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Nothing deep here, just griping about today.

Avi and I set out to the Drexel Museum of Natural History. I took Indego ebike, to not worry about leaving my bike out locked, and to keep up with him. That was mostly okay, though my bike started making rattlings sounds on the way, and 20th has so many potholes, and manholes that are deep enough to potholes. I am once again baffled by how the US goes all-in on car dependency, yet can't keep the streets smooth.Read more... )

To leaven the negativity: the museum was decent. Nice hall of dinosaur fossils (or their casts), and a lot of good dioramas. OTOH even making a second pass, I'd basically squeezed it dry in 2-2.5 hours, and our first pass took just 1.5 hours. Is that good value for $22 full-price ticket? I doubt. Fortunately we weren't paying full price.

Logan Square was kind of nice, with its flowering bushes and water fountain, and I finally checked out the main library of Philadelphia. Was nice to be in a big library again, and I accidentally found a shelf full of bicycling books, several of which I checked out.

But Philadelphia hasn't gone in on the sort of checkout technology where you can 'turn off' a book after checking it out, so that it doesn't set off the detector. At my branch library (which has no self-checkout), the librarian gives my books to me after I've gone through the detector. At the main library, you need to have brought your printed receipt with you; I ran into a bit of trouble because I'd actually turned in some other books I checked out, to make room in my backpack for the bike books, and didn't keep the first receipt for the remaining book from the first set. Fortunately the guard decided I probably wasn't doing an elaborate scam to steal one book.

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I previously talked about different bidirectional two-lane streets in Berkeley/Albany. Gilman, which was narrow, and annoying and crossable; Marin, which was wide (parking, bike, wide travel, plus turn lanes), and a high-speed stream of death. Tonight I'll talk about Christian, also two-lanes, and even narrower than Gilman since there is parking on only one side[1]. It is objectively much more crossable than Marin, but has felt more annoying than Gilman, such that on my casual walks with no destination, I will often avoid crossing it. Why should this be the case? I don't know, but some ideas. Read more... )

mindstalk: (I do escher)

Decided today to go to the Drexel Museum of Natural History. But Avi was interested too, yet couldn't go today. Decided on the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History. Close enough to walk to, if I wanted a brisk 20 minute walk in dew point 20 C weather. Easy bike, but taking my bike raises concerns about leaving it locked for hours in Center City. So went to Indego bikeshare, and an ebike, partly because that's all the station had. Read more... )

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One thing I've noticed in my new Fishtown location is that there are a lot of corner stores. Like "every other corner" wouldn't be a terrible approximation. Delis, bars, I think a salon, more delis/convenience stores... It's pretty neat. Both providing surprise as you walk around an otherwise residential neighborhood, and of course providing services to residents. No idea if they're all grandfathered in or if the zoning and parking codes would be friendly to buying a corner house and opening a business.
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I'm staying in Fishtown/Kensington. Walking around, something seems odd about the urban fabric. My current analysis:

* No setback or front yards, buildings go straight up to the sidewalk. No grass strip by the curbs, either.
* Relatively narrow streets (side streets, not a boulevard like Girard), some just two lanes (one parking, one traffic) wide, some just an alley with narrow sidewalks.
* Wall to wall buildings, 2-3 stories, flat in both facade and roof (doesn't it snow here?) Boston buildings would have more bay windows, turrets, and other diversity; much less so here, whether old or new (which are REALLY flat. Tangentially, some of those show cracking concrete despite being like 10 years old.)

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