Category Archives: Travel

Learn from Taxi Drivers

Posted on by
2

“How old do you think I am?” the cab driver asked.

It was an odd question, but the conversation with my driver from Reagan National Airport to my hotel on 10th St. NW in Washington, D.C., had already caught me by surprise with his first comment before we had ever exited the airport.

He asked where I was from, and I said Chicago.

“I haven’t seen you for a while,” he said. I was thinking that I had never seen him before at all. Why did he say this? I expressed a little surprise.

“Dr. Morse?” he asked. I soon learned that I apparently looked a lot like Dr. Morse, but I informed him that I was neither a doctor but an urban planner. Dr. Morse is apparently a frequent visitor to Washington, was also from Chicago, and must more than once have found his way into this man’s taxi. The fact was that I was not Dr. Morse produced its own line of conversation, and this was one of those rare cabbies who was actually good at generating conversation out of whole cloth. He worked with whatever conversational material his riders apparently seemed to offer, even inadvertently.

The fact that I did not turn out to be Dr. Morse was no obstacle. And now he took off his hat to let me guess his age. I studied his appearance from behind. “Forty-five,” I said after some consideration. He had only the slightest tinge of gray hair, a youngish-looking face, and seemed fit. Middle-aged.

He proceeded to tell me that a local magazine had cited him for looking much younger than his age. I was not the first to peg him at 45 or thereabouts. It happens a lot. Then he finally tipped his cap. “Seventy-two,” he admitted. I admitted that he looked remarkably good for 72. I asked him how old I looked, and he said 62. Off by just two years, I told him, I am 64. Perhaps my gray hair betrays me more than his does.

But this was about more than just age. He informed me that he had run a marathon, coming in fourth, I believe he said, in the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Knowing that the U.S. had boycotted the Moscow Olympics that year because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the year before, I asked what country he had represented.

“Ethiopia,” he answered. But he had been in Washington 12 years and liked it. I did not ask when he came to the U.S. Somehow it did not occur to me. I was more interested in the man’s story than in mere numbers and dates. He seemed to look so young because of sheer fitness. It is curious how many immigrants become taxi drivers—it seems to be a port of entry in the job world, as well as a great way to learn your way around a new city—but few are former Olympians, for this or any other country. U.S. Olympians, of course, often have much greater opportunities in life if for no other reason than access to money, if they become heroes, or at least education. Such opportunities can more easily escape an aging Ethiopian runner. I would wager, however, that it is not escaping his grandchildren or, since he claimed to have some, his great grandchildren. He seemed amused that I could only claim grandchildren who are nowhere close to being old enough to produce their own offspring.

Soon enough, I found myself getting out in front of Embassy Suites. I tipped him nicely, adding $4 to a $16 ride to offer him a twenty. Taking my luggage as he pulled it out of the trunk, I commented that Washington must have been a significant shift from growing up in Ethiopia. He smiled. Yes, it was, and he did not seem to mind.

Earlier that morning, I had a somewhat more mundane conversation with a young man driving me to O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. I had noted, in this 5:30 a.m. ride on Fathers’ Day, that I typically take the CTA Blue Line to the airport, that I traveled a lot, but that I simply had too much luggage on this first leg of a triangle trip to Washington, then Boston, then back to Chicago later in the week, to take the train this morning. It was a business trip. Only as we neared O’Hare did he suddenly mention, for a reason I have now forgotten, that he was from Sri Lanka, though he had moved here with his parents when he was five years old.

“I’ve been there,” I mentioned. He was stunned. Almost no one from America, to his knowledge, went to Sri Lanka, and it is probably true. I am sure it ranks poorly on a list of U.S. tourist destinations, although it ranks well with Australians, who don’t have nearly so far to go. I noted that it was unquestionably the longest journey one could possibly take from Chicago.

“When were you there?” he asked.

“April and May of 2005,” I answered. He immediately guessed that the reason for my trip must have been the tsunami. I confirmed that was the case, telling him I had been part of a team of planners and architects invited by the Sri Lankan Institute of Architects—but that I was an urban planner.  We discussed some details like how long I was there (ten days) and the army checkpoints that marked off barriers at the time to territory held by the Tamil Tigers.

By then, we had pulled up to the American Airlines terminal, and I got out and collected my luggage. I am also sure that encounter made his day. He had encountered a passenger who actually knew something about Sri Lanka and had been there for a serious purpose.

It’s amazing what conversations you can have with cabbies if you are willing. It’s a window into the immigrant experience in America. You might learn something.

