the modern city and madeleine

All weekend I sensed "something is not right" - like the nun in the children's book Madeleine. This morning I realized that comments on the 2010 motion picture The Town from two students, Devon and Jasmine, were missing from my last post. I have now included them.

And since I'm on the subject, if you need a lift to start the week, see this short animated clip from unveiling Madeleine: Lost in Paris (1999), which looks and feels both old and modern for reasons about which the students are learning. I was drawn to the subway, which, along with trains in general, often figure into emerging urban life on both sides of the Atlantic.

And speaking of water, one can learn much about urban life in Paris when one considers how the city exploited the Seine, as Mark Girouard writes. While some cities have since the medieval period used rivers for transportation, supplying industry and drinking water, since at least the seventeenth century Parisians have understood how this river could be visually appreciated. Buildings were constructed with their fronts facing the Seine. I found a YouTube clip in which someone seems to have enjoyed looking at both this river and the people, roads, sidewalks, stone pathways and buildings around it. Check it out above. It reminds me of my river tour in Chicago this past summer. Back then, I learned that for a time, Chicagoans constructed buildings facing away from the Chicago River because it was so filthy.  That, as earlier mentioned on this blog, has now changed. The river is cherished.  In the coming weeks, I look forward to watching this class delve into how waterways and trains help define urban life here in Alabama and especially Tuscaloosa. Stay tuned.

the wonders of a river

Old World columns decorate this modern structure.

A view of the many bridges crossing the Chicago River.

This building curves along the Chicago River.

I just returned from a quick trip to Chicago where I saw a college friend as a means of unwinding from my work on a manuscript. During my visit, I kept my eyes open for anything that would push my thinking about this upcoming course.

Leander James McCormick's double-house.

While walking around downtown, I passed by a double-house once owned by industrialist Leander James McCormick. The house was constructed in the Italianate style also seen on Tuscaloosa’s DePalma’s Italian restaurant. The restaurant, which was originally a bank, was built in the 1870s like this house and Tuscaloosa’s Jemison Mansion. The double-house was built in 1875 after the famous 1871 fire that began in a Chicago barn. The fire has figured into many pop culture products including songs. During my visit I went on an architecture boat tour on the Chicago River and was directed by a docent to look west  in order to see a huge radio tower that now sits in the approximate area of the barn in question.

One of the things I was most struck by on this tour, which was sponsored by the Chicago Architecture Foundation, was how nineteenth century Chicagoans went to great lengths – literally  - to stop polluting nearby Lake Michigan by making the river flow toward St. Louis.  In doing so, they narrowly avoided a lawsuit by St. Louis residents who hardly wanted Chicago’s dirty water.

I learned, too, how Chicagoans across time have had a love-hate relationship with their 156-mile long river, which is interesting. This waterway was a critical reason why the city even became a key site. For sure, it was this river that drew Jean Baptist Point du Sable, a man of African and French descent who is regarded as the city’s first permanent settler, to the area in 1790. By 1837, the city was chartered and quickly grew.  The entrances of some of the buildings adjacent to the river eventually began to face away from the river, which was soon filled with debris and who knows what else. As the city gentrifies, new constructions, among them high-priced apartments, face a now-cleaner river. 

As the students in this class will learn, water is often  important to how people make decisions about where to build things.  Just look at the new construction in Tuscaloosa. A lot of such construction  - including the Embassy Suites Hotel - is on  or near the Black Warrior River!