Remembering the Triangle Fire, 100 Years Later
By JOSEPH BERGER
The New York Times
In the arts and academia, on television and on a Greenwich Village street, the 146 victims of the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire will be remembered over the next few weeks in an outpouring of events marking the centennial of the workplace tragedy.
The events, which started last month — roughly 100 in New York City and another 100 elsewhere in the nation — seem on a scale unmatched in New York since the nation’s bicentennial in 1976 or the Statue of Liberty’s 100th birthday party in 1986. And those were celebrations. This commemoration will have a more mournful, reflective tone.
“It’s amazing, the passion that has come out for this,” said Sherry Kane, a spokesman for Workers United, the union that today represents garment workers. “I think it speaks to people because it’s about immigrant issues, women’s issues, workers’ issues, so it’s all these communities and it feels very important to them.”
The lineup of events planned around the anniversary on March 25 include documentary films, art exhibits, plays, dance recitals, a requiem, a soliloquy, a slide show, an oratorio and lectures and panel discussions.
To Read the Rest of the Article
Art * Memory * Place: Commemorating the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
http://www.nyu.edu/greyart/">Grey Art Gallery (New York University)
One hundred years ago, on March 25, 1911, 146 people, mostly young women from Jewish and Italian immigrant families, perished in a tragic and avoidable fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, which was located on the top three floors of the Asch Building (now NYU’s Brown Building), on the corner of Washington Place and Greene Street. The fire broke out on the 8th floor and quickly spread to the 9th and 10th floors. With many of the stairways blocked, only some of the workers managed to escape; others climbed out the windows, leaping to their deaths, or perished on the factory floor. Although it was extinguished in less than half an hour, the Triangle Fire was New York City’s largest workplace disaster before 9/11.
The exhibition results from an innovative collaboration between the Grey Art Gallery and graduate students in NYU’s Programs in Museum Studies and Public History. Divided into four sections, it begins with the ladies’ garment workers’ strike of 1909, then chronicles the fire itself, the display of bodies at the morgue, press coverage, and funeral processions and other memorials, including legislative action. Section two records the fire’s legacy during the New Deal era, noting the rise of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) and examining its representations in journalism and mural painting. The third section explores activities surrounding the fire’s fiftieth anniversary in 1961, including commemorative ceremonies, scholarly publications, interviews with survivors, and landmarking.Demonstrating renewed interest in the fire’s legacy today, the final section investigates contemporary memorial activities, both on site and in the form of visual representations in community projects and performance art—along with works of scholarship, film, music, and literature, including children’s books.
Art ● Memory ● Place concludes with a call for continuing vigilance and political action to protect the rights of garment workers, both in the U.S. and worldwide. The exhibition is dedicated to the fire’s victims and survivors, and their descendants. Documenting a century of commemorations, it traces the many social and political advances inspired by the tragedy, and the myriad ways in which its memory has been claimed, contested and re-invigorated.
To Access the Online Archives/Histories
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire (1911)
The New York Times
It was Saturday, March 25, 1911. The work week was ending at the Triangle Waist Company factory in Lower Manhattan, and the men and women who operated the sewing machines and cut the cloth were pushing away from their tables, with some anticipating a night on the town and all looking toward their one day of rest.
On the 8th floor, flames suddenly leaped from a wastebasket under a table in the cutters’ area.
While workers frantically struggled with pails of water to douse it, the fire hopscotched to other waste bins and snared the paper patterns hanging from strings overhead.
The fire spread quickly — so quickly that in a half hour it was over, having consumed all it could in the large, airy lofts on the 8th, 9th and 10th floors of the Asch Building, a half block east of Washington Square Park.
In its wake, the smoldering floors and wet streets were strewn with 146 bodies, all but 23 of them young women.
The Triangle shirtwaist factory fire, as it is commonly recorded in history books, was one of the nation’s landmark disasters, a tragedy that enveloped the city in grief and remorse but eventually inspired important shifts in the nation’s laws, particularly those protecting the rights of workers and the safety of buildings.
The tragedy galvanized Americans, who were shaken by the stories of Jewish and Italian strivers who had been toiling long hours inside an overcrowded factory only to find themselves trapped in a firestorm inside a building’s top floors where exit doors may have been locked. At least 50 workers concluded that the better option was simply to jump.