 

Jim Schwab

Hawaii Log (Part 3)

Posted on by
4

In the past two installments about Hawaii, I focused on our first two days there, one for me on Kaua’i, the second with my wife and grandson in Honolulu. This third installment will round out the story.

First, the catamaran trip: Since all work and no fun in Hawaii makes even the most diligent planner a dull boy, I wasted no time following suit when my colleague Carolyn Harshman indicated that she intended to spend Sunday afternoon sailing with Maitai Catamaran, her favorite voyaging firm in the islands. She had already spent some time out on the west end of the island at a beach in far better shape than Waikiki where, as she noted, the reef is “pretty beat up” because of overuse and the impact of tourism. Still, this was not a snorkeling voyage. I signed us up before we ever left Chicago, got tickets on the same trip, and we all set sail on Sunday afternoon from a beach near the heart of Waikiki. For 90 minutes, we sailed out toward Diamond Head, took in the sights and the Honolulu skyline, and enjoyed the splash of sea water amid only moderately choppy wave

View of Diamond Head from the Maitai Catamaran.

View of Diamond Head from the Maitai Catamaran.

And what is more fun than sailing on a sunny day?

And what is more fun than sailing on a sunny day?

Small surprise, the crew offers maitais on board, along with other beverages, and my wife and I both imbibed. As the captain noted, “If you drink more, you see more,” which is undoubtedly true for at least some passengers. Midway through the voyage, I chided the young lady who served them for making them “too salty.” “Me?” she exclaimed with mock annoyance. “The waves!” Had I been drinking my maitai with some serious effort instead of merely nursing it, the waves at the midpoint of our excursion might not have had a chance to splash so much sea water into my glass. The taste of what remained gradually evolved to a saltier expression, but it was not entirely bad. Given that I was on the water for a mere 90 minutes and not dependent on such beverages for days, whatever additional thirst the drink engendered could be handled once I was landward again. Once we were, however, Carolyn proceeded to lend her snorkeling goggles to Angel and took him out in the shallow surf to learn to view the world below the surface, which he did with gusto while Jean and I merely rinsed the sand from our feet and enjoyed watching him have fun.I was aware from our schedule—and from the hotel’s shuttle driver—that we would be walking back to the hotel about the same time that the Honolulu Festival parade was making its way down Kalakaua Blvd. Sure enough, we found it within a few blocks of our catamaran site, wave after wave of marchers coming down the street in the late afternoon sun. We found a corner that seemed to be dominated by a long green dragon waiting to be deployed while various other squads made their way eastward.

The green dragon bides his time.

The green dragon bides his time.

Watching a parade in Honolulu is very different in one major respect from watching one anywhere else in the United States. My wife and I had the privilege two years ago of being in Honolulu at the time of the annual Kamehameha Day parade, which celebrates the legacy of the Hawaiian king who, early in the 19th century, became the first to unite the islands into a single nation. Kamehameha, who actually hailed from the “Big Island,” Hawaii, made the decision, after conquering Oahu, to locate his capital where it is today. He started a significant legacy of nation building in the face of European colonialism that, for better or worse, succumbed to U.S. annexation by the end of the same century. By then, he was long gone. What remains is a deeply changed Polynesian culture that nonetheless retains essential elements of its heritage even as it has become a minority in its own land.

Part of the 2012 Kamehameha Day celebration

Part of the 2012 Kamehameha Day celebration

The parade is, for starters, the least Euro-centric of any you will see in the U.S. Hawaii is a deeply polyglot, multicultural society today, and the Honolulu Festival featured units of Japanese, Taiwanese, Chinese, Korean, and Filipino heritage, as well as Hawaiians, with at most a modicum of European presence. Each group contributes a colorful chapter to the state’s history and culture. Hawaii is today the only state represented by a female Hindu in the U.S. House of Representatives, and virtually no one cares. Hawaii today takes the notion of the great American melting pot to a whole new level. Each parade is a colorful expression of that state of affairs, although the Kamehameha Day parade rightfully emphasizes a great deal more of native Hawaiian heritage, with the royalty of each island having the chance to be recognized as such as they move down the street on horseback.

Another element of the 2012 Kamehameha parade.

Another element of the 2012 Kamehameha parade.

Monday was less exciting for me, except for a small mistake that woke me up far too early. I had agreed to meet my two colleagues in the lobby of the hotel at 6:45 a.m. to walk to the Hawaii Convention Center several blocks away. For some reason I woke before 5 a.m. to use the bathroom. When I returned, I saw what I thought was 5:59 on the hotel clock, and I turned off the alarm on my cell phone and began to get ready, feeling there was no need to let it ring at 6 a.m. and awake my two roommates if I was already up. By what I thought was 6:45, I got off the elevator, looked around the lobby, saw no one, and concluded that I was a little bit late and they had left without me. I began to head in the direction of the convention center but got confused at a T-section at the end of Hobron St., so I called Carolyn, thinking she might already be there, but no answer. I called Gregg, who did answer but said he did not understand why I was asking, as he himself had not even left his house yet. Shocked, I asked, “What time is it?”

