My Photo Collection

Inspired by Tree Fanatic's photos of her garden's bounty, I'd like to share the bumper crop of photos from my own hobby. Perhaps it's not as popular as gardening, but my favorite Summer activity is exploring the neighborhoods, villages, towns and cities within my reach, and then cataloguing the "city comforts" that make them work so well.

Taking out the Trash

If you were reading the Eye last Summer, perhaps you remember my obsession with clever garbage cans. Today, I've got three new ones for you:

Here are some old-school cans with new-school functionality, in Providence, Rhode Island:

Here's a hip, full-service disposal center at a fast food restaurant in NYC.

There's a spot up top for your plastic trays and baskets, the regular trash bin, and a ring around the can for holding recyclable bottles and cans, which can be sorted later. This seems an elegant solution to the modern dilemma of how to recycle a bottle that isn't quite empty when you are dining out at a self-service joint.

Here's another recycling container, which makes it clear what goes inside. Interesting that it is so low-tech - it looks like it could have been made by the Boy Scouts - but in fact is an "official" container at Universal Studios in Florida.

Crossing the Street

Middletown just passed its first winter with textured crosswalks on the south end of Main Street - and then spent the Spring repairing the damage. Notwithstanding the challenges for our Public Works department, I think the "brick" crosswalks are a great improvement to the pedestrian experience because drivers recognize that they need to share that space with walkers -- I look forward to seeing those textured crosswalks on the North side of Main Street as well, and hope that funding for that project is supported by the voters this Fall.

Here's an alternative to the brick pattern, as seen on the streets of Providence, RI - it looks like ours have held up better, so far.

Where's the Wheelchair Ramp?

I've heard local architects including Jeff Bianco and Lee Osborne wax poetic about the art of disguising an ADA-approved ramp within a project, without making it look like a poor cousin of the "real" entranceway.

This outdoor stair and ramp in Orlando, Florida fit the bill perfectly - it's a steep rise, but the crisscross ramp, mixed with short flights of stairs and broad landings creates a space that one wants to linger in longer than necessary - in one spot, a froyo shop has placed a few tables and chairs in the triangle, instead of landscaping. Hmm...now where can we use this idea in town? How about the stairway to the tunnel under Route 9?

NEXT TIME: more urban minutia, including samples of storefronts in thriving small towns!