Streetwalking

I walk streets and enjoy streetwalking because I am an architectural historian by profession.  Every building, regardless of size, shape, and reputation, interests me immensely, those anonymous buildings that Robert Venturi would extol as ordinary no less than proud monuments by renowned architects. There is always much to inspect and appreciate in any building -- material, color and texture, fenestration and roofline, the detailing of windows and doorways, and the marks of its history in the variety of alterations, sometimes knowledgeable but often well-intentioned yet disastrous.  Every facade has a persona of its own, which reveals something of its biography as does each and every individual person in his appearance and comportment. The resources for visual gratification are infinite, and New York, which offers wealth of cultural amenities, also provides me with the riches of urban sights, and they are not just buildings but the pedestrians, old and young in their various attire; lovers in embrace and bums squatting on the stoop, children skipping, babies in strollers, dogs and pigeons; scaffolds of all kinds, poles and hydrants and manholes; iron hatches covering the steps to the basement, pavements in disrepair, not-always-healthy shrubs and bushes; poles and hydrants; piles of trash and strewn castaway household goods, some irreparable and others almost new; and of course cars and shop windows and cafes and signs of all kinds all over.  Everything intrigues me, and I gawk at all those people with blinkers who just walk on without looking at anything.   As I used to tell the class, when I was teaching the courses and , I am an inveterate streetwalker.