Barely 6:00, I learned. I had fooled myself into getting up an hour early. Humbled by my own foolishness, I walked back to the corner of Hobron and Ala Moana Blvd., dragged my gear into the McDonald’s, and ordered an early breakfast before coming back to the hotel, where I met Gavin and Carolyn at the appointed hour. Meanwhile, Carolyn had gotten my message and tried to call back, puzzled by the whole affair until I explained it in person.

I used my standard excuse for such early morning follies. I had not yet had my first cup of coffee. After all, I got that at McDonald’s.

The three of us spent our day at the Hawaii Convention Center, presenting a demonstration version of a planned training workshop at the Pacific Risk Management Ohana (PRiMO) conference, getting feedback, and seeing how things might work. I won’t pursue that here, but one regret is that the convention center, with all the urban setting of Honolulu lying beyond its admittedly gorgeous windows, lacks much in the way of lunchtime attractions for its visitors. Across the street are one Japanese and one Korean restaurant, but the average visitor would be hard pressed to find time for sit-down operations during a convention lunch hour. The alternative is a Subway, which is okay, but hardly unique. As for myself, by the time I was done spending 20 minutes speaking with a consultant who wished to consult me, my time for grabbing anything before we had to commence again was less than 40 minutes. A sandwich from Subway was the only option.

A volunteer team from Manoa explains its preparations for disaster at the PRiMO conference.

A volunteer team from Manoa explains its preparations for disaster at the PRiMO conference.

Perhaps for that reason, after it was over, I insisted on walking our family trio back east down Ala Moana to a place I had noticed earlier, Cheeseburger Waikiki. With a name like that, I can only imagine what some readers may be thinking, and it certainly has some conventional elements, but it is also open air, dimly lit, with a charming semitropical ambience. The menu features some options I might not find in Chicago—like an island cheeseburger, consisting, of course, of a burger topped with Colby Jack cheese, but cooked in barbecue sauce and topped with a succulent fresh layer of pineapple, with, of course, tomato and lettuce as options to top it off or eat separately. No need for catsup on this one, though we could put that on the basket of onion rings we all shared. Frankly, without breaking the bank, this was one of the best cheeseburgers I have had in some time. At the end, we let Angel choose a dessert, which was an ice cream brownie of some sort, and we all shared before we waddled our way back to the hotel for the evening and watched television before falling asleep. After settling for McDonald’s for breakfast and Subway at noon, I was satisfied that I had finally gotten a decent meal for the day. And I was tired.

I set aside all of Tuesday as family time before we left Hawaii on Wednesday. We got a second opportunity to satisfy my culinary curiosity, this time going out for breakfast at an upstairs hole in the wall called Goofy, right on Ala Moana just a few blocks east of the hotel. Apparently a favorite of surfers, it features locally grown food, and the online menu shows a map of the islands and what ingredients come from where. It is not terribly expensive; you can eat breakfast for about $10 to $12 and get the highest quality in the bargain. I chose the salmon and spinach eggs benedict, which include fresh kale and Okinawan purple potatoes, and your choice of wheat or taro muffin. Going extra-local, I chose the taro muffin, made from the starchy root vegetable popular in Hawaii that is also the source of poi. The resulting purple-colored muffins are quite tasty, but so are the purple potatoes, which seem like a cross between regular potatoes and sweet potatoes, both in texture and taste. While the menu does not sport calorie and vitamin counts, my guess is that my $14 choice was pretty high on the nutrition scale in addition to being one of the more interesting I have had in some time, topped off with more than one coffee refill. I should note that Hawaiian coffee, in my experience, is much smoother and less acidic than many other varieties. I brought home a bag of both Kona and Hanalei Roasters, the latter acquired during the Friday trip to Kaua’i.

Jean had wanted to schedule a snorkeling tour and found one for Tuesday that left from behind the Sheraton Waikiki, which sports a rather gorgeous open-air hallway to the beach, which we traversed, although, having not had sense to shop elsewhere earlier, I raced back to acquire an overpriced cap to protect my head from the sun aboard the boat. Out we pranced, when the hour came, through the hot sand to the boat to hop aboard another catamaran, this time with the express purpose of climbing out on the open water. We were told to expect to sightings of sea turtles, and we were not disappointed, although it took a while. Our snorkeling site was over what we were told was a turtle “cleansing station,” but frankly, I am not sure what was down there other than water. If there was a reef, it was truly too beaten up, as Carolyn suggested, to be visible. If there were turtles, I didn’t see them.

