framing on the top and sides, and way the whole facade slides down the grade from left to right.

I'm heading for Washington, DC, this afternoon on business. There's some extra time built in for me to walk around the District with my camera. Good chance some results will show up here.

Funky Broadway

The City of St. Louis is shaped roughly like a water or tear drop. Read into that whatever you want. The longest street is Broadway, which runs along the Mississippi from one end to the other. The parts of the city near the river are mostly older and much of it is faded. A drive down Broadway demonstrates the point. This empty block is not far north of downtown. An abandoned building, no pedestrians, no parked cars except for mine while I went across the street to take the picture. The neighborhood action, such as it is, is a couple of blocks south, where there is a big biker bar and tattoo parlor.

The stretch of Broadway downtown is different. It passes office towers, the enormous domed football stadium, the Federal Reserve Bank, the Old Court House and the baseball stadium. It changes back to its usual character just a bit beyond where the Cardinals play when you pass the White Castle. I have a project in mind for the spring, to drive the length of the street a few times, taking pictures as I go. Might make it into another weekly series. It would be a good illustration of St. Louis.

TOMORROW: Hungry?

Crown Candy Kitchen

In an old neighborhood not far from downtown is Crown Candy Kitchen, run by the same family since 1913. It's a bit isolated now but people come here from all over. They serve basic lunch items, sandwiches, burgers and the like, but they are renown for their sweet stuff. Crown makes its own ice cream and still practices the art of confectionery. Chocolate is made on site. The jewels in the Crown are its big hand-made milkshakes. By tradition, if you can consume five of them in 30 minutes, it's on the house and they engrave your name on a plaque on the wall. Visit St. Louis and accept the challenge.

TOMORROW: Funky Broadway