To Access Original News Reports, Retrospective Historical Pieces, and Photo Archives
Showing posts with label Place. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Place. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Worldview: Shakespeare and Company Bookshop -- Parisian mecca of bookshops survives in era of Amazon
Parisian mecca of bookshops survives in era of Amazon
Worldview
Over the past decade I’ve watched the iconic cultural places in our city disappear one by one. Places like Maxwell Street and Halsted, the birthplace of Chicago jazz and blues and a hangout for writers like Nelson Algren, destroyed and rebuilt with a glossy soulless exterior.
I just assumed it was the same story everywhere. That’s when I found out Shakespeare & Company Bookshop was still open for business. I’d first heard about the shop when I began reading Earnest Hemingway’s work. When I got into Kerouac, there it was again. Many of the Beats hung out there and slept amongst the bookshelves.
These were the two generations more than any other in American literature that made me want to be a writer, so I decided to drop in during my trip to Paris this past summer.
Shakespeare & Company sits in a small stone courtyard just across the Seine from the Notre Dame Cathedral.
A sign scribbled in chalk near the entrance reads, "Some People call me the Don Quixote of the French Quarter because my head is so far up in the clouds that I can imagine all of us Angels in Paradise."
It finishes with the line, “I have been doing this for fifty years, now it is my daughter’s turn.”
The message is dated January 2004. That’s when George Whitman handed over his beloved bookshop to his then-24-year-old daughter Sylvia. His daughter is named after the shop’s original owner, an American expatriate named Sylvia Beach who first opened Shakespeare & Company’s doors in the early 20th century.
Upon entering the bookshop, I didn’t have to look far to find Sylvia Whitman, perched at her desk just inside the shop’s left-side entrance where the antique books are sold. Sylvia is a fair-skinned, bright-eyed, 29-year-old businesswoman. She grew up in the apartment above the shop, where authors like Lawrence Durrrell regularly visited.
“Running around without shoes on, hiding in corners and being read stories upon stories upon stories. It was a fairy tale childhood,” Whitman said.
While many independent bookstores have closed their doors because of declining sales, Sylvia has maintained Shakespeare & Company’s loyal customer base and its legacy.
“I’ve tried to keep the atmosphere and the philosophy that Dad created, so we still have writers sleeping in the bookshop,” she said.
To Listen to the Episode
Worldview
Over the past decade I’ve watched the iconic cultural places in our city disappear one by one. Places like Maxwell Street and Halsted, the birthplace of Chicago jazz and blues and a hangout for writers like Nelson Algren, destroyed and rebuilt with a glossy soulless exterior.
I just assumed it was the same story everywhere. That’s when I found out Shakespeare & Company Bookshop was still open for business. I’d first heard about the shop when I began reading Earnest Hemingway’s work. When I got into Kerouac, there it was again. Many of the Beats hung out there and slept amongst the bookshelves.
These were the two generations more than any other in American literature that made me want to be a writer, so I decided to drop in during my trip to Paris this past summer.
Shakespeare & Company sits in a small stone courtyard just across the Seine from the Notre Dame Cathedral.
A sign scribbled in chalk near the entrance reads, "Some People call me the Don Quixote of the French Quarter because my head is so far up in the clouds that I can imagine all of us Angels in Paradise."
It finishes with the line, “I have been doing this for fifty years, now it is my daughter’s turn.”
The message is dated January 2004. That’s when George Whitman handed over his beloved bookshop to his then-24-year-old daughter Sylvia. His daughter is named after the shop’s original owner, an American expatriate named Sylvia Beach who first opened Shakespeare & Company’s doors in the early 20th century.
Upon entering the bookshop, I didn’t have to look far to find Sylvia Whitman, perched at her desk just inside the shop’s left-side entrance where the antique books are sold. Sylvia is a fair-skinned, bright-eyed, 29-year-old businesswoman. She grew up in the apartment above the shop, where authors like Lawrence Durrrell regularly visited.
“Running around without shoes on, hiding in corners and being read stories upon stories upon stories. It was a fairy tale childhood,” Whitman said.
While many independent bookstores have closed their doors because of declining sales, Sylvia has maintained Shakespeare & Company’s loyal customer base and its legacy.
“I’ve tried to keep the atmosphere and the philosophy that Dad created, so we still have writers sleeping in the bookshop,” she said.
