St. Cloud City Hall Bas Relief

One of these days I'll get back to doing architectural photography.

I wandered around downtown St. Paul for just a couple hours at the end of Saturday and got a few pictures. This is detail of an allegorical bas-relief panel on the St. Paul City Hall building, constructed in 1932.





More about the building here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Paul_City_Hall_and_Ramsey_County_Courthouse

Sculpture by Lee Lawrie.

Worky Worky

Lying down for ten minutes and just breathing really helps head off freak-outs. The little nap that the breathing turned into probably helped too. Things seem much more approachable now.

I finished my book review and am going to start collecting sources for a lit review for a bicycling infrastructure paper for my land use planning class. I don't know if I can get all of this done, but I'll do my best.

Juan was done with my car, so I got to drive out and visit my grandmother. I had a really nice lunch with her and told her all about what I've been working on and the program at Syracuse. I'm glad I made time for that. I was hoping to connect with Posi too, but that didn't quite work out. It may have to wait until after AAG.

I noticed leaking brake fluid in my grandmother's driveway and was, to put it lightly, disheartened. When I saw Juan, he looked at it and determined it was just fluid leaking from the old lines, which he'd left in place. That's a relief! The rusty gasoline filler neck is still an issue, but I'm not going to sweat it.

Hmm. Sweat. I think I'll get a shower too.

I never put my clothes in the dryer. When I got home, I was going to hang my stuff up to dry, but someone else had, thinking they were being helpful, put it in the dryer. I've mentioned this to folks, but there are too many people in this house to keep track of things like that I think. I printed out signs to tape to my laundry baskets saying "Chris' Clothes. Please do not dry." Hopefully people will see my basket there and just put clothes into it and leave them for me to hang.

St. Paul City Hall

A short photo-break to edit this, then back to work.





This is part of the Kellogg Boulevard-facing facade of the St. Paul City Hall building. It's a beautiful art deco structure. From the Wikipedia article, it looks like the interior is amazing, holding numerous architectural works of art in their own right.

The lighting could have been better. The story of my life as an opportunistic photographer. But the colors beginning to come out in the fading light are rather nice.

Work, Pictures

It's interesting how often issues of urban sustainability and the environment lead me back to the work of Melissa Checker. She was the discussant on a panel I presented on at the AAA conference a couple years ago and her work on on socio-environmental issues in an urban context is great stuff.

Anyway, on the topic of reading, I had to take the opportunity to pose with Marcie in a downtown St. Paul park. Peppermint Patty and Woodstock are in the photo as well.