Highways
More "Primary" Highways: Hawai'i
Well, another Tuesday, and another primary election here in the U.S. This time we visit the state Hawai'i, one of only six states I have not actually visited.
Even though it is disconnected from the U.S. mainland, it does have interstate highways, such as H-1 in the Honolulu area. Hawai'i uses a separate numbering system from the contiguous U.S. states, all prefixed with an “H”. Other than that they are pretty much like any other freeways around a major city:
Except of course for the cool Hawai'ian place names:
This last photo is from the site hawaiiroads.com. Both this site and hawaiihighways.com are great resources for highways of Hawai'i, about which I knew very little before this project.
Of course, the part of Hawai'i I most want to visit is not Honolulu, but rather the “Big Island” of Hawai'i. In addition to being the largest, it is the youngest, and the one that is still volcanically active. Highway 11, which is part of the belt highway around the “Big Island”, passes through some of the most active areas including Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.
In addition to their geological significance, these lava flows have a marvelous aesthetic quality. Indeed, the seem quite modern in their fluid geometry and texture, I could easily see a sculpture of similar qualities at the museums I frequent, or as something I would consider for my own collection.
Of course, one must not lose sight of the fact that we are talking about flowing molten rock, which is of a magnitude larger than ourselves or our highways:
Continuing on highway 11, one arrives at the Kaʻū Desert, a spectacularly lifeless landscape shaped by past eruptions, strong windows and “rain shadow” of the nearby volcanoes:
[Click to enlarge]
[Photo by Steve Young]
The Big Island is an amazing study in contrasts, active volcanoes, barren deserts, and also verdant tropical forests. I do need to find an excuse to visit the island some day.
As for the elections, Hawai'i is likely to support Barack Obama, who grew up there (yet another interesting aspect of his geographical and ethnic story). And it looks like he has one the other major contest today in Wisconsin. So he now takes the lead, but it is hard to know whether this contest is over or not. And so we will be back with at least one more installment of this series on March 4 with Texas and Ohio.
More "Primary" Highways: Chesapeake Bay and Washington, DC
Well, things were not exactly “decided” after last weeks elections. And they haven't been exactly “decided” by tonight's results, either. So our series traveling the highways of primary states continues.
We ended last week crossing the Bay Bridge into San Francisco. There is of course another “Bay Bridge”, back east across the Chesapeake Bay.
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge carries US highway 50 (and US 301) across the bay between Maryland's eastern and western shore regions. On the west side is Annapolis, the capital of Maryland, and an area I remember fondly from visits in 1999 and 2000. The 1999 visit was during a rather intense heat wave, which made it a great time for swimming, as I can't stand cold water. And the towns along the Chesapeake, including Annapolis, are definitely water-centric. At the same time, however, the bay has been the site of intense environmental degradation and its restoration is still very much a work in progress. Indeed, the friend who I was visiting worked on wetland restoration, both in the area and nationally. Sadly, we fell out of touch several years ago. I fear I must have done or said something offensive, but I don't know what, and I would love to reconnect.
On the eastern side of the bridge, US 50 connects to several tourist towns on the shore, including Ocean City. Ocean City is the eastern terminus of US 50, and listed as the final destination on this sign at the western terminus in Sacramento:
Apparently that sign has been stolen several times.
We have already visited highway 50 in the series as it heads east from California through Nevada. Like I-80, US 50 crosses the country and thus shows up again and again in these contests. It also crosses Washington, DC as Constitution Avenue, passing by the most prominent monuments and buildings of our capital city:
[Click to enlarge]
And in the great interconnectedness of things, highway 50 crosses I-95 on the eastern side of Washington, DC., connecting south to Miami, or north to New York across the George Washington Bridge, where one can again switch to I-80 and head west back to California.
Washington, DC has a great motto on its license plates: “Taxation without Representation,” a reference to one of the great slogans of the American Revolution. We all learn about it in our history classes here in the US. Its presence on the license plate has to do with the fact that our capital district is actually governed like a colony with no representation in the US Congress, but totally under its control and whim. So it has neither representation, nor full self-determination, things we usually associate with democracy. Making DC a state would easily solve this problem.
But the district does get to vote for president and for party candidates, and tonight it looks like they went for Barack Obama, as did Maryland and Virginia. The race is nearly even. Things are of course very exciting, but I do worry that whoever wins the nomination will be weakened by the intense contest, and not necessarily able to win when it really counts. But the race goes on, and so will our series. We'll be traveling someplace else next week.
Basilico and Eliasson at SFMOMA
It has been an incredibly warm summer-like weekend here in San Francisco, and I took advantage to explore both my neighborhood and the surrounding areas on foot. Today those wanderings included another visit to the SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art).
