Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Bomb The Urburbs

A couple months ago as part of a series of Lizard-themed graffiti, I posted this picture:


At the time, I thought this tag was making reference to Wimsatt's "Bomb the Suburbs" book, and that maybe "urburbs" was a misspelling or abbreviation of "Suburbs". But I underestimated the sociological sophistication of the taggers. "Urburbs", it turns out, are

older neighborhoods within the typical American town or city. In most instances, these neighborhoods are the earliest suburbs; the tracts that were developed to house the more affluent families of America's white middle-class society shortly after World War II. The urburbs lie in rings around the outside of the central core of the "downtowns" and are not to be confused with historic urban housing, where the new suburban residents of the late 40's and 50's once lived, or with apartments for singles and newly married, or houses originally developed for the gentry.

(Quoted from "Redeveloping the Urburbs: Salvaging the Origins of Sprawl").

That definitely makes Hyde Park an urburb (though it predates WWII).

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Working for the Clampdown




Bass Pro Shop, somewhere outside Harrisburg, PA. Sometime several weeks ago.

This was my first encounter with Harrisburg, which I thought might be something like Duisberg, based on the Clash's "Clampdown".

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Hyde Park Neon

You-know-who has been posting a series of pictures of the neon in L.A. Time for Hyde Park to show its stuff.



Thursday, February 02, 2006

Don't Catch Hammer Face

I found all of these tags between Kimbark and University on 57th Street. The Lizards seem to have adopted a post-office theme--maybe in the spirit of The Crying of Lot 49?

What are the "Urburbs"?







More of the Lizards.

Monday, January 30, 2006

Monday, January 16, 2006

Hyde Park Digital Clock and Thermometer

The Mr. G's Co-op on 53rd and Kimbark has the most pathetic, unintelligible digital clock and temperature gauge imaginable. In the following photos, try to distinguish what time it is and how cold it is.