The skyline of Honolulu from our catamaran.

The skyline of Honolulu from our catamaran.

I admit to a major handicap in this respect. Those who have read my inaugural blog posting from two years ago know that I am highly dependent on my glasses for sight. There are places that sell or rent “prescription goggles,” meaning those that fit over eyeglasses, but this boat was not so equipped. I could only leave my glasses off in the pockets of my shorts, don my goggles with no visual aids, and dive to see what I could. While I enjoyed the swim, if there was something to see, I did not see it. In the summer of 2002, however, I had done the same thing in the Caribbean off the coast of the Dominican Republic and saw an unmistakably colorful reef, so I have my doubts. Moreover, neither Jean nor Angel raved about any colorful reefs from their own swimming, though they were somewhat less adventurous than I, even with our floating “noodles” in place, in joining the larger crowd from the boat on the open water. I wonder.

Angel and Jean aboard for snorkeling on our last full day in Hawaii.

Angel and Jean aboard for snorkeling on our last full day in Hawaii.

Eventually, after about half an hour of flotation in the open sea, we all climbed back aboard the boat for more sightseeing. Several times we were pointed to whales popping out of the ocean—I don’t believe any were actually breaching—and turned our heads in one direction or another to see them. Periodically, turtles surfaced as well. Because of restrictions that require tour boats to maintain safe distances from these species, the view was always from some distance, which is entirely appropriate. The whales are well aware we are there, and vice versa, and zoom lenses were invented for a purpose. In due course, we concluded our trip, came ashore, and walked back to our hotel for the final time before enjoying dinner around the corner at a convenient Red Lobster.

Ahoy! A whale in the distance.

Ahoy! A whale in the distance.

But not before taking an unplanned detour into the free-admission U.S. Army Museum of Hawaii, which sits on Kalia Road along the beach in a building saved from the wrecking ball. Its exhibits, in an aging but sturdy facility, begin with the military history of native Hawaii, through the period of Kamehameha as he adapted European weapons for his conquest of other islands to unify Hawaii, through annexation and the Spanish-American conflict, which involved some major action in the Pacific by which America acquired the Philippines and Guam, into World War I, and finally to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the conflict with Japan that followed. While I would have preferred to see much more substance concerning the politically touchy subject of just how the U.S. came to acquire Hawaii, something I addressed briefly last June in my discussion of the legacy of Ray Bradbury, I nonetheless appreciated much of the rest of the effort to display the more recent history.

The U.S. Army Museum of Hawaii

The U.S. Army Museum of Hawaii

Hawaii was clearly a strategic location in World War II, and suffered for it. What my wife and I found particularly moving, however, was a video tribute to the Nisei soldiers, those second-generation Japanese-American young men born in the U.S., who fought in that war in Europe. The video details the saga of the “404” regiment that liberated not only Bruyeres in France but the concentration camp at Dachau. The interviews, especially those of Holocaust survivors who encountered these remarkable soldiers, brought tears to my eyes. One Jewish lady interviewed for the film, a teenager at the time the camp was freed, remembers one of these soldiers simply saying to her, “From my God to your God, you’re liberated.”  This liberation of Dachau by the Nisei troops was a new piece of history for me, something of which I had been previously blissfully unaware. It reminded us of just how much American history remains hidden from most of us, but for such documentary efforts.

At that point, we were satisfied with our visit, and our dinner was almost anticlimactic. We retired early for our departure the next morning on a 6:25 a.m. flight from Honolulu International Airport, eventually arriving on a delayed flight from San Francisco at Chicago’s O’Hare at midnight—in a city still lightly covered with snow.

Jim Schwab

 

Hawaii Log (Part 1)

Posted on by
4

Early in 2008, after I learned that I would be offered a three-week visiting fellowship by the Centre for Advanced Engineering in New Zealand (CAENZ), colleagues and friends had a tendency to ask why that country was so interested in my expertise in planning for natural hazards. I was bemused by the question every time. “Have you watched Lord of the Rings?” I would ask. Because the movie trilogy was so popular, the answer was “yes” about 95 percent of the time. I would then follow by asking, “You realize those movies were filmed in New Zealand?” Most of the time, people were well aware of this. “Think about that landscape in the movies,” I would advise. “The logic will come to you.”

