Favre Unretires: What's the motivation?

Apparently the recession has hit everybody, including now un-retired (and formerly my child hero) quarterback Brett Favre. I mean, why else would he come out of retirement?

The [Illegal] Architectural Tour of Hartford

Temperatures soared above 90 and time was running out as I walked briskly from Mark Twain's mansion back to the family car, parked across the Connecticut River in East Hartford's Great River Park. The day had taken me from some of Hartford's best areas to some of it's worst, all in the course of three and a half hours.

Adventures started in Glastonbury, where I was intending on going to the library to beat the heat. But, the allure of Hartford beckoned, which is something you really don't hear people say often. There was so much I wanted to know about this city. I wanted to know what worked and what didn't. I wanted to know what made this place tick. Where was its heartbeat, however faint?

So I drove to East Hartford and parking the car in the lovely, tree-lined Great River Park. A network of trails connects the East side of the river with the city along three bridges. I'd taken the Founder's Bridge many times. It is by far the most pedestrian friendly, and places you right in the heart of downtown. I could learn nothing new from this bridge, so I decided to take the Bulkeley, which had just celebrated its 100th birthday.

100 years ago, this wide stone bridge carried pedestrians and carriages across the Connecticut. Today, it carries upwards of 100,000 cars a day in the form on Interstate-84. 100,000 cars and maybe a dozen pedestrians. The state spend a few million dollars renovating the highway in 2002 to add a walkway over the bridge. The walkway is the terminus of the trails in Great River Park, and starts off a bit narrow. Sand, salt, and empty cups litter the walkway. There is just enough room for me and one other pedestrian to walk side by side before the walkway ends.

I had expected it to leave me in the Riverfront Park on the Hartford side. No such luck. The path followed an entrance ramp, then ducked under the highway in an area littered with the remnants of people who must have stayed the night. The sideway terminates on the highway itself, with no barrier, as had existed on the bridge! A quick dash across an exit ramp put me on the start of Columbus Boulevard, on the edge of downtown.

The Hartford Courant always talks about how the two interstates had ripped the city apart. Now I was witnessing it first hand. My tour of the city today focused on following the I-84 corridor through the city, and how the city responded.

After a quick stop to pick up a Coolata on this sweltering day, I moseyed around downtown for awhile. I-84 100% influences the character change between Downtown the North Hartford. As it runs along Downtown's edge, it is moved into a ditch, and in a section, a plaza is built over it. For whatever reason, this plaza is a failed public space. On the one side, the hartford civic center and office buildings. On the other side, abandoned buildings and parking lots. This remains the story along most of the corridor.

Behind the civic center (renamed the XL Center in an effort to be hip) is a neighborhood with a high concentration of restaurants and night clubs, right next to the train station. I rather enjoyed this area, though it was very quiet at ten in the morning. A few people were milling about in Bushnell Park, across the street from Union Station. A train rumbled past as I walked along the park's edge.

A very rusty bridge took me and tracks over an entrance ramp to I-84 and behind the Capital Ave district. One thing to note is the tenuous connection between Capital Ave and the so-called SoDo district with Bushnell Park. Perhaps this is the reason for the iQuilt proposal in Hartford.

Numerous articles have pointed out that you can follow the course of the now buried Park River by the parking lots and open spaces now in the city fabric. These articles are mostly correct and I followed the underground river's course, somewhat illegally, through Aetna, Hartford Courant, and State Government parking lots. I-84 looms high in the air above these lots in what is known as the Aetna viaduct. Portions of Sigorney Street are raised to meet the highway and make this section of Hartford unapproachable.

As Capital Ave slides under I-84 it shrinks down to only two lanes rather than four. The bikes lanes from West Hartford also start up here. I have entered what is known as the 'Corridor of Hope,' which is most certainly a sarcastic name. Here Capital Ave is trapped between I-84 and its ramps, and the train tracks. An oblong piece of land contains only one mostly vacant building, along with overgrown swaths of trees, and the occasional trash tumbleweed.

Blogs that talk about Hartford have mentioned how this area has been cleaned up recently. A new mural lines the wall of the train tunnel, and most the trash seems to have been picked up. It is an area that could use more love, and not just from a guerilla group of citizens. This would be particularly treacherous to navigate at night, since there are no street lights to be seen.

