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THE DIRT ON US
Urbanphoto.org, né the Urban Photo Page on
September 22, 1999, has been at its current location since March 2000. We're a website
devoted to urbanity, the realm our favourite places: the cities. As our motto states, we
hope to spread the word that cities are great places to be and live, through photograph
and word. Above all, however, we hope to provide a critical look at the urban environment
and the issues that are affecting it. Our photos capture the bustle and beauty of the
metropolis as well as its grime and decay, showcasing the best and worst of urban design.
We are an apolitical organisation without
any corporate affiliations. Our only such affiliate is Amazon, our bookseller. The
opinions on this page are untainted by sponsorship or special interest. We will always try
to provide unsensational and accurate reporting in our features and exhibits. If you have
a problem with something we've published, don't hesitate to contact Chris DeWolf, the editor and webmaster of the site.
All material on Urbanphoto.org is copyright
2000 or 2001, with the exception of certain noted articles. No text may be copied from the
site without permission, and please credit us if you're going to quote something we or one
of our authors said. Our photos may be reproduced electronically without permission as
long as credit and a link are given, but please contact us if you would like to reproduce
one of our photos in print. This website was put together by Chris DeWolf with the help of
Chris Szabla and an ensemble of contributors.
We can always use your help, so if you have
something to offer, please don't hesitate to give us a
shout. Thanks for visiting and thanks for listening. More about the history of the
site and its authors can be found on our About the site page. |
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Informing
the public of urbanism through word and photography
ADVANCE AUSTRALIA FAIR
Posted 28 December, 2001 by Chris Szabla - Back
to the top
Well, our constant promises have been fulfilled and
Sydney-based urbanphoto.org editor Tony Peric has completed the Melbourne
gallery, the newest addition to our fledgling little site. And for today's update we
also have a special personal account of Melbourne by Mr Peric. Melbourne,
like most major Australian cities, consists of a small central business core governed by
the city government and surrounded by independent suburbs, many of which are the equivalent of what in North America would be considered urban
neighbourhoods of the city. Thus, in the new gallery, these suburbs have been treated as
we have treated the neighbourhoods of other cities featured here. More information on
Melbourne can be found, of course, at the website of the City of Melbourne, at this personal page, or at this tourist-oriented page. Also,
guides to Melbourne include those at Melbourne
Citysearch and Lonely Planet
Melbourne.
Of interesting note is the privatisation of the public
transportation system in Melbourne, which has allowed several companies to operate what
was formerly a state-owned transit network. The city's famous tram system is operated by
both M-Tram and Yarra Trams, wheras commuter rail service is
provided by M-Train and Connex. The recent privitisation of transit
there has reversed the trend of transit companies being consolidated and run as a state
agency. Although many laissez-faire enthusiasts may praise such moves as necessary for the
improvement of what was previously an inferior service, others are less optimistic about
the prospects of such a concept. A recent article at the Stop Privatization website points out that
privatisation serves only "profit and not service".
A little slow on the uptake, but better late than never:
in case you were wondering about the fate of Vancouver’s transit system (see the
November 6th posting), it seems reasonably bright. It was reported on the Canadian
Transit News email list that Translink,
Vancouver’s transportation authority, voted on November 23rd to keep
transit funding at their current levels. This means the city’s aging but expansive
electric trolleybus fleet will be replaced by new electric trolleybuses, as opposed to
diesel buses, the new SkyTrain line
won’t sit idle, and service will see modest increases. The news isn’t all good,
however; CTN contributor Ken
Wuschke reported that Translink ridership was down 6.5% over October and November. The
Coast Mountain Bus Company, a subsidiary of Translink, went on strike for several months
last spring and summer which hurt ridership.
The
City Review has been featured here in the past, but it deserves mention anew. The
site, established in 1997, is a collection of essays relating to New York, particularly to
New York architecture and urbanism. Although sometimes dated, the essays are a pleasure to
read. Of particular interest is the Midtown
Book, which takes a look at the buildings and avenues of Midtown Manhattan. Focusing
on a neighbourhood further north, Stuart Brorson’s virtual tour of Washington Heights gives a
thorough look at one of Manhattan’s least-known but very interesting neighbourhoods.
ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK?
