Category — posts by Ryan

In 1900 it was estimated that over 3 billion Chestnut trees (Castanea dentata) blanketed the American landscape.

The American Chestnut blight was first noticed on trees in the Bronx Zoo in 1904.

Seven years later it was conservatively estimated to have done $25,000,000 worth of damage.

There are currently fewer than 100 American Chestnut trees over 24″ in diameter in its former native range.

3 billion trees. gone.

Strange how things can fade out so quickly. As the Starbucks, Countrywides, Bear Stearns, and other American institutions crumble I propose we infill them with Chestnut Parks. Slivers of land with an f.a.r. of 1. One layer of native plants reaching crookedly parallel to glass curtain walls, up concrete retaining walls, and inside the decommissioned dirt of failed commerce; places to watch the sun traipse between the cities sight lines and spill pieces of shade on unadvertised surfaces.

When the Chestnut tree comes back it will come back recomposed. When plants come back to the city, they will come back recomposed.

I have been to Chestnut Park in Philadelphia twice and once it was closed. I know nothing about it except what I have read on the plaque and seen on those two occasions. I nonetheless find it to be one of the more elusively beautiful places I have ever been and wish that everyone in every city had a place like this to read, eat, watch, daydream, listen, write, do nothing in.

A grass gripping breeze has, for the moment, triumphed the DC summer… if only one could take over the TV. I am so annoyed with the number of inane commercials I am forced to watch every few minutes during the olympics that I thought I would post one that reminds me that in very rare occasions, advertising is not the devil.

Want to save the world?

Let the Sun grow some sweet corn and peppers; eat them for dinner; store some energy; hop on an old Schwinn; make some pedal power and forget about burning ancient algae at 5 clams a gallon..

I have been recently fascinated with Schwinn bicycles, particularly those made in Chicago in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Since the bikes were mass produced there are many to be found, and the variability of forms and functions, names and numbers, and parts and pieces makes collecting them very appealing.

The fleet is currently counted at 6

Among my favorites is a 1980 Schwinn Twinn in Cardinal Red. Weighing in at 64 pounds, this beast is a force on the mean streets of DC, but nonetheless a stylish and amusingly ridiculous way to get around town with that special someone (poor Kate).

The most recent addition is a 1964 Schwinn Typhoon in Flamboyant Red. A bit sun burned but all original and in cruising condition this bike is nothing but a beautiful floating whale of a ride.

If you’ve got something from the Schwinn Bicycle Company collecting dust is your basement you’ve got a couple options… you can give it to me, or you can fix it up and quit crying about your blazing massive carbon footprint. If you want to turn that Schwinn around here a few tips…

1. unearth the ride.

2. Take the monster apart.

3. electrolysis (1) and coke (2)

(1) electrolysis is very effective at removing rust from steel; google the term and you will find some clear directions

(2) coke and aluminum foil is the best chrome rust remover; just polish the piece with the foil and a little bit of coke

4. sparkle

use a good de-greaser on the rest of the parts and let them sit overnight

6. Put it back together and pray that you don’t have any left over pieces.

If you want to know what you’ve got go here…

If you need to fix something go here…

If you want to learn more about bikes go here…

and if you want to see a serious Schwinn collection go here

On the National Park Service website Purple Loosestrife makes the list of the Least Wanted Plants and is classified as an Alien Plant Invader of Natural Areas. Next time you consider buying this plant, English Ivy, or any other weed at Home Depot… please don’t. Please take a moment to consider the above list. The problem is that aggressive non-native plants like Purple Loosestrife thrive in disturbed sites like Kingman Island and disrupt the native ecosystem…basically a wrench in an intricate system that fails to provide anything of value to birds, bugs and other creatures of the area.