Those mountains, the volcanic craters, the rugged hills—they had the makings of many natural hazards, including landslides, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and avalanches, to say nothing of New Zealand’s flash floods and ocean storms, including the occasional cyclone. Throw in a few orcs and dark riders, and you have a hell of a script.

People have asked fewer questions about my three trips in the last four years to Hawaii, perhaps because it is more familiar as part of the U.S. They are aware of its volcanoes, may have read about tsunamis, but still . . . . it is paradise, isn’t it? Well, in a sense, but that is what I thought of New Zealand, as well. I couldn’t believe someone was paying me to come there, even though I was very much aware of doing some very real work: seven lectures and seminars in three weeks, as well as attending other events and producing a white paper for CAENZ before I left. It would have been less of a paradise if I had been in Christchurch during the 2010-11 earthquakes. Just as Hawaii was less of a paradise during Hurricane Iniki in 1992.

My most recent visit to Hawaii ended just a week ago, on March 12. I was there as one of three subcontractors working on developing a new training course for the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center (NDPTC) at the University of Hawaii (UH), the only one of seven such centers in the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium specifically devoted to natural hazards rather than terrorism and other human-caused events. The center has recently added disaster recovery to a previous focus on disaster response. Two years ago in June, I taught a three-hour seminar for the UH planning program’s Summer Disaster Institute, focusing on the theory of disaster recovery. The center is led by an urban planning professor, Karl Kim, who is himself a whirlwind of activity and the person who initially created the center. Over the last two to three years, Karl and I have built a significant working relationship between NDPTC and the American Planning Association, where I manage the Hazards Planning Research Center. This is different from the New Zealand relationship in one important way: NDPTC aims to provide training throughout the United States, whereas CAENZ was specifically interested in applying my expertise to hazards policy in New Zealand.

This article has no central purpose. I kept trying to think of one, but decided it would be more fun just to detail the trip itself, in part because my wife tagged along, and she brought with us our 10-year-old grandson, Angel, who skipped a few days of school with the blessing of a principal who was wisely convinced that he might learn more on the trip than he ordinarily would in school. Angel is a very inquisitive kid. He has read most of the I Survived books, in which characters somehow survive harrowing events in world history, like the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, Hurricane Katrina, the bombing of the World Trade Center, and, yes, Pearl Harbor. Now Pearl Harbor, at least, could become a real place, with a real story to tell, and become more than historical fiction.

Thus, we had a family trio making a trip that for me was largely work-oriented, but learning- and play-oriented for my wife and grandson. We all woke early on March 6, trudging through the curbside snow into a waiting taxi at 3:45 a.m., to go to O’Hare International Airport, catch a flight to San Francisco, get a quick lunch between flights, then catch a second flight to Honolulu, landing at about 3 p.m. with our bodies feeling like 7 p.m. (That difference would grow to five hours over the weekend, as most of the U.S. switched to Daylight Savings Time, but not Hawaii.) By 5 p.m., after getting baggage and a rental car, we were at our hotel, checking in and unpacking. An hour later, we were looking for an early dinner so that I could rise again at 5 a.m. for a flight to Kaua’i. Within the same block that housed the Hawaii Prince Hotel Waikiki, we quickly found Outback. Good enough, no need to search farther, I said. Outback, a chain, is what it is, but for a chain, it serves pretty respectable food. I was satisfied with my sirloin and lobster combo, and by 9 p.m. (1 a.m. where we started the day), we were all sound asleep.

Early Friday morning, the three of us working with NDPTC—myself, Gavin Smith of the University of North Carolina’s Coastal Hazards Center, and Carolyn Harshman, a San Diego consultant and president of Emergency Planning Consultants—drove in a rental car back to Honolulu International Airport for a half-hour flight on Hawaiian Airlines to Lihu’e, on Kaua’i, the farthest west of the main islands. Kaua’i was the target of Hurricane Iniki in 1992, and I had read some after-action reports of the relief operations on the flights from Chicago.

We had a full day ahead of us. First, the only significant roads in Kauai circle the perimeter of most of the island, with the interior dominated by lush mountains. All the towns are squeezed into a narrow coastline, making traffic a slow-moving nightmare, even though much of the coastal scenery is drop-dead gorgeous. Second, I immediately noticed that one thing I had been told was true: the island has a large number of feral chickens. They were wandering the parking lot of the county administration building when we arrived. Before Iniki, they were farm chickens in coops, but the hurricane sprung their cages, and there is no putting the genie back in the bottle. My wife, when I told her of this on the way to Hawaii, asked why people did not go out and recapture them. One may as well ask why no one has trapped all the snakes in the Everglades. One look at the scenery would dissuade anyone from such a mad scheme, aside from the fact that the return of value on the effort involved would be pitifully small. The chickens are now wild for all time, just like the nutria that escaped into the Louisiana bayou country nearly a century ago.