Posted 21 December, 2001 by Chris DeWolf - Back to the top
In the 1981 movie Escape from New York, Manhattan is a
crime-ridden wasteland so devastated from urban decay and population loss, it is turned
into a giant prison for the worst criminals. While New York will probably never come to
that, the film’s title will undoubtedly grace newspaper "focus" sections in
months to come, all begging the question: in the aftermath of September 11th,
what’s in store for the Big Apple? This morning the New York Times reported
that a declining economy and repercussions from the attack have sent Manhattan rents
tumbling. According to rental broker Brian Edwards, as quoted in the Times, "Rents
are off 30 percent in Battery Park," a neighbourhood in Lower Manhattan, and 15 to 20
percent on the Upper East and Upper West sides. As Forbes Magazine reported
in October, downtown Manhattan is suffering badly, but how about the rest of the city? Are
people leaving? The short answer is yes. A Times article from October
25 that describes people fleeing New York for the countryside is proof enough. But the
question that should be asked is, will the city recover, or will it be thrown into a
spiral of decline? Chances are the answer is yes, New York will survive. In a Times article by Kirk
Johnson addressing this very issue, Johnson writes, "Cities by and large …
tend to be stubbornly resilient. The long-term historic momentum of a metropolis … is
a force that is far more powerful than the short-term chaos of a disaster." Cities
have survived similar, sometimes more damaging incidents before – London, for
instance, during the Blitz. And as Paul Krugman writes in another Times article,
"Even in postwar Japan there were no downward spirals, and cities quickly returned to
their original positions in the urban hierarchy." If lessons can be learned from
Europe and Japan, New York will rebound as strong as ever. As Krugman puts it, "It
seems cities are very robust indeed."
The current issue of Metropolis magazine features a story by Tess
Taylor about the pending demolition of the infamous Robert Taylor Homes of Chicago. The
housing project, conceived in 1962 as a model for highrise accommodation, quickly became a
model of what not to do. Recently, like many other failed housing projects, it has
been slated for removal, to be replaced by mixed-income townhouses and single-family
homes. The residents of the United States’ projects, however, may be getting short
shrift. There is not enough housing for the thousands of displaced project residents, and
the market housing that exists – former residents are given vouchers for units that
are designated low-income – is often sub-standard. While the article does not appear
to be online, you can check it out at your neighbourhood newsstand. For more information
on housing projects, check out ‘The
Chicago Housing Authority and the American Dream’, a site that examines the
history of public housing in Chicago.
In Minneapolis-St. Paul, meanwhile, the first year of light-rail construction was
celebrated. The $675 million (US) Hiawatha system, the Twin Cities’ first rail
transit since it destroyed its streetcar network in 1954, will run from downtown
Minneapolis south to the international airport and the Mall of America (the City of
Minneapolis offers a route map).
According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the full 11.6-mile line will be complete in
2004, with 30% having already been constructed. The Metropolitan Council, a regional
transportation authority, predicts that 19,300 people will use the line each day. More
information is available at the council’s Hiawatha information site.
Just in case you were wondering where exactly this site
was for the past week, blame it on our server. It seems there was a bit of a mixup between
our host, Dylan Leblanc of Skyscraperpage.com,
and the people who in turn host his server. Luckily the problem has been resolved and it
is clear sailing (er, surfing?) from now on.
BACK ON TRACK
Posted 4 December, 2001 by Chris DeWolf - Back to the top
At the dawn of this new century, rail travel has been
reborn in the Americas and has reached new heights of glory in Europe. The shift in
rail’s popularity is most striking in the United States where dozens of new urban light rail projects have been built, are under construction or are planned. Two of
the most successful recent experiments in rail can be found in St. Louis and Portland. The
St. Louis system, operated by the Bi-State Development
Agency in St. Louis and its Missouri and Illinois suburbs and opened in 1993, has seen
ridership skyrocket. The trains carry an average of 50,355 people per day and the highest
single-day ridership to date was 160,721 on July 1, 2000. This makes it one of the busiest
of the new-era light rail networks in the United States, though ridership pales in
comparison to some foreign light rail, such as Calgary’s, which is approximately
181,400 per day. Another successful light rail system is Portland’s MAX, operated by Tri-Met. Each workday it carries 69,800 people and that
figure is growing. Recently, Portland added something remarkable to its network of public
transit: a streetcar. Unlike typical light rail, which primarily serves commuters,
streetcars are locally-based, serving individual streets and neighbourhoods. The streetcar began service last
July and has since doubled expected ridership, bringing new lines into possibility.
Considering almost every streetcar system that remains is a survivor of conversion to
diesel bus, this is an intriguing step forward. Photos of Portland’s streetcar and light rail
can be found at lightrail.com, along with photos
of St. Louis’ system
and tons of news and information on light rail in North America. The Light Rail Transit Association also has news and
information pertinent to light rail, and nycsubway.org’s
American Transit Systems section offers photos
and guides to dozens of light rail projects around the US.