Of course there are other plants on Heritage and Kingman Islands (just east of RFK stadium shown below) and on the day that Josh, Lisa and I were there we came across plenty of Poison Ivy Toxicodendron radicans, Silver Maple Acer saccharinum, and Josh’s favorite invasive exotic, Porcelainberry Ampelopsis brevipendunculata (which admittedly does have one of the most beautiful berries I have ever seen).

Since the US Army Corps of Engineers created the islands in 1916 they have been a collection point for the destitute and the dumped. Left to grow largely wild, the result, now open to the public (I think) is a thicket of 100 year old weeds. Perhaps even more impressive and beautiful is the re-establishment of many wetland species along the coasts. The last time I had explored the islands, the mud and geese looked like they might overcome the efforts at regenerating the wetlands. However, beyond my surprise that the islands were open was the view from the footbridge across the Anacostia…

the plants seem to be doing quite well and are reclaiming a fair percentage of land.

Unfortunately the archaic is captured in the opposite view and we are quickly reminded of the very visible hand of destruction. Five fingers, nails stained black from the making of progress.

It is both strange and beautiful to watch a building disappear. Anne Archbold Hall, originally known as Gallinger Hospital Nurses Residence, is fading. The building is part of the now largely abaondoned DC General Hospital in Southeast Washington, and although designated a Historic Landmark in 2006, it is all but forgotten.

The Colonial Revival neoclassical design was constructed in 1932 and added on to in the 1940’s. Anne Archbold Hall was engraved into the limestone entablature in 1952 to honor the benefactor, “an important, local, female philanthopist, a benefactor and compassionate critic of Gallinger Hospital and a contributor to nursing programs and to the nurses’ residence itself.” The Historic Preservation Landmark Designation goes on to note, “Anne Archbold Hall is a site of important to women’s history, as it is very significant as representing the occupation of nursing, one of the few professions widely available to women in the early 20th century and one comprised of nearly all women at the time”

If one goes to look for the building it is there… sometimes. It simply depends on how one searches. On the ground on a sunny summer day it looks like this…

In an aerial photograph it looks like this (highlighted in yellow)…

and on a map it looks like this…

see the big gray area south of RFK stadium and west of the Anacostia. Thats DC General Hospital. It’s roads, entrances, and buildings are missing from the google map.

Walking around the site, unsure of being fenced in or fenced out, trespassing or welcomed feels like something from Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. However, the buildings beauty and strength is undeniable, perhaps highlighted by its overall disrepair and lack of recent human interaction. I want to save this building and find it hard to imagine building new ones when something this beautiful exists.

Kings to come…next stop Kingman Island

exploring the Anacostia 1 here

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Connected by a coastal thread two hours south of Cancun Mexico is a town of 14,000 people called Tulum. Translated from Mayan, the name Tulum means wall or fence. The title references the ruins of a walled Mayan community built and inhabited between 1200 and 1450. The site was formerly known as Zama, meaning City of Dawn.

Sun burned, standing 40 feet above an impossible blue ocean and squinting into the southeastern sky it becomes quite clear why ancient Tulum was named the City of Dawn and why all bedroom windows should face SE.

The orientation is empowering, humbling and logically selected.

Once the site was chosen, the forest was cleared and the future city was walled on three sides with the ocean cliff providing protection on the fourth. Temples, palaces, homes and castles inhabit the site, all orthogonally positioned to the Caribbean coast and organized to worship such wonderful things as Venus and the Wind.

The ruinous landscape is intensely powerful in its topographic siting and continuing decay; an ongoing testament to the control of the sun, the planets, the wind and the waves. Landscape and architecture moving slowly into another at the hands of salt and ultraviolet leaving residual axes and green grass to revel in culturally protected moments of shade.

In 2020 Washington DC should hold a World’s Fair.

But it should be a different kind of World’s Fair.

