Hoboken Streets and Gas

The title of this blog was inspired by my love of finding old anachronistic pieces sticking out of the modern landscape; specifically, my love of cobblestone pavement. There was no cobblestone pavement out in the suburbs where I lived, but in Hoboken there were streets here and there that were still paved with them. Even on the streets which were paved over with tarmac, you could sometimes see the original cobblestone pavement where the newer pavement had cracked and worn away. So blue-grey and enduring. And bumpy. They're pretty but bumpy.

Radnor Trail

In college, for my first ever geography course, I did a project on the Radnor Trail. It's a lovely re-purposed trolley line that now serves as a multipurpose trail for the community. The line, formerly part of the Philadelphia and Western Railway, was abandoned for over half a century before the trail was opened to the public (The portion of the P&W that still operates is known as the SEPTA R100, by the way). Google tells me that now there's some serious interest in taking the Radnor Trail past Radnor into Haverford and Tredyfferin Townships. I wholeheartedly would love to see that come to fruition, especially if it means the trail approaches near my alma mater (which is pretty much inevitable).
Unfortunately I seem to have lost most of the photographs I took for my project, save for one which stood out for its subject's bizarre appearance:

The Radnor Razor

My professor suggested it was a razor monument. Others claimed it might be a giant capital T. I think it's either the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey, or the remaining pillar of a P&W station overpass. Realistically, it's probably the latter. I know it isn't some sort of crumbling long-abandoned alien technology, but due to its towering height it is a little bit unnerving. I promise you though, the rest of the trail is beautiful. Not just aesthetically, I mean it's a great trail as far as trails go - no grade crossings, nice and wide, paved well, and in a safe area. Best of all, just like most other roads in the Philly area, it ends at a Wawa.

Chicken Town

Last fall I visited central Florida, a region of the Sunshine State known for its tourist attractions. Interstate 95 leads to Interstate 4 which leads to the Most Magical Place on Earth, not to mention a bevy of mini-golf courses and outlet malls. Should you find yourself on Alafaya Trail instead of International Drive, as I did one fine day, you may find yourself face-to-comb with the chickens of Oviedo.

Menacing creatures, huh

Well It Says "Public Access" . . .

Once upon a Thursday in May, or maybe it was still April, I went gallivanting on a search for intriguing architecture from the Colonial era to the present in a quiet Philadelphia suburb. My journey, conducted entirely on foot, took me past an elementary school where recess, thankfully, is still held in the afternoon. While walking past, I couldn't help but notice that hidden in the shrubbery alongside the playground were a pair of stone gate markers. Not too unusual, since there were many estates in the area and a few still remain today, either as private residences or in some type of institutional use.

Though it was an interesting sight, it wasn't as exciting as following the trail that ran behind it.

Why This Blog?

I already have the sparsely-updated Maps in Pixels at mapsinpixels.blogspot.com - why another blog? Well, because I felt that I needed one.
I wanted to make Maps in Pixels about GIS, geographic information science. I wanted to blog incessantly about the Google Maps API and how navigational software is kickin' rad, so to speak. Lately I've found my interests veering away from that, to a "softer" appreciation of geography. At least, that's what I find myself more inspired to write about.
This is a place where I hope to picture and write about places I've been, places I've never been but only heard of, places that once were and places that will be. Places like cobblestone roads with trolley tracks, peeking from underneath cracked tarmac. I want to give love to the little things we pass by every day, or not nearly enough, that form part of the landscape. Micro-geography, if you will. And I want to share the minutae of the landscape with you.