What? You thought I was kidding?

What? You thought I was kidding?

But my wife has not seen Kaua’i. She can be excused for an innocent question.

Well, no, I wasn't.

Well, no, I wasn’t.

Our trip to the North Shore of Kaua’i put us in touch with a remarkably articulate advocate for community involvement in disaster recovery. Maka’ala Ka’aumoana speaks to the value of long-term residents who understand the imperatives of survival in a shoreline community that can be imperiled by storms such as Hurricane Iniki, and she has seen the slow erosion of such knowledge and skills as Hanalei has become an increasingly transitory, visitor-oriented community. Still, she argues forcefully for “community as the convener” when all the county, state, and federal agencies show up to help after a disaster. Community is tricky business in Hawaii, which does not have the kind of decentralized small town governance of most mainland states. There are only four counties, each of which encompasses one major island and sometimes nearby smaller islands. A mayor is mayor of the entire island, not just of, say, Hilo or Honolulu. And so, even at the level of a village like Hanalei, the official governance mechanisms still reside with the county. Whether that is good or bad, or how it came about, is beside the point here. The reality for Maka’ala is that governing authority resides elsewhere, but the moral and civic authority of the community still resides with the people in Hanalei. They have plans, and they want them honored. At the same time, she gently challenges the values of some newcomers and visitors who seem to want all the amenities they left behind somewhere else. “If you did not come here to slow down,” she says she asks them, “why did you come here at all?” Hanalei, after all, has the look and feel of a town at the end of the road, which it almost is. Look closely at a map of Kaua’i, and you will notice that Route 56 goes only a few miles further west along the coast before ending at Ha’ena. The coast gets pretty rugged after that.

The view from in back of Maka'ala's office. In case I didn't mention it, "Jurassic Park" was filmed on Kaua'i, as was some of "Gilligan's Island."
The view from in back of Maka’ala’s office. In case I didn’t mention it, “Jurassic Park” was filmed on Kaua’i, as was some of “Gilligan’s Island.”

It is hard to imagine how one evacuates people on Kaua’i amid the traffic congestion that dominates the main roads on a daily basis, let alone in a crisis. We returned to Lihu’e, and it took nearly half the afternoon to do it. Volcanic islands tend to produce gorgeous but challenging terrain. We had the opportunity to hear from utility executives, county emergency management officials, and other citizens about the issues connected with protecting such a vulnerable population. Unlike the mainland, there is no larger grid, for instance, to provide backup power. That calls for a different kind of resilience than the rest of us are used to. There is a great deal to learn in a place like Kaua’i, but one must be prepared to listen. By the time we flew back to Honolulu in the evening, I think we all had learned a great deal indeed, and owed a debt of gratitude to some of the county officials who had arranged these conversations for us.

Meanwhile, my wife had taken our grandson to Pearl Harbor, where he saw the U.S.S. Arizona memorial and toured the U.S.S. Missouri, which hosted the signing ceremony for the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II. My next posting will discuss our time on Oahu.

 

Jim Schwab

The High View of Chicago

Posted on by
Reply

The Bloomingdale Trail (awaiting improvements) viewed from our backyard

In my last blog post, I extolled some of the virtues of staying put, at least for a vacation, as opposed to roaming the world, a charge to which I plead guilty on a regular basis, though more in connection with work than pleasure. That was a teaser to my real goal of introducing readers to one of the most intriguing projects in Chicago in recent years. The wonderful thing is that my wife and I live just 50 feet from the Bloomingdale Trail. I can even overcome my dislike for the name the larger project surrounding the trail has acquired: The 606. Intended to convey the idea that this is everyone’s project in Chicago by using the first three digits of the city’s many ZIP codes, I find it as unappealing as most things numerical when a real name using words could have been found. But this decision has been made, and it does not necessarily harm anything. The idea seems to have been that the simple name, “Bloomingdale Trail,” which we started out with, and which simply parallels the name of the narrow street beneath it, would confuse people. There are towns named Bloomingdale, after all, and somehow we would not understand, or people elsewhere in the city would think the trail is not theirs because it is ours. I don’t follow all that, but I’ll live with it. The project is still worthwhile. And Bloomingdale remains the name of the trail itself.