Light rail isn’t the only aspect of the rail
rebirth, of course. Interurban passenger rail has been regaining popularity on the
northeast and west coasts of the United States, fueled by clogged highways and especially
hellish air travel (post-September 11th trouble in the skies has undoubtedly
contributed passengers as well). Amtrak’s Acela Express is North
America’s first high-speed train, reaching speeds of up to 150 miles per hour in
between Boston and Washington, DC, with stops in New York and Philadelphia. Also important
are Amtrak’s lines in California, which are among the busiest in the nation. A large campaign is underway to construct a
large high-speed rail network in the state, which would create jobs and effective links
between the many cities housing California’s 32 million people. For the moment,
however, Amtrak may have a tough time getting all of its new passengers to stick around.
As the Los
Angeles Times reported this morning, harried commuters in the Northeast and California
may be the government corporation’s only hope. "But nearly three months after
the attacks, Amtrak looks less like a safety net than a sieve," the Times reports.
"Searching for answers, many lawmakers and rail experts are pointing to California
and suggesting that states must take the lead if passenger rail is to thrive." More
railroad news can be found at the Railroad News Network.
On the topic of rail, the current issue of Metropolis magazine features a story by Jonathan
Ringen on the new stations the birth of high-speed rail has foisted upon Europe and
beyond. ‘Station
to Station’ examines the grandiose and "spectacular new structures like
Rafael Moneo's 1992 Atocha Station, in Madrid; Santiago Calatrava's 1998 Oriente Station,
in Lisbon; and Bothe-Richter-Teherani's 2000 Frankfurt Airport ICE-Railway Station."
Also of interest, but unrelated to rail, is the Urban Audit website,
which is devoted to "assessing the quality of life of Europe’s cities". It
contains a plethora of statistics on many European cities (oddly lacking, however, London
and Paris).
TORONTO ON THE LAKE
Posted 22 November, 2001 by Chris DeWolf - Back to the top
Toronto is graced with a waterfront rife with
untapped potential. Miles of lakeside shoreline remain under- or even undeveloped, home to
vacant lots, surface parking, an elevated freeway and railroad tracks. A fair amount of
development has occurred over the past decade and condominiums have sprung up on the
central portion of the waterfront, serviced two new streetcar lines. Nevertheless, there
is little neighbourhood feeling here and most of the waterfront remains severed from the
rest of Toronto by blocks of barren parking lots, the elevated Gardiner Expressway and
railroad tracks. There are, however, ambitious plans to improve and develop the lakeshore.
As the Toronto
Star reported last week, the public is being asked for its input on how waterfront
development should proceed and generally, the
open houses were well-received. Particularly enthusiastic were the current residents
of the harbourfront, most
of whom appreciated the plans to infuse their area with life and new buildings.
Officials are looking at cities around the world at what makes their waterfronts
successful, and current possibilities for Toronto’s waterfront include, as Royson
James of the Star writes, "trails, parks, piazzas, promenades, playgrounds, beaches,
condos, offices, light rail transit, a tamed, dismantled Gardiner Expressway, museums,
maybe even an opera house." The issue is a hot topic in Toronto. Yesterday, Star
columnist Christopher
Hume urged Torontonians to take control of their future and demand a clear vision from
the multiple levels of government funding the project. "It's time for Ottawa and the
provinces to reacquaint themselves with the neighbourhood," he writes. More
information on the waterfront development can be found at the City of Toronto’s Waterfront website.
Information on the streetcars that serve the lakeshore – 509 Harbourfront and 508 Lakeshore – can
be found in Rob Hutchinson’s excellent guide to Streetcars in Toronto at nycsubway.org.
As Feed Magazine reported in
July of 2000, Philadelphia seems to be more than under the shadow of New York –
it’s becoming one of its suburbs. That may be overstating the case, but in recent
years New Yorkers have been travelling to Philly in search of cheap rents. It is, after
all, only a hundred miles or so from the Big Apple. Regardless of invading Manhattanites,
however, Philadelphia is still a unique and diverse city. Neighbourhoods such as West Philadelphia, with its Victorian architecture, to vibrant
and urban Rittenhouse Square,
are interesting and refreshingly inexpensive. Some Philly photos can be seen at gophila.com’s photo gallery, and the weekly City Paper has information and
articles on all aspects of the city, including a good urban photography gallery.