Instead of spiraling people and culture to a particular geographic place, this event would spiral out. Digital information from each participating country or region would be collected, organized and re-presented to the world. Although all the data would be stored in Washington DC, the fair would be accessible from anywhere. A giant l.e.d. world would be displayed on the National Mall mapping the weave of connections between access and destination points. The weave would of course be constantly changing; different locations on the globe aglow at different times of day and during significant geographic and political events.

tracing inspiration; on looking through the Columbian World’s Fair Atlas…

The Columbian Exposition (1893 Chicago World’s Fair) opened on May 1, 1893 and continued until October 30, 1893. During the 6 months it was open nearly 30 million people traveled to Chicago to see the fair. While many other Expositions have been held since, few were of the scope, organization and duration orchestrated to build the White City (exposition list from the Bureau International des Expositions).

A sanctioned exposition is scheduled to occur in 2020, and American cities such as Houston, Energy and Exploration: A Vision for the Future, New York, Showcasing the World, and San Francisco Interculture: Celebrating the World’s Cultures while Creating New Ones through Interaction and Exchange are already vying to host the expo.

Instead of creating a destination, I think Washington DC could become a conductor through which information could be charged; the copper of next World’s Fair. The wiring is already in place. The political network centered in DC could provide a conduit of submission to be supplemented with less formal strings and loops. The creation of the fair would create technologically advanced jobs in DC and across the world with each country / region working to showcase their future. And of course as part of the future we would reflect on century old visions.

on planting trees…

I spent Earth Day (Wednesday the 22 of April, 2008) planting trees. However, these carbon consuming machines were not your garden variety stick the shovel in the backyard and toss in a stick with some branches on it trees.  They were big plants; house sized trees that cost more than most cars and alter local weather. We’re talking trees that deserve a crane to plant them…

The root ball of the tree shown  is a 20 feet diameter laced artwork. Although I don’t know the age of the tree I would guess it to be at least 15 years old. And so this becomes a question of buying time.  Affecting the landscape with such size certainly provides a satisfaction of immediacy, but isn’t there something about measuring the struggling seed; about marking the kitchen wall against the marks of your sister? Since younger trees, particularly ones that haven’t been shocked by transplanting, grow much faster than larger and older trees I wonder if were not missing something by allowing ourselves to wait and watch something grow. 

Or maybe this is an inspiring testament to the resiliency of trees and a parallel perspective on our ability to uproot and re-establish in a new American soil… sending new feeder roots through channels supported by a culture of scientific solutions and a mix of proper medicines.

Behind either perspective is the simplicity of digging up the dirt and letting something grow inside it.  New and old laces drinking up an alphabet of elements and releasing something good to breathe. 

Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Herbert and Katherine Jacobs second home in December of 1943.

Despite my ongoing pursuit of plant knowledge and current employment as a landscape architect, architecture was my first love, and however cliche in the architecture community it may be, I will continue to argue that FLW was the best and most influential architect ever. Although published far less frequently than other Wright homes, one of the most interesting houses he designed and built was the Jacobs II house.

On the first six working drawings of the Jacobs II house (as it is often referred to) the project is labeled “solar hemicyclo”. Subsequent drawings and references use the name “solar hemicycle”. The house is called a solar hemicycle because the plan is based on a south facing semi-circle. Although the home occupies only 120 degrees, planting beds occupy the remaining 30 degrees on each side, finalizing the half circle.

The design was shown to the clients at Taliesin on February 8, 1944. Paul Sprague defines the geometry of the home in its National Historic Landmark Nomination as follows;

In plan it was nothing more than an arc of about 120 degrees. Inside it would be two stories, 14 feet in height, and would spread out along the arc for approximately 88 feet at the rear, or north side, and 60 feet on its front , or south side. Its depth inside was to be 17 feet. The south wall would be all glass, 48 feet in length, divided between doors and fixed panes.

I find the home most interesting because of its relationship to the site and its integration with a landscape that extends from the north berm all the way to the southern sun. The entry procession cuts through the ground and bleeds sunlight on the other side.

The sunlight is captured as heat in the home during the winter and shaded by a large overhang in the summer.