To Listen to the Episode
Monday, January 03, 2011
Worldview: Megacities Must Not Lose Their Humanizing Qualities
Megacities Must Not Lose Their HumanizingQualities
Worldview (WBEZ: Chicago Public Media)
Shanghai's population is approaching 20 million and as it, and other mega cities expand, Barry hopes that our global obsession with development doesn't come at a great cost…
Traveling through the world's megacities has resembled the journey described in Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. In this fictional masterpiece Marco Polo describes to Kubla Khan what he saw on his journey. After four decades of visits to megacities, it is also difficult to describe, let alone understand, the modern megacity, world city or global city. What they have in common are qualities of size, scale, shape and speed that are new in human development and unique in the history of globalization. For example, size proportionately affects both the physical and mental health of people and geometrically increases the global footprint of a city. We make cities, but they remake us.
The megacity, determined by a population of ten million or more, or the global city, determined by capital concentration, signals a new partition of the world. This spatial partition is represented within the city by formal vs. non-formal settlements or vertical vs. horizontal growth.
These new (in)human settlements are full with both promise and peril, beauty and barbarism. More important than the fact that half the world's population is living in cities is the emergence of the very large city. It is in the megacities that the fate of global and planetary development rests. In such cities there is a dance between promise and peril, each partner uncertain of who is leading.
The promise of the megacity can be the diversity of experience, people and cultures; economies of scale; human capital; or the concentration of science-technology-innovation. The peril of the megacity includes both planetary and global threats, such as inequality, pollution, violence or earthquakes. Martin Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, recognized that “Today's city is the most vulnerable social structure ever conceived by man.”
The bewildering methods of defining and measuring urban population suggest that even our conception of the city is indefinite. The megacity has been the subject of numerous horrific fictional accounts. But no one has managed to depict a city of twenty, thirty or forty million people as equitable and ecological. Such an idea cannot be sustained in the imagination.
Cities are problems in “organized complexity,” stated Jane Jacobs in 1961. The most difficult challenge facing megacites is to discover the challenge of this “organized complexity”. It is the interaction between the hard and soft infrastructure that sustains the urban area, including the full array of global and planetary systems that engage or are engaged by cities. One obvious example is the Icelandic Volcano. A planetary event dramatically impacted the global system of air traffic, and related activities.
Looking at the movement in and out of people, freight, power, ideas, services, waste in cities, it is obvious that Tokyo, New York, Shanghai, Mumbai, Sao Paulo or Lagos represent distinct examples of “organized complexity.” They are driven by factors that are poorly understood in isolation, let alone in their interaction.
To Listen to the Episode
Worldview (WBEZ: Chicago Public Media)
Shanghai's population is approaching 20 million and as it, and other mega cities expand, Barry hopes that our global obsession with development doesn't come at a great cost…
Traveling through the world's megacities has resembled the journey described in Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. In this fictional masterpiece Marco Polo describes to Kubla Khan what he saw on his journey. After four decades of visits to megacities, it is also difficult to describe, let alone understand, the modern megacity, world city or global city. What they have in common are qualities of size, scale, shape and speed that are new in human development and unique in the history of globalization. For example, size proportionately affects both the physical and mental health of people and geometrically increases the global footprint of a city. We make cities, but they remake us.
The megacity, determined by a population of ten million or more, or the global city, determined by capital concentration, signals a new partition of the world. This spatial partition is represented within the city by formal vs. non-formal settlements or vertical vs. horizontal growth.
These new (in)human settlements are full with both promise and peril, beauty and barbarism. More important than the fact that half the world's population is living in cities is the emergence of the very large city. It is in the megacities that the fate of global and planetary development rests. In such cities there is a dance between promise and peril, each partner uncertain of who is leading.
The promise of the megacity can be the diversity of experience, people and cultures; economies of scale; human capital; or the concentration of science-technology-innovation. The peril of the megacity includes both planetary and global threats, such as inequality, pollution, violence or earthquakes. Martin Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, recognized that “Today's city is the most vulnerable social structure ever conceived by man.”
The bewildering methods of defining and measuring urban population suggest that even our conception of the city is indefinite. The megacity has been the subject of numerous horrific fictional accounts. But no one has managed to depict a city of twenty, thirty or forty million people as equitable and ecological. Such an idea cannot be sustained in the imagination.
Cities are problems in “organized complexity,” stated Jane Jacobs in 1961. The most difficult challenge facing megacites is to discover the challenge of this “organized complexity”. It is the interaction between the hard and soft infrastructure that sustains the urban area, including the full array of global and planetary systems that engage or are engaged by cities. One obvious example is the Icelandic Volcano. A planetary event dramatically impacted the global system of air traffic, and related activities.