Regarding the upcoming Melbourne gallery: it was supposed
to open two weeks ago, but our Australia editor Tony Peric was unexpectedly swamped with
work. It should be up soon enough, so don’t worry. In the meantime, check out some of
these websites. Next City was
Canada’s leading urban issues magazine before it became a column
in the National Post. What it offered as a print magazine were insightful articles
about the city and other social issues from a liberal-libertarian perspective. Worth a
lengthy look. Also of interest is the campaign to save the historic
Eaton’s Building in downtown Winnipeg, which is slated to be replaced by an (if I
may say, rather hideous) arena.
ON TO ARBORWAY
Posted 14 November, 2001 by Chris DeWolf - Back to the top
For the first time since 1985, Boston’s Jamaica
Plain neighbourhood will regain trolley service. The Boston
Globe reported last Thursday that the federal Department of Environmental Protection
is forcing the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority,
Boston’s transit provider, to reinstate trolley service from Heath Street to the
Arborway. The trolley, which is route E of the system’s Green Line, ended its run
along Centre Street sixteen years ago after problems with traffic and derailment. Since
then, neighbourhood residents have fought to reinstate service along the main street. The
MBTA planned to run a low-emissions, articulated diesel bus along the route, but as of
today only regular diesel buses serve Centre Street. Not all are rejoicing, however, as
business owners along Centre are worried about possible traffic problems and removal of
street parking. For more information, visit the pro-trolley Arborway Committee website. Also relating to
Boston transit is the proposal for the Indigo
Line. Supporters would like to see the MBTA upgrade a little-used commuter line –
which runs entirely within city limits – to a heavy-rail rapid transit line with
frequent trains and more stations. There hasn’t been much in the way of news
regarding the Indigo Line as of late, although it does have support. The Boston
Herald’s editors rallied behind the
proposal almost a year ago and according to the plan’s site, a large number of
community groups and city, state and federal representatives support the line.
Also of interest in regard to Boston transport is the Newton Transportation Site, detailing
transit in one of the city’s suburbs; MBTA.net,
a service by and for MBTA riders, and Mucho Bad
Transit Attitude, which, as you may guess, combines (as the site puts it),
"Commentary, biting sarcasm, and sad humor on the USA's most inept mass-transit
system".
Hamilton, Ontario is often derided as Canada’s worst
city. This reputation comes from its large steel mills and industrial character, despite
the fact that most of the city is perfectly charming. The Hamilton Spectator’s Janet
and David Hillen write a column
on living downtown, chronicling life as well as the return of life to the historic
core of Canada’s eighth-largest city. Two particularly interesting columns are ‘Park bench offers
global view’ and ‘James, King can be
great streets’. Another
interesting newspaper series ran recently in the London Free Press, about
transportation concerns in London, Ontario. London is a small city of 400,000 people about
an hour and a half from Hamilton, largely suburban but home to a downtown full of
potential. One of the best articles in the series is called ‘Getting
to the core’, reporting on efforts to bring people into the downtown core as well
as boost transit ridership. ‘One-way
mayhem’ is another interesting article that details the negative effect one-way
streets have on an inner city neighbourhood.
GOTHAM'S NEW MAYOR
Posted 7 November, 2001 by Chris DeWolf - Back to the top
The results of the New York mayoral election came in
late last night and Michael Bloomberg has won the race. The liberal Republican candidate
is the new mayor-elect, just barely crawling past Democratic rival Mark Green with half of
the votes (Green had 47%). The New York Times has
thorough coverage of the race and its outcome, detailing the events of last
night as well as examining the vote. Bloomberg’s election is usual because there
have never been two consecutive Republican mayors in the city, where Democrats outnumber
Republicans five-to-one. What does a Bloomberg victory mean for New York? Not much at this
point in time. As Elizabeth Kolbert reported in the November 5th issue of the
New Yorker, the aftermath of the September 11th tragedy could leave the city
with a deficit of more than us $6 billion, which all but precludes spending on transit,
housing and social programs – the very things a city needs when the economy is in the
dumps.
