Thursday, January 28, 2016
Liked plumbing
Another Topeka 'urban renewal' picture from KSHS. This was from a 1936 FDR project, not a '60s LBJ project.
Is that an AIR CONDITIONER in 1936? Can't be. Zooming in on the original pic, the answer is No. It seems to be a wooden box mounted on the window. It has ROOTS growing out of the bottom but not reaching the ground. Maybe it was meant as a food cooler in winter, then neglected? /// No, after a better look those 'roots' are just part of a super-ragged fence that's closer to the camera and out of focus.
But wait, there's more. Look at the gutters and downspouts on both houses. Fantastic plumbing, meant to carry all the water into the clay pipe, thence presumably into a gravel sump. But the complexity of the plumbing, and the nearly horizontal slopes, would guarantee permanent clogs. But that's OK; the gutter doesn't have an endplate so none of the water will enter the downspout anyway.
These two houses must have been owned by a man who enjoyed working with pipes but didn't enjoy working with wood. Look at all the plumbed fences and the undefined tall pipe structures for the left house. They're not clotheslines because the house also has a regular clothesline holding shirts. I get the sense that the left house is a semi-pro laundry. Maybe these pipelines are for rugs.
And that's only half of the action. You could write a book from these two pictures, but a 2016 book and a 1936 book would be worlds apart. 2016 book would be something like "Badwaters: Environmental Injustice Privileges Institutional Racism, Sexism, and Ableism," identical to all other Critical Theory Dissertations. 1936 book would be something like "Stupid man with a camera is putting numbers all over our yard so they can kick Mama and Aunt Pearl out of their houses. Let's see if we can splash his camera and ruin it."
Another Topeka 'urban renewal' picture from KSHS. This was from a 1936 FDR project, not a '60s LBJ project.
Is that an AIR CONDITIONER in 1936? Can't be. Zooming in on the original pic, the answer is No. It seems to be a wooden box mounted on the window. It has ROOTS growing out of the bottom but not reaching the ground. Maybe it was meant as a food cooler in winter, then neglected? /// No, after a better look those 'roots' are just part of a super-ragged fence that's closer to the camera and out of focus.
But wait, there's more. Look at the gutters and downspouts on both houses. Fantastic plumbing, meant to carry all the water into the clay pipe, thence presumably into a gravel sump. But the complexity of the plumbing, and the nearly horizontal slopes, would guarantee permanent clogs. But that's OK; the gutter doesn't have an endplate so none of the water will enter the downspout anyway.
These two houses must have been owned by a man who enjoyed working with pipes but didn't enjoy working with wood. Look at all the plumbed fences and the undefined tall pipe structures for the left house. They're not clotheslines because the house also has a regular clothesline holding shirts. I get the sense that the left house is a semi-pro laundry. Maybe these pipelines are for rugs.
And that's only half of the action. You could write a book from these two pictures, but a 2016 book and a 1936 book would be worlds apart. 2016 book would be something like "Badwaters: Environmental Injustice Privileges Institutional Racism, Sexism, and Ableism," identical to all other Critical Theory Dissertations. 1936 book would be something like "Stupid man with a camera is putting numbers all over our yard so they can kick Mama and Aunt Pearl out of their houses. Let's see if we can splash his camera and ruin it."Labels: Alternate universe
¶ 5:02 AM
