Hole in the Clouds

June 2014

That Old House

Jun 2, 2014

Every day in Philadelphia, houses are declared dead, mostly after long years of painful dilapidation and decay. If they don't collapse or crumble of their own weight, they are demolished, eventually, without ceremony; the machines show up, and the trucks haul away the pieces.

Until Saturday, 3711 Melon Street in West Philly's Mantua neighborhood was no different from all the others. It had sheltered families since 1872. The last owner was Leona Richardson, who bought it in 1946 and brought up her son Roger there. Mantua was a good place to raise a family; the neighbors were poor, but they looked after one another, and they had stores, schools, churches, a post office, a movie theater, a firehouse. The houses were small and already old, rotting, cracking, always needing some kind of repair, but a single mother like Leona Richardson could afford to buy a home of her own in Mantua, and could live there comfortably and see her son grow up and get an education.

Eventually, Miss Leona paid off the house on Melon Street and bought another place a few blocks away, where she lived until her death in 2002. Even before she died, the old house was becoming harder and harder to keep up; after she died, it was basically abandoned. Today, shells of houses like 3711 Melon Street are offered for sale in the neighborhood for $30,000; they languish on the market; nobody thinks they're worth that much. They're 140 years old now, and in recent years they've been better homes for rats than for people.

People have tried to find shelter in them, of course. Drunks and addicts have used them when they could. Drug wars have been fought in and around them. Neighborhood children died in some of these empty houses.

The neighborhood as a whole was grievously wounded, losing families and homes and businesses and city services, and when finally the worst of the houses were sold for scrap, ripped apart and hauled away, the wounds in the fabric of the neighborhood became scars, marks of permanent disfiguring damage. Now only weeds grow tall where once families had flourished. There are more and more gaps in the blocks of rowhouses, ugly gaps, like missing teeth.

But the passing of 3711 Melon Street last Saturday did not go quietly. A proper funeral was observed, complete with flowers, organ, remembrances, eulogy, black armbands, folding fans, food, and "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms." There were printed programs, with color photos of the deceased. And when the machine tore into the house, pallbearers were at the ready, accompanying the dumpster load of what was once a home to its place of final repose.

Needless to say, the funeral for 3711 Melon Street was observed in such a public manner because politicians and community organizers were wanting to draw attention to some of their work. The ground on which the lost house had stood will become part of a parcel slated for development as affordable housing. "Plan, or be planned for," several of the speakers told the gathering. 

"I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person," one of the speakers noted, quoting the very recently departed Maya Angelou, "by the way she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, tangled Christmas tree lights."

The neighbors of Mantua have had to handle a hell of a lot more than those three things. Our thoughts are with them as they deal with this fresh loss.

house   streetscape   Philadelphia   neighborhood   West Philly   Mantua   funeral   3711 Melon St   Mt. Olive Baptist Church   (Image credit: Little Fuji)  

There Will Be Blood

Jun 3, 2014

This is the time of year when, in many places, the first springtime crop of mosquitoes takes to the air at once and . . . swarms.

The Alaskan tundra and other Arctic-like regions are notorious for huge dark clouds of skeeters, hovering hungrily and buzzing, whining--call it screaming for blood.

But this photo was taken last week in Portugal, in the salt marshes near Vila Franca de Xira. The swarm affected the shape of a tornado, and perhaps inspired a bit of the fear associated with tornadoes. But it wasn't really a cyclone; the flight pattern of the little bloodsuckers wasn't rotational, just the usual brownian motion within the overall swarm. And the top of the swarm was much closer to the viewer than the bottom, which is why it appears wider.

We are told that outside of the tropics, people don't really die from mosquito bites, even if they get hundreds of bites, as in a serious swarm. They don't die; they just wish they would.

sky   seascape   Portugal   insects   tornado   ocean   marshes   cyclone   mosquitoes   Vila Franca de Xira   (Image credit: Ana Filipa Scarpa)  

No Hole in This Cloud

Jun 11, 2014

On Monday, the skies over Paris got themselves all tied up in a knot and spit out baseball-to-softball-sized hail across the Ile de France.

The supercell wall cloud at the heart of the thunderstorm is shown in this photo snapped by a commercial airline pilot whose jet passed safely by, if a little too close for comfort. The cloud grew so tall it bumped up against the tropopause–essentially, the upper boundary of the atmosphere–where it spread out flat.

This sort of weather is a common summertime phenomenon across the Great Plains in the United States, but it's rare in most other parts of the world. For the past three days, however, France has been enjoying supercell storms in all their magnificence.

sky   France   cloud   storm   supercell   (Image credit: @Nir890)  

Family Butcher

Jun 14, 2014

This photo from 1910 will have to speak for itself; we certainly cannot speak for it.

The subject is a butcher shop on the Wadestown Road, in the hills above what is now downtown Wellington, New Zealand. For reasons we cannot begin to fathom, the butchers wear striped aprons, the hog carcasses appear to be decorated, and the local dogs are paying no attention to the meat.

Per Google maps, we can determine that the shop building is still in use today, though no longer as a butcher shop. It's now what New Zealanders refer to as a dairy; Americans would call it a convenience store.

New Zealand   streetscape   1910   Wellington   meat   aprons   shop   butcher   (Image credit: Frederick James Halse via Shorpy)  

The IPPAs

Jun 17, 2014

It's all official and everything: the winners of the eighth annual worldwide iPhone photography awards have been announced, and they come from everywhere and have taken pictures of everything.

Above is the first place entry in the Still Life category, by Sophiya Strindlund of Stockholm. It's a really pretty picture, but does anybody know what all those hooks are for?

Placing third overall for 2014 photographer of the year is Jill Missner of Ridgefield, Connecticut, for the picture below.

animal   dog   winter   room   still life   wall   iphone   pet   table   spots   hooks   (Image credit: Sophiya Strindlund)  

Guarding the Coop

Jun 21, 2014

Men standing around in front of the U.S. Capitol building, holding a fox, 1919.

This photo comes from the files of the Office of the Architect, U.S. Capitol. The backstory is not known to us, but apparently foxes are observed from time to time roaming the grounds of the Capitol, feasting on squirrels. Just last February, tourists noted exactly that, and the Washington press corps twittered all about it.

animal   Washington   fox   1919   Capitol   (Image Credit: U.S. Capitol Office of the Architect)