2012-06-15

*** Sidewalk Weekend! ***

Sidewalk Rating: Semi-Cozy

When I’m walking around New York I’m always aware of the smells around me: the rubber mats in office buildings; upholstered seats in movie theaters; pizza; Orange Julius; espresso-garlic-oregano; burgers; dry cotton tee-shirts; neighborhood grocery stores; chic grocery stores; the hot dogs and sauerkraut carts; hardware store smell; stationery store smell; souvlaki; the leather and rugs and Dunhill, Mark Cross, Gucci; The Moroccan-tanned leather on the street-racks; new magazines, back-issue magazines; typewriter stores; Chinese import stores (the mildew from the freighter); India import stores; Japanese import stores; record stores; health food stores; soda-fountain drugstores; cut0rate drugstores; barber shops; beauty parlors; delicatessens; lumberyards; the wood chairs and tables in the N.Y. Public Library; kitchen appliance departments; photo labs; shoe stores; bicycle stores; the paper and printing inks in Scribner’s, Bretano’s, Doubleday’s, Rizzoli, Marboro, Bookmaster’s, Barnes & Noble; shoe-shine stands; grease-batter; hair pomade; the cheap candy smell in the back of Woolworth’s and the dry-goods smell in the back; the horses by the Plaza Hotel; bus and truck exhaust; architect’s blueprints; cumin, fenugreek, soy sauce, cinnamon; fried plantanos; the train tracks in Grand Central Station; the banal smell of dry cleaners; exhausts from apartment house laundry rooms; East Side bars (creams); West Side bars (sweat); newspaper stands; record stores; fruit stands in all the different seasons – strawberry, watermelon, plu, peach, kiwi, cherry, Concord grape, tangerine, murcot, pineapple, apple – and I love the way the smell of each fruit gets into the rough wood of the crates and into the tissue-paper wrappings.

[Andy Warhol, from The Philosophy of Andy Warhol.]


 [Turkey hanging out by a bench along the river in St Paul.]



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Melody: So there’s not this fear that the stereotype of it being for white bicyclists, it doesn’t seem to be a problem?
Rybak: No, we’ve done some things that are intentional about getting bike facilities and paths into areas that aren’t traditionally bike culture. Midtown Greenway is the most visible but the Nice Ride stations in North Minneapolis is another one. Another small program I liked a lot we gave environmental grants a few years back, one of which went to a program that taught Somali women to bike which I just loved. And bike cops for kids where if they get caught wearing a helmet they can win a bike. Series of things like that. The bike center in North Minneapolis.

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