New book on city’s alleys
A new book is out with photos and descriptions of the city’s alleys, some history and some vintage photos as well. I bought and downloaded a PDF version of the book, and it’s a nice production.
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Kate
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Blork 13:47 on 2024-03-17 Permalink
Following up on the discussion about Time Out declaring St-H as such a “cool street,” how long before these now-exposed ruelles become enshittified?
Before you know it there will be kiosks set up selling precious little jars of overpriced tasty things, then the organized festivals will start with the same donut and fried potato chip trucks that appear at every festival. Committees will be formed and rules put forth. There will be in-fighting and corruption within the committees, and non-committee people will start to picket the alleys and boycott the activities. People will retreat to their balconies and tiny yards, where a counter-ruelle culture will emerge similar to the ruelle culture that was ruined by exposure and success. Then the cycle will repeat.
BTW, if you want to publish a novel, just put the above into ChatGTP starting with “write a100,000-word novel in the style of Zadie Smith…” and there you have it.
Kate 15:21 on 2024-03-17 Permalink
Although you’ve made some good points about cool streets and festivals, Blork, I don’t think the alleys will face the same problem. They’re scattered around town, and you need to make an effort to find them – few of them are shown on Google Streetview. Most alleys are still bland paved rear accesses to rows of houses, and most of them are constricted in size, so you can’t hold big events in them. Most ruelle events are small, and held by and for the local residents. But nobody wants a lot of noise going on out back of where they live, or not very often. They’re self‑limiting.
Ian 17:58 on 2024-03-17 Permalink
There’s also no commercial angle. Now, if people start charging admission to the best alleys ….
Joey 11:08 on 2024-03-18 Permalink
They should do a photo book that’s just contractors parking their trucks in alleys.