What we are discussing here is a public amenity born of an old railroad spur line. Beginning in 1873, the Chicago and Pacific Railroad operated this 2.7-mile span through some dense neighborhoods, serving  various small factories. Despite these economic merits, the line caused a good deal of consternation when its trains tied up traffic, blocked fire trucks, and otherwise displeased the neighbors in Logan Square, West Town, and Humboldt Park, the three North Side neighborhoods in Chicago that it traversed. The residents pleaded and demanded with City Hall that the tracks be raised above street level to minimize conflict, and over several years, beginning in 1910, the city did just that. Instead of the railroad continuing to run down the center of Bloomingdale Avenue, it was raised 20 feet with the construction of two concrete triangles into which dirt was poured, with the tracks laid on top. A total of 38 viaducts then allowed street traffic to cross beneath the railroad. However, by 1994, when we built our house on Campbell Avenue, the railroad was barely operational, and the question was what would become of it. Tearing it down would have been very expensive.

The Campbell Avenue viaduct.

So the question arose: Why not turn it into linear public open space?

And so the Bloomingdale Trail began to emerge as a conceivable alternative. By 2004, the Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail had emerged as leading advocates in the community for such a course. Plans began to be laid, and by the time Rahm Emanuel became mayor in 2011, efforts were underway through the city to use federal transportation enhancement funds to develop such a park, including bicycle and pedestrian trails as well as street furniture and trees, all within a design that would allow people in this elevated space to enjoy magnificent views of the city below while finding peace and quiet, and maybe even some wildlife, in a high place.

Of course, as with any such project, there were issues to be addressed, problems to be solved. How would the city protect the privacy of homeowners and condominium dwellers adjacent to the trail? How would it provide adequate access to the trail not only for the physically fit, including bicyclists, but for the disabled? A system of winding ramps emerging from existing public park spaces throughout the span of the trail showed up on diagrams and maps at public meetings. Chicago responded as Chicago does, and hundreds of us showed up at neighborhood sessions to discuss, debate, suggest alternatives, and ask questions of the Chicago Department of Transportation, the lead agency in the project, the Chicago Park District, and the staff of the Trust for Public Land, which was representing the Park District in the process of acquiring public input. This transpired throughout the last two years, and finally, the 606 Project, which includes all the accessory amenities to the trail, was inaugurated, and work on the trail began this summer. The mayor wants to be able to ride the trail by the end of next year; certainly, it is likely to be finished before the next municipal elections in the spring of 2015, however ambitious that schedule may seem. This is, after all, the City of Broad Shoulders. Things get done. One of those broad shoulders is about to become a trail—and only the second elevated rail-trail in the U.S., after the High Line in Manhattan.

 

Work underway on access point at Milwaukee Ave.

 

It is also likely to become a source of joy, exercise, and exposure to urban nature for thousands of nearby residents and those throughout the city who are willing to find their way to this combination of concrete, dirt, trails, and trees that towers just beyond our property line.

 

Jim Schwab

Ode to Vacations

Posted on by
Reply

There is a great deal to be said for vacations, even when you don’t vacate the premises. In fact, I am smack in the middle of enjoying just such a vacation right now. I am away from the office for two weeks, and I am at home.

Not that I have always stayed at home. I have taken vacations with my wife and, when they were younger, with our children in a number of fine places. The mountains in Colorado. A resort in the Dominican Republic. A weeklong tour of California. All were wonderful exercises in concentrating on something other than one’s livelihood, kicking back (or forward), trying out new scenery.

But when people asked where I was going this year, I explained that, having completed no fewer than 14 business trips so far this year, I felt no impulse to go anywhere. A staycation is a chance to explore your own backyard, not necessarily taken entirely literally but including your own neighborhood, your own community, and noticing many of the things that escape your attention on a day-to-day basis.

Various writers have extolled the merits of sinking deeper roots in the places where we already live, some perhaps taking it to extremes, others simply recognizing that in a world where travel has become progressively faster and easier, we too quickly breeze by the things we ought to notice on a daily basis. Ray Bradbury once wrote of his annoyance at a Los Angeles police officer who questioned why he was taking a walk late at night. For Bradbury, such walks were a chance to observe the community and space around him. Ralph Waldo Emerson commented on how he had traveled widely, “and all of it in Concord,” the town he called home. He was plying a theme also familiar to his close friend, Henry David Thoreau. And about 20 years ago, in Staying Put, Indiana author Scott Russell Sanders described the value of learning about one’s immediate surroundings.

It is all wonderful advice, I am sure, and for two weeks I am adhering to it, somewhat. But it has also not escaped my attention that some people can be closely tied to their own neighborhood or immediate surroundings and gain no more understanding of them than if they had flown around the world. It takes a certain dedication to observing, querying, wanting to understand, to learn anew, to probe details, in order to gain the value from what Emerson, Bradbury, and Sanders are advocating, each in his own unique way. In my own hurried life of late, I cannot claim to notice nearly as much about my immediate community of interest as I might like, despite trying. But maybe that is why one more trip did not appeal to me.

