Full-of a-ton of mysteries
What makes a street walkable? Walking up and down the block of Clark St to Lakeview Ave on Fullerton I know how the street is walkable. The street is walkable because it has sidewalks. Sidewalks aren’t the only reason a street is walkable but it is one of the more important factors of walking a block. Walking has become so much more interesting now that I have the motivation to walk around Chicago. I find things walkable even when they may not look walkable. Especially in the factor of a desire path. I like to use desire paths, or make my own when walking anywhere.
I walk down passed Clark St down Fullerton and stop at Lincoln Park at the corner of Lakeview and Fullerton. I sit on the bench that is on the path. I look around to see my surroundings before I figure out what I want to observe on the block. I start walking from the corner of the park to the side of the street where the apartment complex is, next to the parking lot. I take a picture of the building. I get down on my knees and shoot up towards the top of the building.
After I take a picture of the building I walk past the building and look at what is around me. A group of four guys walk past and ask me to take their picture. I get nervous and politely decline. Then a guy from the group says to me “you could get a lot of hits from this!” after I declined to taking the picture. There is a spot of holes in the grass on the ground.
I continue walking passed the apartment complex and see a parking lot on my right. The parking lot was for the back of the Apartment Complex, for each complex they had their own parking lot.
One of the sounds I heard while walking passed the parking garage was the sound of cars driving passed and car horns. I also heard an extremely obnoxious motorcycle drive pass. A mom walked passed with her children, one in a stroller and said “don’t pull on that, you’ll break it” to her kid pulling on the stroller. A light brown dog with curly hair was being walked passed me.
I saw this Beachwalk Apartment complex. I’ve walked passed it before once with a friend. When we stopped by there was a group filming in the lobby of the apartment complex. Walking past it reminded me of that time. As I stood outside the apartment I heard a red car playing loud music, it was some sick beats.
I walked passed an alley on my right after I passed the Apartment Complex. There was a man sitting on a railing smoking a cigarette. I strongly dislike the smell of cigarette smoke. I liked the window above. It had a wood pane and a random string like thing ripped from the top of the frame. I liked the drawn stick figure with headphones on. There were also street signs to help determine the traffic flow that happens in the alley.
The last place on the block on this side of the street was the Cosmetic Dentistry and the Bank of America. The buildings were stacked one on top of each other. I smell gasoline from all the cars driving.
I cross the street and notice the trash can and a piece of trash on the ground. There is a RED newspaper stand with a sticker on the side of it. One of the things I’ve noticed about the trash cans was that they do not have trash bags in them. I wonder why they don’t have trash bags in them. It doesn’t make sense on how they take the trash out of them, and it doesn’t make sense on a sanitary factor because I image there are a lot of drinks thrown in there that spill and make it sticky and gross.
Behind the trash can is a New Balance store. I take a picture. I find a spot on the ground next to the New Balance store and video the people walking. I also take a picture of the cigarette on the ground and the spiderweb-looking blob on the edge.
There is also a brown chocolate lab that walked past. It is an older dog, it had gray on the mouth.
I see a big fluffy gray and white dog that looks like a shaggy dog. There is another dog that walks past, I take a picture of its butt. While I was sitting on the ground videotaping the people walking passed, a little kid jumped up and down and said “HELLO!!” He was very adorable, he seemed to be about 3 to 4 years old.
This dog was very cute, I was very happy when I saw all the dogs that were walking passed. I continue to walk down Fullerton and see another Apartment complex on my right.
This vintage style apartment has designs on the side that are flowers. It is right next to the New Balance store. I like the images that I took of the building. It gave the building a certain character to it.
Looking up at the building I noticed the designs on the windows. The designs underneath the windows were very intricate. They all have a different story to them.
While walking passed this building a husky and husky mixed dog walked in my direction. They were very cute and adorable.
Near the Apartment Complex there is a Sushi, Steak and Seafood place. In a potting plant on the patio there were plants that had peppers on them. A man walked out and grabbed a few of the peppers and brought them inside.
I took pictures of the peppers because they were very pretty and I was surprised that they were next to a place that wasn’t also a restaurant. They were in front of the restaurant and they were in front of the other apartment complex next to the restaurant.
There were so many Apartment Complexes on this block. The entire block is pretty much Apartment Complexes. They are very tall. There was a few people walking in and out of the building. As I am walking I notice a mother playing with her daughter laughing.
Of the things that I found I noticed there was not any street furniture to sit down on except for when I first started my adventure at the park. There were lots of cars going up and down the street. Even though it is close to Halloween there are not any decorations up for fall or Halloween.
- According to Jacobs, why are “punctuations” and “focal points” important to the life of the street and downtown?
Jacobs says that focal points can be a fountain, or a square, or a building — whatever its form, the focal point is a landmark, and if it is surprising and delightful, a whole district will get a magic spillover. One of the examples Jacobs uses it Time Square. He talks about the illuminated soda-pop waterfalls, animated facial tissues, and steaming neon coffee cups, alive with its crowds, it always makes your eyes pop. He discusses that Chicago lacks any focal points within its Loop. I disagree a little bit on his point about there not being many focal points in the Loop, but I think that there are. The Bean is a fine example of one of the “focal points” in the Loop. It is a landmark and everyone who visits Chicago visits The Bean, it’s one of the main attractions of Chicago, especially in the Loop. One of the other focal points are the ones that may not be on the map. I found a focal point when I went on my walk a few weeks ago.