Once you get away from the towering monstrosity of the highway though you enter into Hartford's West End. Welcome to apartments with manicured lawns, a public high school, Mark Twain's home, and busy streets. While I only saw one pedestrian in the Corridor of Hope, I saw many roaming about this area, despite temperatures that had climbed into the 90's.

This was when I realized I had to pick up my mother and sister, and the car was several miles in the other direction. I hurried back, this time going a different route through the Flog Hollow neighborhood. Clearly an area that had fallen on tough times, Frog Hollow is not completely down and out. The Billings Forge project appeared to provide vibrant community housing, gardens, and safety for Frog Hollow.

I returned to the car exhausted. I had just begun to open up to real Hartford, beyond the slogan's and rhetoric, and into the guts of this city.

Make Way for Cars, Get off the Road

'You know this isn't just a bike trail, this is a road too! So pull your bikes over and make way for cars!' yelled the man in the pickup truck. It was an older truck, with its bed filled with logs. Our family had just been riding along the Cape Cod Rail Trail through Chatham, Mass.

For a second we said nothing as he pulled away. We were in the shoulder of a narrow side street which is shared by the path for about a mile. I thought of saying back to him 'This isn't just a road you know, make way for bikes!'

But we said nothing, except to grumble to ourselves about his unprovoked remarks.

Surprised I Bike

Cycling has become a passion of mine of late. For all my talk about it though I'm no Lance Armstrong. I'm also no Average Joe Driver either. Brought about by my lack of car, cycling has been my only means of getting about this summer. And brought about by my lack of things to bike to in this town of 6,000 people and one stoplight, I merely bike for physical exercise.

When I get back to State College, cycling will become more than just exercise, it will be how I get from place to place. All this physical conditioning still hasn't gotten me up to super-cyclist level yet (as evidenced by spandex clad cyclists passing me with ease; spandex is a whole new level of cycling apparently), but I'm confident it has helped.

On my return from a particularly challenging ride on a steamy day, our neighbors were over for a visit and were surprised I biked at all. There was a look of surprise to why I would do such a thing. For exercise, I told them. They were health conscious people who should understand the merits of cycling as exercise. This was not the case apparently. Going to the gym or taking Zumba classes is really more how they operate.

Just another lesson that every opinion you have is countered by someone else's opposite opinion. The general public probably doesn't give cycling a second look, certainly as evidenced by Connecticut's lack of bike trails. Just as most people still don't think of living close to where they work, shop, or play. If more people thought this way, then maybe they'd also see the benefits of cycling as more than just exercising in spandex.

Maybe with a growing knowledge about such things, people wouldn't be surprised I bike.

Pre-Exploring Hartford

Two days before I head back to State for thesis year, leaves two days left of Hartford Exploration.

Check back for more thoughts on the city in the 'morrow.

New Mac Day!

Today (or rather yesterday around 3.30 pm) my new MacBook Pro arrived! Christine and Mom seemed more excited than I was, but I'm pretty pumped nonetheless. I'm in the process now of transferring everything to it, a process that will probably continue as I sleep overnight.

Tomorrow I will be headed to Becca's for some fun and the computer exchange program.

Right now: Jamie Foxx is performing on Conan. Beh.

Cabin Fever

I've got Cabin Fever, do do do do dun dun. Stuck here in this house, yea!
If only I had a car, but today was not so bad! After the action-packed (for central connecticut) day I had yesterday, today was nice.

Christine arrived home from camp, on a sour note sadly. We cut the grass, and I read more of the 'Life of Pi' on this gorgeous day. It was a bit hot, and the humidity eventually got to me in the afternoon. I was attempting to delete old accounts and trying to make plans to see Suuusie. On top of that, I was also getting frustrated at TeamOslo for not giving me anything to do.

But, perseverance paid off, and after a million emails to the people in charge, I was given a diagram to do! Maybe I should be a bit more persistent with people!

The plans for the great vacation of '09 are underway, and if I stay jobless, they might actually pan out! Time will tell!