Staying put has its merits. I may find out what sort of crabapple tree sits in my own front yard, so that my wife, after all these years, can turn its fruit into some sort of pie. I’ll let you know when I find out.

 

Jim Schwab

First Impressions of Venice

Posted on by
Reply

Gondolas on the Canal Grande at the Accademia Bridge

 

If you are a veteran of Venice prone to sniff at the observations of a first-time visitor, this commentary may not be for you. I was invited to speak at a May 23 conference on climate change and cities at IUAV (Architectural University of Venice). I spent the next four days touring the city with my wife. I cannot pretend to be an expert, though I spent a modicum of time trying to absorb Italian, via Rosetta Stone, in the weeks preceding the trip. I also dived into a tour guide, plus Garry Wills’s book, Venice: Lion City: The Religion of Empire, and other sources to begin to divine what brought this gorgeously remarkable city into being and what sustains it today. I have learned a great deal quickly, but I am well aware of how much more there is to learn. It was a pity to have to return home, but most of us cannot afford to stay indefinitely. Too many other commitments lay ahead to allow me the luxury. For me, Venice was a brief encounter that begs for more.

I will blog more than once about Venice because the subject deserves it. Let me start this time with some general observations.

First: I have visited a few countries, though not dozens. Venice is absolutely, objectively unique. The sheer density of high-quality artwork produced per capita in this city over the centuries is astounding. Nothing appears in Venetian paintings by accident. Throughout the medieval and Renaissance periods, this art was almost entirely religious in focus, yet, as Garry Wills observes, art and religion were in the service of empire. Venice claimed St. Mark as its patron; to ensure that the point was not missed that he belonged in the city, Venetian merchants in the eight century stole his remains from Alexandria, where he had died at the hands of a mob. In the Venetians’ view, they repatriated them to what is now the Basilica San Marco. The palace of the doge, the ruler of Venice, was located in the same piazza adjoining the basilica. No one was to miss the point. This relationship is just the tip of the iceberg. One could spend considerable time exploring the intricacies of Venetian politics in the days of the city-state’s independence. Whole books have endeavored to do so.

Second: But there is more. The unusual setting—a city built atop a lagoon—is directly attributable first to the attempt by people in the area to escape the marauding Lombards in the fifth and sixth centuries, and then to the uniquely defensible attributes of this floating city with a navy to rival any in its time. European cities on “terra ferma” built moats and walls to defend themselves. Venice had none of that, but it built around and between canals and water bodies in ways that made it nearly unapproachable by any enemy that did not want to engage that navy, which even for the Turks could prove an exhausting enterprise. It has now been more than two centuries since Venice was independent, but the city that remains lacks cars—there is no place for them—but allows people to move about on foot or in boats. Take a map. We strolled the many narrow streets and squares (campi), crossed numerous bridges across both the narrow canals and the Grand Canal, got lost a few times, found our way again, and took water buses (vaporetti) in the rain, but the experience was special enough to justify every little frustration and every wasted minute. In fact, no minute was wasted. Turn a corner, wander down a narrow alley, discover some more history. In how many cities can you say that?

 

Jean and I at Accademia bridge, enjoying a beer.

 

Third: Of course, when you wish, you can stop. And rest. Or eat. Or watch the boats go by. Near the Rialto, having spent a morning finding small gifts for friends, we simply stopped at a ristorante  at the edge of the Grand Canal, ate a lunch of two types of spaghetti far better than most we are used to, imbibed some red wine, all while sitting outside just five feet from the Grand Canal, in the shadow of the Rialto. It would be hard, if not impossible, to find such settings in other cities so easily. On another occasion, having wandered from the Gallerie Accademia to the Santa Maria della Salute church, built in 1631 after the plague had struck the city, we found our way back to the Accademia bridge to discover a small restaurant and bar in its shadow, sat down for a pair of beers, and watched others hop into a gondola for the expensive ride (80 euros for 40 minutes)—all on a day when the temperature hovered around 70° F. with a slight breeze off the water. I could have stayed there much longer. Despite the concerns about Venice’s eventual fate as a result of global warming and sea level rise, for now at least, the climate seems quite congenial, if sometimes damp.

This is not much of a start, I know. It is merely a teaser to a sampler. More will have to come in bite-size installments throughout the summer. But it is a tiny hint of the richness of a visit to Venice. I can only wish I had been in a position to make it last longer.

 

Jim Schwab