Looking at the movement in and out of people, freight, power, ideas, services, waste in cities, it is obvious that Tokyo, New York, Shanghai, Mumbai, Sao Paulo or Lagos represent distinct examples of “organized complexity.” They are driven by factors that are poorly understood in isolation, let alone in their interaction.
To Listen to the Episode
Friday, December 03, 2010
Crimethinc: Building a New Kind of Infoshop
Building A New Kind Of Infoshop
by Peter P.
Crimethinc
On Saturday, November 13, a new and experimental infoshop in Winona, MN, opened it’s doors to the public. The Burrow is one of the first new infoshops to open since the controversial essay “5 Steps to Reviving Your Failing Anarchist Bookstore“, and at a time when long-standing infoshops are throwing in their towels, this account offers insight into the new models still unseen.
This story begins where our coverage of small-town organizing left off in Rolling Thunder #7. What follows is not only an account and recipe for a new type of space, but a possible intermediate step in anarchist organizing in long-term communities.
If You Build It . . .
Early on, the plan was to put a space in our home. Our friends and colleagues have known about our wild dreams for the last two years — that we’d be able to have a social space independent from the rest of our house. Now that we’ve finished most of the work, a community is waiting for us.
We knew from the start that making good on our promise would mean a lot of work and time. It would mean learning how to do things we’d never done before. Perhaps most importantly, it would mean we would have to care enough about the outcome to do things well.
The process was long, though. Visitors passed through to see the space in wholly different stages and shades. Before any work was done the wallpaper was sagging, the plaster dripping, like some paper street soap company.
The walls were first to go. We had to tear down the old walls, swinging hammers and crowbars. Carpenters call this doing “demo” and it is similar, in many ways, to the anarchist sense of the word. Of course, it wasn’t all smash. We shoveled plaster and lath. We scooped armloads of asbestos vermiculite. It was dusty, disgusting, probably deadly, and it had to be done.
To Read the Rest of the Essay and to See Pictures of the Journey/Process
by Peter P.
Crimethinc
On Saturday, November 13, a new and experimental infoshop in Winona, MN, opened it’s doors to the public. The Burrow is one of the first new infoshops to open since the controversial essay “5 Steps to Reviving Your Failing Anarchist Bookstore“, and at a time when long-standing infoshops are throwing in their towels, this account offers insight into the new models still unseen.
This story begins where our coverage of small-town organizing left off in Rolling Thunder #7. What follows is not only an account and recipe for a new type of space, but a possible intermediate step in anarchist organizing in long-term communities.
If You Build It . . .
Early on, the plan was to put a space in our home. Our friends and colleagues have known about our wild dreams for the last two years — that we’d be able to have a social space independent from the rest of our house. Now that we’ve finished most of the work, a community is waiting for us.
We knew from the start that making good on our promise would mean a lot of work and time. It would mean learning how to do things we’d never done before. Perhaps most importantly, it would mean we would have to care enough about the outcome to do things well.
The process was long, though. Visitors passed through to see the space in wholly different stages and shades. Before any work was done the wallpaper was sagging, the plaster dripping, like some paper street soap company.
The walls were first to go. We had to tear down the old walls, swinging hammers and crowbars. Carpenters call this doing “demo” and it is similar, in many ways, to the anarchist sense of the word. Of course, it wasn’t all smash. We shoveled plaster and lath. We scooped armloads of asbestos vermiculite. It was dusty, disgusting, probably deadly, and it had to be done.
To Read the Rest of the Essay and to See Pictures of the Journey/Process
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Ryan T. Cooney: Take Only Memories, Leave Only Footprints
Ryan T. Cooney
ENG 102
Take Only Memories, Leave Only Footprints
Travel and camp on durable surfaces. Dispose of waste properly. Leave what you find. Minimize campfire impacts. These are some of the tenants of Leave No Trace trail ethics, a widely adopted set of guidelines developed for individuals and groups visiting the wilderness to follow in order to minimize human impact on the environment. The Appalachian Trail, particularly in Grayson Highlands National Park, Virginia exemplifies the benefits of these rules, as this highly trafficked trail is pristine and wild. In unfortunate contrast, the Red River Gorge in the Daniel Boone National Forest, Kentucky demonstrates what happens when these guides are not followed.
While hiking in the Gorge, the first thing you will notice is the large number of campsites that are very close to the trail within a mile of the trail-head, along almost all of the established trails. These sites tend to be overused and suffer from fairly severe erosion. The ground is littered with trash and broken glass from beer bottles, and the trees in the immediate area tend to be wounded and scarred. This is a far cry from the pine carpeted clearings found well off the trail in Grayson Highlands, where the only signs anyone has camped recently are the damp pine needles in the footprint where a tent stood the night before.
