A Little Clutter Sometimes Helps

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A few decades ago, Jane Jacobs wrote a whole book on what makes a city tick. Not grandiose planning, she wrote, not vast, empty malls framed by express roads The life of great cities reflects al the clutter and confusion and sometimes purposeful activity of the people who live and work in them. You can get most anything you want in a great city, sometimes within easy walking distance, and often at any hour of the day or night.

I suppose it flatters Wilmington to call it a great city, or even what remains of a great city. It always felll a litle shy of that mark, even in the days (not too long ago) when more than 100,000 souls called it home, and not just during working hours. Its proximity to Philadelphia probably had something to do with that. The big hitters of business and culture, like the big ships on the Delaware, passed by on their way to Philadelphia.

In reference to: Op-Ed Columnist - What Makes Cities Live - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Rained Out

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The Judge and Smarty's Mom were passing through town and called with the good news that they'd like to take us out to dinner.

Trolley Square, of course, offers lots of possibilities. Or so we thought until the Judge added that of course they'd be bringing the Pooch. So we reconsidered.

Our options had been narrowed considerably. To one, in fact. But that one was a very good one, indeed: One of my favorite spots -- the patio at Toscana. We could nibble away at our pasta in open air while the Pooch curled up at our feet. Happens all the time at that happy spot.

Ah, the best laid plans! This morning dawned damp and gloomy -- and cold! Too cold, in fact, to give serious thought to nibbling pasta in open air. If we went to Toscana, we'd have to find a table inside. And if we found a table on the inside, the Pooch couldn't join the party.

So the Pooch's sense of well-being won out in the end. The Deb has conjured up a pasta dish of her own, and we will enjoy it here in the apartment, where it is warm and dry -- and where the Pooch rules!

Cicadas and Killers

We were driving out Seventeenth Street, the Debutante and I, and since it was an extraordinarily beautiful summer afternoon, we had the Volvo's moonroof open.

"Hear that squeak?" asked the Deb.

"Of course not." Many of the little squeaks and rattles that trouble her escape my notice these days. It's been that way since last Christmas Day, when I went outside to photgraph the kids and grandkids shooting skeet. Foolishly, I wore no ear protection -- never gave it a thought -- and when I went back inside I realized I had lost a significant part of my hearing.

Anyhow, I couldn't hear the squeak, and when I closed the moonroof as we approached a dusty curb construction job on Rising Sun Lane, neither could the Deb.

"Cicadas," she said. "I'll bet it was cicadas."

"Better cicadas than another costly visit to the shop," I said.

It's that time of the year. The cicadas are out -- and the cicada killers, too.

The killers are large, dangerous looking winged creatures that are easily mistaken --at least around our place -- for killer bees. They swarm at ankle level in the grassy flood plain in front of C and J's quaint old house overlooking the Red Clay Creek.

This morning I found one on the screen door to our condo balcony. That's getting a little close to home. I flipped a finger nail against the screen's interior and sent him on his way.

Cicadas I can tolerate -- even enjoy, so long as they don't overdo the racket. Cicada killers are another matter. If they have any redeeming grace, I am unaware of it. Let them stay in the country, or the burbs if they insist. Trolley Square is at the wrong end of the line for them.

Blooming on Broom Street

A nice oasis on Broom Street between Gilpin and Shallcross is this streetside garden in front of the Ingleside's new assisted-living facility.

Welcome to the neighborhood!

 

Bluebell Time at Gibralter

Hidden away behind high stone walls on the northwest corner of Pennsylvania and Greenhill Avenues is one of Wilmington's loveliest gardens. It's near the end of the line, trolleywise speaking, and it's open to the public without charge. (Contributions welcome!)

My wife and I spent a couple of leisurely hours there the other day and found the spring display in full bloom. We had the place almost entirely to ourselves. Two female couples -- one young and one a bit older -- were our only company. The young ones stopped to chat about gardens in general and Mt. Cuba in particular, and the older ones let me photogaph them together by the pool, which is large enough to swim in but probably served mainly as a reflecting pool. Gibralter was one of the homes of Wilmington's duPont-connected Sharp family, and, like not a few mansions of its kind, has become something of a white elephant in recent years. Its gardens, however, have been magnificently restored and are well worth a visit.

All Aboard!

My new business cards arrived in the mail today, so I suppose I should get down to business. This old streetcar isn't going anywhere without me.

Please bear with me. As bloggers go, I am a relative neophyte. I've played with blogs for a couple of years now, but never seriously. Certainly never on a day-by-day basis.

I think can handle the words and pictures, though. A lifetime of writing and editing -- nearly a quarter of a century of it in the daily newspaper business -- gives me a measure of confidence on that score.

The mechanics of it give me pause, however. I am a relic of another time in what we once called the press. The broad term today is "the media", and the press -- the dear old, ink-stained, transom=peering press whose freedom is enshrined in the first amendment tacked on our Constitution, is now "the print media."

We used to bat our stories out on mechanical typewriters, paste the flimsy pages of newsprint together, and deliver them into the hands of copy-desk butchers, former reporters contemptuous of the whippersnappers who were trying so awkwardly to fill their old jobs.

From what was known in those days as the "universal desk", our words were transported physically -- through a network of vacuum tubes, can you believe it! -- upstairs to the composing room, where clever tradesmen of the International Typographical Union actually cast our words in lead, thus to find their way, by dint of wondrous 19th Century technology into the paper that -- with luck -- some 12-year-old boy would deliver to the faithful subscriber's door.

It was wonderful, romantic stuff, but it's gone forever. This is the era of the electronic media, an age when we are all inundated 24 hours a day, seven days a week by a steamy digital stew of words, pictures and sounds. The media are converging, it is said. There is a time and place for words and pictures on the printed page, at least for the time being. Meanwhile, the future in upon us. We are all going digital.

Whew! Heavy stuff... All I wanted to say in this brief introduction is that I have a lot to learn about these new concepts and techniques of publishing. I am am not as out of date as the old hot-lead production process. I am composing this on a laptop computer. On the other side of the room is my desktop unit, a fairly muscular custom unit that I routinely push beyond its limits. On my hip is my Blackberry 7250, a pocket mailbox that doubles as a cell phone. On my ear occasionally -- much to the amusement of some of my contemporaries -- is a Bluetooth transceiver that helps me with my multitasking.

Very few of my old have followed me this far down the digital path. I salute those who have. And I look forward to making new friends as we ride this old trolley car. I remember when there were plenty of trolleys but no Trolley Square.

It's been only a year since my wife Maggie and I moved back into the city, and in that sense we are new to the neighborhood. But we were here, it's safe to say, before maybe 95 per cent of the city's present residents. We were here in the city and we were here in what is now known as Trolley Square. We have stories to share. We want you to share yours, too.

Ride on! Read on! Write on!

The Eeffoc Effect

Ventured into the new Eeffoc's Cafe on the southeast corner of Delaware Ave. and Clayton St. for the first time the other day. It's clean, bright and stocked with just about everything you need for that caffeine fix. A pleasant surprise, actually, since the location (up a flight of stairs from the street to the lower level of an apartment building) is offbeat, to say the least. (And what about parking???)

There's a pleasant staff to make a wanderer feel welcome, a brunch-lunch menu of muffins, sandwiches, etc., the usual array of barrrista specials (not for me, a black-coffee type), seating for 10 or 12, and a large-screen TV for entertainment, if that's what you're looking for. For bean-grinders like me, the good news is that there's a decent selection of gourmet coffees, ground and whole-bean. The name? Spell it backwards! (And if it sounds familiar, that's because there's already an Eeffoc's in the Riverfront Market.)