In today’s Globe and Mail, Lisa Rochon writes about
the search
for "authentic architecture" and the need for inventive, thoughtful
architecture, especially involving historic buildings. Inside of trivialising historic
buildings by quaintly restoring them, she says, new additions should compliment and
enhance the old. Also of interest in recent newspapers are Christopher
Hume’s columns at the Toronto Star. Aside from his usual urban issues commentary,
Hume does some reporting. A few weeks ago he wrote about the demand that Canadian
cities be given more autonomy from provincial governments. This has been a recent
point of contention between cities and their provincial masters; as it stands, cities in
Canada do not have the same powers as their American counterparts, creating what many see
as a death knoll for the vibrancy and livability that have given Canadian cities such an
edge over the past forty years. The Federation of
Canadian Municipalities, big city mayors and activists such as famed urbanist Jane
Jacobs (who resides in Toronto), have demanded Canadian cities be given more powers to
decide their own fates. This issue has been emphasized by recent forced municipal mergers
in Ontario and Québec, where the province has amalgamated Toronto, Québec, Montreal,
Ottawa and other cities with their suburbs.
Speaking of Jane Jacobs, be sure to check out the interview Reason Magazine ran with her
this past June. Also, just a few random links to spew out at you since my bookmarks file
has been getting rather large: this past July CBC Radio One featured a series on urban sprawl and how to
deal with it; the NYC Department of
Housing Preservation and Development offers a good walking
tour of Harlem as well as an excellent section on neighbourhood
redevelopment; and the Urbanity
website offers some advice on how to make the United States more walkable.
VANCOUVER TRANSIT WOES
Posted 6 November, 2001 by Chris DeWolf - Back to the top
The future prospects of public transit in Vancouver
may be grim. The transit company, TransLink, is
out of cash – the Vancouver Sun reports
it lost money during this year’s drawn-out transit strike – and plagued by
what many consider to be an ineffective and often incompetent administration. The debt
left by British Columbia’s former NDP government and the economic downturn has
discouraged the new Liberal regime from spending any money on transit, leaving several
aspects of city transit in the air. The multibillion dollar Millenium Line of Vancouver’s rapid transit
SkyTrain system might not be completed and the city’s largest and most-used fleet of
buses, the electric trolleybuses, could end up being replaced by diesel buses. The
trolleybuses are nearing the end of their lifecycle and diesel buses, although far noisier
and dirtier, are cheaper to buy. The real debate, however, circles around whether or not
the trolleybuses are cheaper in the long run. Posters to the Canadian Transit News email group have thrown
their support behind buying a new fleet of trolleys, and sites such as Electric Trolleybus : A Sound
Investment for Vancouver have sprung up in support of the electric buses (the site has
an interesting Media Watch
section).
An update to Sunday’s posting: Gérald
Tremblay is the mayor-elect of the new megacity
of Montreal, winning over the incumbent mayor of the old city, Pierre Bourque. The
Montreal Gazette has extensive English-language coverage of the election results as well
as good analysis. According to the Gazette, among Tremblay’s
campaign promises are potential referendums for projects that require zoning changes;
an "improved city bus system with more rapid, reliable service and speedy
repair[s]"; new express buses; and a policy that preserves Montreal’s
architectural heritage. Tremblay was largely elected by the former island suburbs, most of
whose residents were disgruntled with the mergers. The
city council is now largely divided between Bourque supporters from the old city and
Tremblay supporters from the old suburbs. What this means for urban development in the new
city of Montreal will be of great interest in the future.
On the subject of important city elections, we will offer
results and links to analysis of New York’s election tonight. As for right now,
let’s focus on one of the city’s most interesting boroughs: Brooklyn. It is
probably the best known borough in New York aside from Manhattan. It has its own accent
– where else can you find Toity-toid Avenue? – its own world-famous amusement
park, its own downtown and it used to have its own major-league baseball team. Brooklyn
has taken a beating over the past half-century, like many American inner cities, but
it’s come back swinging with lots of life to spare. The key to understanding Brooklyn
is understanding its neighbourhoods. The Brooklyn USA page, run by the borough president,
has maps and guides to the
borough as well as a thorough collection of neighbourhood descriptions,
ranging from posh, ancient Brooklyn
Heights to the newer, Caribbean-flavoured Canarsie. The City of New
York’s official neighbourhood
maps also looks at Brooklyn neighbourhoods as well as the other boroughs. They’re
particularly interesting because they let you look at the land-use of each neighbourhood. Forgotten New York and the Nycsubway.org sites have photos and information on
lesser-known aspects of Brooklyn and its transit systems. Lastly, Metropolis
magazine recently featured a story on the revival of Coney
Island; a new baseball stadium and subway station are giving Brooklynites a chance to
reëxplore what was once forgotten.