The poetry of the house is less in the furniture or details but rather grounded in the stone wall, concrete floor, and cylindrical towers that contain a stairwell and service functions. The house has a strength that I think is often guilded in other Wright homes. Sunlight and plants drive through the veins and keep the house breathing and beautiful even in eventual decay.

(original photography credits unknown; photograph color and diagram by Ryan Moody)

When gardens stop war.

5 years into the second volume of this babelized war it occurs to me that bamboo can grow as fast as 3 feet per day and that a white oak beats gravity at more than a foot per year. Forget a dividing wall. Forget airplanes filled with food. Want to divide people; grow a garden. Want to feed people; grow a garden. Grow a big, aggressive as hell collection of plants (modified beyond natural recognition) to grow fast, tall, fruit bearing, pulp encircling, fuel producing and outrageously beautiful. Throw seed bombs from planes and watch the monster grow by the minute. Let it divide waring factions, feed hungry stomachs, warm cold nights, boil parasitic water, and bloom until the flowers catch every damn bullet. Forget flower power, lets fight with trees…

or lets at least collect the eggs of our favorite native plants, encase them in soil and toss the seed bombs over every urban fence protecting wastelands of concrete and grass.

In the second act of the most recent NPR release of This American Life, the narrator gives a brief background and interviews residents about the influx of “young white professionals” into the Northeast DC neighborhoods. At the center of the discussion is the planned closing of 23 DC public schools, one of which seems to be doing quite well, and the speculation that these closings are fueled by rising land value, the potential for condo development and the influx of a new demographic.

Heres the brief from www.thislife.org…

Act Two. The Plan.

American cities have gone through a massive wave of gentrification in the last few decades. To some people, it’s not a natural ebb and flow of the real estate market, but a plot, by rich, mainly white people, to take over the neighborhoods of poor, mainly black people. This American Life producer Jon Jeter reports on how, in neighborhoods all over the country, the plot has a name, “The Plan,” and most people you talk to know about it. (11 minutes)

Listen here

As noted in the program, white couples walking their dogs seems to be the universal sign of gentrification. I don’t have a dog, but the day might not be far off (dogs are among many things I like on the hilarious list of other stuff white people like). As a new resident to Capitol Hill East I realize that I am part of an increasing minority of white people in a historically black neighborhood… and that I have no idea what it is like to watch a neighborhood I have lived in for twenty years change so quickly. I see a renovated school building turned into a gym or condos and think, wow, what an excellent adaptive re-use, how lovely that some caring developer could secure that building, decide to not tear it down and instead renovate it. How nice that an architect had the decency to respect the craft of the original building and save as much as possible…

like most things, the longer view is a bit more complex.

I moved to Capitol Hill because it is a beautiful neighborhood close to where I work. The neighbors I have met are great. But I understand my naivete. My comprehension of the culture of the neighborhood is extremely limited. Nonetheless, I can see when the puzzle piece doesn’t fit. I see the elemenary school closest to me falling into disrepair. I see open windows in middle of winter. I see new condo buildings loom over single family homes and I watch four story shadows smother first floor neighborhood porches.

I heard the story on NPR and couldn’t help but wonder; was that school really neglected on purpose so that it would run down and ultimately be able to be “saved” and converted to million dollar condos? I don’t have the answer, but I am starting to see the perspective.

This situation is happening across the country in many neighborhoods, has happened in the past and will continue to happen in cycles. What is making it interesting is the complication of a failing economy. All of those condo buildings that have been built are not selling. Those that are being built will not sell. This is the reality of the current market. Many have reverted to rental properties and others sit abandoned as miscalculations in the geography of risk. This geography of risk is resulting in holes in the fabric. While there are lots of white people with dogs, I don’t know if there are enough to fill all the holes… and of course I suspect most are better at talking to their dogs than they are about talking to their neighbors.