The featured photography exhibit of Gabriele Basilico was incredibly in turn with my own recent experience in San Francisco, and my interest in highways and industrial landscapes as expressed here on CatSynth. Indeed, it was the perfect exhibition to complement this weekend – it was been incredibly warm and summer-like, and I have been exploring my neighborhood and the surrounding areas on foot. And the title image of the I-80 and US 101 split, shown to the right, is very similar to a photo from Wikipedia that I cut from my recent Super Tuesday article:
The exhibition includes several other photos of San Francisco highways as well as other familiar images from my SOMA neighborhood, and from the towns in Silicon Valley. From the museum’s statement:
This exhibition presents a series of nearly 50 black-and-white and color photographs taken by Basilico at the invitation of SFMOMA during a monthlong residency in the Bay Area last summer…This exhibition will be the first of an ongoing project focused on Silicon Valley, in which artists will document the area on film. Basilico?s objective style and affinity for observing marginalized urban settings in a classical mode promises a compelling counterpoint to future installments in the project.
This of course inspires me to do more of my own work along these lines. I could probably fill Worldess Wednesday for the rest of the year just with photos of the city.
The next exhibition takes us from the amazingly timely to something “out of time.” Indeed, the title of Olafur Eliasson’s “Take Your Time” exhorts us to suspend our sense of time and enter a world purely of color, light and geometry. The tunnel (on SFMOMA’s fifth-floor catwalk) sets the tone for the exhibit, with color planes, plays on light, and complex but analytical geometric figures.
Challenging the passive nature of traditional art-viewing, he engages the observer as an active participant, using tangible elements such as temperature, moisture, aroma, and light to generate physical sensations.
Eliasson’s pieces also include a room entirely of yellow lamps reminiscent of the sodium street lamps used in places like San Jose, a screen of rippling light that responds to viewers’ movements on the floorboards, and a walk-in geometric figure of mirrors. To really get the most out of these works, one has to “suspend time” and explore them in detail, even though they are devoid of what we usually think of as “detail” (and what I usually try to avoid in art and design). Of course, that can be challenging on a crowded Sunday afternoon. But not impossible, if you take your time.
This article is included in the February 13 Carnival of Cities.
Super Tuesday Fun with Highways: I-80
So how to continue our “primary highway series” when so many states are voting at once? Well, we can't visit them all, but we touch several important places with a trip along Interstate 80. I-80 runs the entire width of United States connecting New York City to San Francisco, two cities to which I have connections. In between New York and California, it crosses three other states voting this Tuesday: New Jersey, Illinois and Utah. We have already visited two other states crossed by I-80, Iowa and Nevada, during earlier contests.
Actually, I-80 never enters New York. Rather, its eastern end is in Teaneck, a town on the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge:
It would have been cool if I-80 crossed the bridge along with I-95 into New York. Perhaps then splitting at the Bruckner Interchange in the Bronx (yes, I had to get the Bruckner Interchange into this article) before heading out to Long Island.
North of New York City is Chappaqua, “hometown of CatSynth and Hillary Clinton,” as I have mentioned a few times on this site. And while it is my hometown in that I grew up there, Hillary's original hometown is a little bit west of New York and New Jersey, in Chicago. But of course you can get there by heading west on I-80, which passes through Chicago's southern suburbs.
Chicago is all the home of Barack Obama. So we have two candidates with Chicago roots, either of whom I would be very happy to support.
What a strange position to be in, to have such a choice – and I admit I have had a hard time deciding. There are historic opportunities with each, connections to various aspects of my own life (geography, education, mixed heritage). I guess it's much better than 2004 when I was excited about no one.
Traveling further west along I-80, we eventually come to Utah, a place of striking natural beauty that I would love to visit again soon. In the south are canyons, stone formations and other wonders of the southwest. In the north, along I-80, are the Great Salt Lake and the Bonneville Salt Flats:
[Click to enlarge]
When they say salt flats they mean flat. It is an incredibly stark landscape, and that's part of what makes a great experience. And the silence. Longtime readers know how such things appeal to my personal and aesthetic sensibilities. Although I have been to the Great Salt Lake, I did not get to see Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty, which is considered a major work of modern American art, and which I have seen reproduced countless times.
Heading further west, we cross Nevada and then arrive in California, where I-80 crosses the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, my new hometown.
I-80 actually ends as the western approach of the Bay Bridge, although most people (and road signs) suggest that it continues into San Francisco to US 101. This section of freeway actually cuts through my South-of-Market (SOMA) neighborhood, contributing to its urban, industrial feel.
[Click to enlarge]
I did manage to find my polling place, and will soon have to make a choice as this election season reaches home. But it is great that those of us in California finally get to make a difference. Same for the folks in New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Utah. So many of us have had very little opportunity to actually have a say in the process, long dominated by Iowa and New Hampshire and the South. The rest of the country will finally have to listen to the people in our major urban centers and in the west. And I'll be satisfied with whomever we end up choosing (at least in one party).
Florida (Miami Beach)
We emerge from our brief hiatus to resume our campaign-highways series. Tonight we visit Florida, focusing in on Miami Beach:
Miami (which is a separate city from Miami Beach) is the southern terminus of I-95, the big north-south highway on the east coast of the US. It just sort of comes to an end at a ramp onto US 1. Much like the campaign of Rudy Giuliani. Somehow he figured he could cruise down I-95 and hang out in Florida while other actual contests were going on, and still win. I'd like to think his defeat wasn't just this rather dumb strategy, but also the rest of the country getting to know the real Giuliani that we knew in New York, without the 9-11 veneer. The man was a psycho and always needed someone to go after. That included things so integral to New York as pedestrians. Not to mention the racial tensions, the tabloid personal life. His concession speech after losing his first bid for mayor included “Ladies and gentlemen, will you please shut up!” Actually, I thought that was kinda cute. But I doubt the rest of the country would feel that way.