LA BELLE MEGACITY
Posted 4 November, 2001 by Chris DeWolf - Back to the top
Today the polls open across the island of Montreal
for the first election of mayor, city councilors and borough councilors of the new city of
Montreal, which includes the old city plus more than two dozen suburbs. The process is
reminiscent of Toronto’s amalgamation in 1997 but differs in a variety of different
ways. For starters, the towns and cities that will now become part of Montreal were
fiercely independent, only sharing transit, police, health and fire services with each
other. The new city will be divided into boroughs with their own councils. The results of
this election will be interesting because the two lead candidates are an anti-merger
suburbanite, Gérald Tremblay, and the pro-merger incumbent mayor of Montreal, Pierre
Bourque. While their campaigns are strikingly similar, each featuring strong pro-transit
platforms and an understanding of urban issues, a Tremblay win would mark a
dissatisfaction with Bourque’s populist politics and a shift of power to the former
suburbs. There is plenty of information available on the web: the Montreal Gazette has led
the anti-merger crowd, featuring an extensive portfolio of articles and borough profiles
at their Montreal
Municipal Election page. Democracy
Montreal is an anti-merger site; the Montreal Transition Committee, responsible for
merging multiple layers of government into one, features a thorough FAQ site and the
official city of Montreal website has
extensive information (although not always in English).
A mayoral election is fast approaching in New York, as well. The candidates – Mark Green for the Democrats and Michael Bloomberg for the Republicans – are
of course focused on the tragic consequences of the September 11th attacks.
Nevertheless both have stances on traditional urban issues. As for housing, Green is
steadfastly in favour of large new amounts of affordable housing,
whereas Bloomberg suggests an overhaul of regulations
and new waterfront development. On the issue of transportation, Green endorses expansion of the subway
("In New York, we last significantly expanded our subways in the 1930s," he
notes). Bloomberg
advocates increasing public transit’s efficiency, transferring control of it to
the city, and creating a high-speed surface bus line to service Second and Third avenues.
Of particular interest is Bloomberg’s pledge to encourage public transit use by
leading by example: "Every day I go to City Hall," he says, "I will take
public transportation rather than the City-provided official car." Whether or not
many of these issues will take focus after the election is up in the air with billions of
dollars diverted to the cleanup and rebuilding of the World Trade Center site. New Yorkers
will head to the polls to decide between Bloomberg and Green this Tuesday, November 6th.
BACK AT LONG LAST
Posted 3 November, 2001 by Chris DeWolf - Back to the top
We're back. It's been a long, unintentional holiday
from Urbanphoto.org and so much has happened I don't know where to start. I guess the
logical beginning would be the reason for our absence. The server our site is normally
hosted on has been taken hostage by its colocator. In simple terms, they unplugged it from
the internet and nobody really knows why. As a legal standoff goes nowhere, my good friend
Dylan Leblanc of Skyscraperpage.com has
given us temporary space on his new server. Dylan is singlehandedly responsible for this
site's survival and I owe my deepest thanks to him. But despite our woes, there is always
good news to be had: for the past three and a half months, Chris Szabla, Tony Peric and I
have been hard at work creating new content and an Urbanphoto.org with a new look. The
changes aren't merely aesthetic and you may notice somethings new and others that have
disappeared. Because of a lack of demand and a need to trim the site's size down, the
Calgary and Miscallaneous galleries are gone. The Halifax gallery is temporarily gone
because of some technical difficulties but it will be back soon enough. You'll also notice
the new design is far less graphics-heavy than the old one, which saves us megabytes and
you downloading time. We've made up for what's gone, however, with new photos and content.
The galleries have been reorganised into two types: Maingalleries and Minigalleries. A new
city can be found in the Minigalleries: St.
John's, Newfoundland, by myself. We were expecting to open with a Melbourne gallery
but it will now be upgraded to a Maingallery; Tony Peric, our Australian editor, has just
arrived from a fresh trip to Melbourne as well as Adelaide, and will be creating galleries
for both those cities (500 some photos for Melbourne and 165 for Adelaide). As for
Maingalleries, more than 500 photos of San Francisco by Chris Szabla will be finding their
way to the site, and Tony's long-awaited Sydney galleries should be coming along soon. As
for written word, a Reviews section has
been added. Our contributing critic, Sean McKinniss, will be adding new reviews of urban
issues literature and occasionally film over the next while, as well as myself. The Articles section is also improved with
several new articles.
A postscript to this whole affair: on September 22nd, 2001, we celebrated our second
anniversary (we've had our domain for a year and a half, and before that were were hosted
by Hypermart). Here's to a third great year!
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