In the New York Times today there is a great Op-Ed from a fruit and vegetable farmer in Minnesota on just how out of touch our national agriculture policy is. According to the farmer, Jack Hadin, anyone who grows one of the big four commodity crops (soybeans, corn, wheat, and rice) has to forfeit federal farm subisidies for those crops if they grow so much as an acre of fruits or other vegetables on their land. What?! That is ridiculous. As a result regional fruit and vegetable growers like our favorite vendors at farmers markets here in the district are struggling to keep up with exploding demand for local produce and are often unable to even rent additional acreage from behemoth corn and wheat farms.

I have known for a long time that the agriculture policy in the U.S was screwed up. It is a system that favors big agri-business and large growers of a few crops over smaller, more diverse growers. That is why it is cheaper and easier to buy a tomato from California here in DC than one grown in nearby Prince Georges County, Maryland. Its politics pure and simple. For the past year the reauthorization of the Farm Bill (the behemoth piece of legislation that sets up federal subsidies, crop insurance and nutrition programs and other projects) has been tied up in battles over how to pay for the billions of dollars in subsidies, who should get them, and how much. Defeated early on were proposals to make the federal farm programs better for fruit and vegetable growers. The Farm Bill still hasn’t been reauthorized as the President is threatening to veto it. Perhaps if this latest effort fails, the next President can spearhead an effort to make the Farm Bill help farmers like Jack Hadin instead of Archer-Daniels Midland and Cargill. Just a thought…

For those of you unfamiliar with the geography of Washington DC, it looks something like this (image courtesy of the Earth Remote Sensing Data Analysis Center);

I have highlighted the capitol building in yellow and the waterways of DC in red (the Potomac branch to the left and the Anacostia branch to the right) which of course combine and continue off into the Chesapeake Bay. My explorations for now will take us almost directly East (right) of the Capitol building and to both sides of the Anacostia.

Obviously, there are some issues with the Anacostia… pollution and combined sewer outfall among them. As new construction, renovation and political action move east from Capitol Hill to the historically neglected neighborhoods of Anacostia, it will be interesting to see how the not so buried treasures of life along the river are dealt with. The iridescent sea and its toxicity are beautiful in passing but crushingly heavy in the long view… what will become of the mortar labor and motor oil?

While walking around the abandoned Health Center complex just West of the Anacostia it was difficult to tell what was being fenced in and which side of the fence I was on. The porosity of the place, exposed by years of nature made fences interesting; relicts of division,  pleading for a river view and an open window.

Part I.

While perusing through some of my old books, I came upon a very worn but intact and unmarked copy of the Maurice Sendak classic Where the Wild Things Are. The image of monsters dancing under moonlight with claws and jagged smiles clicked in my imagination. And there it was; the drawing that captured and coined my own and so many other kids sense of the wild. Something so frightening and liberating, lawless and exciting, and colored in a way to reveal the mystery of reflected sunlight off the earths only moon. Magic.

Between my aunts, my father, my sister and myself the book has surely been read 1000 times. For the first time I noticed, across the floral interior cover board, the date on the first page, copyright 1963… a first printing of the first edition.

Part II

In My Backyard is a strange place. It is a leftover space; the interior of a large block that was apparently never considered. There are many spaces like this around the Capitol Hill neighborhood, and likely hundreds more in the entirety of dc.

All kinds of odd things happen beyond my backyard and various people have taken claim to this hole in the grid. In an attempt to amplify the wild of my back door nature I think that this space, as well as the many others, could use something more. So how to build upon the wild of this patch? One idea might be to plant it as densely as possible with native coniferous plants and attract as many birds as possible… a kind of neighborhood bird palace protected by a moat of humans. As protectors of our many two winged friends we could make baths from satellite dishes, and give the birds selection of our leftover cereals. We could watch them enjoy breakfast from our backyard tables and wonder if they enjoy music. Other Wild Things would join them and suddenly the dead center would swell and spill out to colonize the dying street trees, the mosaic extending from castle to castle.