Interestingly, I was last in Miami during the 2004 election. Sitting in a pub and watching W get re-elected was a major downer for myself and my colleagues at the conference I was attending. But there was still plenty to do that well. A day later, we were heading downtown, over the I-395 causeway over to Miami Beach, and into the heart of the South Beach Art Deco district for an evening fun and entertainment.
I can't recall the live music being all that great. But you can't go wrong with drinks and good company. And it's warm at night in November. And the water was warm enough to swim in. How cool is that? Here in California, it gets cold at night. And the water is always cold.
The main drag through Miami Beach is Collins Avenue, part of Florida Highway A1A. A1A actually spans the length of Florida's Atlantic coast, passing through towns and beaches. It would be interesting to compare to our own Highway 1 along the Pacific coast in California. The coasts are so different, not only in climate, but in culture and history and natural terrain. Less of the spectacular cliffs and pristine natural beaches, and more private development. But it's not without its charm, and the water is warm enough to swim. Add it to the growing list of road trips not yet taken.
Highway 50, Nevada
We at CatSynth continue our highway series following the US presidential campaign, and so we turn our attention to the neighboring state of Nevada.
It was great to see Nevada included so early this time around, it is such a different place from the traditional early states. There is of course Las Vegas and all that comes with it – and to be honest, that is a refreshing change from the folksy small-town character of the early compaign. But there is also the more desolate Nevada, the authentic high desert and Great Basin.
It is the latter that we consider today. US highway 50, which runs through the center of Nevada, has been dubbed “the loneliest road in America” and many of the small towns along this route received a fair amount of attention this past week. And several travelogues, such as as “US 50 Coast to Coast” document the character and sites, including small mining towns like Eureka and Great Basin National Park. For me, one of the attractions is simply the emptiness of the highway itself, as illustrated in the photo to the right (click to enlarge).
I have never actually driven highway 50 east past South Lake Tahoe. But the quiet, the emptiness and straight-line nature of this stretch of highway are all very appealing at the moment. I tend to gravitate towards the extremes, either quiet isolation of the desert, or the intensity of a big city. And now we're moving to the city, right into the downtown. So as things calm down and the weather warms up, a trip east along highway 50, or perhaps to the desert southwest, may be just the best thing to do.
Interestingly, highway 50 joins with US 6 in the town of Ely in eastern Nevada. US 6 is also a cross-country highway, which we also saw in Des Moines, Iowa. Similarly, I-80, which we also encountered in Iowa, crosses through Nevada westward towards our home in the Bay Area, and meets highway 50 at its western terminus in Sacramento. All things are connected.
Probably the next chance we will have at CatSynth to look in on the campaign is when it comes here to California in just a couple of weeks…
Detroit
In keeping with our “road geek” tour of the US presidential primaries, we at CatSynth visit the city of Detroit, Michigan:
And the winners of today's Michigan primaries are…well, it doesn't really matter. This is really just an excuse to explore a place that I think is fascinating.
One would expect “motor city” to have quite a network of freeways. Well, it's not quite Los Angeles, but in the 1950s and 1960s it was quite impressive, and can be seen on this Detroit Freeways site. I am particularly fond of this photo of the interchange between I-75 (Fisher Freeway) and the Chrysler Freeway. It has the 1960s “futuristic” look, which some of us may look back upon fondly. (Click on the photo for larger version.)
So much from that era has fallen into decay, and that is perhaps no more visible than in Detroit. Indeed, a favorite site of mine is The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit. For whatever reason, these “ruins” from the 20th century fascinate me, especially those that we in their time “modern.” I highly recommend this site!
And I would also like to visit Detroit and its ruins some day.
Fun with highways: Des Moines, Iowa
Like a lot of people, our attention today was focused on Iowa. And within Iowa, on its capital and largest city, Des Moines.
My only personal experience with Des Moines is traveling through on I-80, one of several major highways that meet here, including I-35, US 65 and US 6. The main highway through the city itself is I-235, which includes this cool pedestrian bridge overlooking the downtown. It actually reminds me a bit of the pedestrian bridge to the Marina in Berkeley, CA – which happens to span I-80, just a few miles to the west.
[click for photo info]
But this pedestrian bridge across Gray's Lake is even more interesting:
[click for photo info]And yes, they hold this big event every four years in Iowa. And somebody gets to win it. This year, congratulations go to Barack Obama.
While we at CatSynth are not officially endorsing anyone (why would we do that?), we have enjoyed watching Obama's rise, along with the more youthful, energetic and sophisticated crowd that follows him – the same “college kids” that were sneered at in Iowa four year ago when they supported Howard Dean.
And of course we have no illusions about CatSynth's contribution, but it's a nice footnote if I he does go on to become President…