As you continue down any of the Gorge's many trails, you will notice that there are many places where the trail forks only to rejoin itself on the other side of an obstacle, and shortcuts avoiding switchbacks on the side of a ridge seem as permanent and intentional as the trail itself. It seems with hiking trails, where one walks, a thousand will follow. Leave No Trace teaches to keep to the center of a trail, even when wet and muddy to avoid widening or eroding the trail, and not to trail blaze shortcuts. On sections of the Appalachian Trail, people have adhered to this so well that even though thousands have hiked through, the path is no more intrusive than a game trail.
The Gorge is renowned for its breathtaking rock formations, from natural arches to caves and sandstone cliffs. Sadly, even the hardest-to-reach formations are covered in carvings and graffiti. Many rock shelters have been damaged by the smoke of campfires, and some have even gotten so bad as to have been barricaded to prevent people from camping under them. The barricades, intended to protect the areas they block off, are as much an eyesore as the damage that led to their installation. The only true solution is to teach Leave No Trace trail ethics to as many as possible, and make the information available to all who visit the Red River Gorge.
Leave No Trace states that you should “travel and camp on durable surfaces”. At the gorge this would be best interpreted as hiking only on the official trails, and camping in the established campsites found farthest from the trail. When a group is crossing an area where there is no trail, they should spread out to avoid unintentionally creating a new trail. It is also wise to avoid areas where you can still see the impact of a previous group, to allow time for a natural recovery. This helps to reduce the unavoidable impact caused by even the most conservation-minded individuals, and gives the forest its best chance at continued survival.
Perhaps the least practiced guideline is to minimize campfire impacts. Everyone loves a big roaring campfire, but they aren't always appropriate. When back-country hiking, it is preferential to avoid fires when at all possible, cooking by stove and using flashlights or candles for light. When a fire is needed, it is best to keep it small, and use existing fire pits when available. Everything thrown into the fire should be burned to ash, and scattered over an area the size of a football field once completely cooled. When a campsite is left, it should be impossible for the next group to tell that you even had a fire.
In order to preserve an area, you wouldn't want to remove anything from the environment that belongs there. It is important to leave anything you find, where you found it; look but don't take. Leave flowers, rocks, wildlife and artifacts where they lay, so the next group to happen across that spot can see it just as you did, without your personal souvenir missing. Some of the trails at the Gorge are hiked by thousands of people every year. If they all took a plant or a rock with them, it wouldn't be long before things were looking awfully bare. Just as you shouldn't take anything you didn't bring, it is pertinent to make sure you leave with everything you brought.
The most visible concern at the Red River Gorge today is litter. Standard trail practice is to pack out anything you pack in. Any trash you generate as well as any you find should be stored in a bag in your pack and thrown away in a proper bin when you next encounter one, usually at the trail head. Repackage food and beverages to cut down on trash before you hit the trail, and avoid anything in a glass container. Broken glass makes for a very unfriendly campground, potentially cutting feet, tent floors, sleeping pads, and other gear. It seems more and more of my favorite spots at the gorge are covered in broken glass each year. My four-legged friend does not approve.
As if trash on the trail wasn't enough to ruin an otherwise beautiful area, proper disposal of human waste is becoming an issue at the Gorge. The statistics would surely be disgusting as to how many people actually distance their waste from water. It is necessary to maintain a minimum distance of two hundred feet from any body of water when leaving human waste and when washing. Liquids and particles of waste can seep into groundwater and carry into water sources, contaminating the water and, at worst, spreading disease. When latrines are not available, cat-holes should be dug six to eight inches deep, and when done being used, should be covered and disguised. While these things may all seem like common sense, it is amazing to see the impact being made by not taking these simple steps to preserve the places we love to visit.
On May 12th, 2010, the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics declared the Red River Gorge as it's inaugural Hot Spot in an effort to “raise awareness for areas with critical recreational impact”. Their goal is to set up programs to educate the public and provide materials about conservation. They will also be teaming up with local associations which help to maintain the area to restore the natural beauty of the Red River Gorge. For their cause to be effective, it will take a public understanding of how to enjoy nature without destroying it. If their efforts are embraced, perhaps the generations to come will see the Gorge in the same awesome glory our generation can find along the Appalachian Trail, as all of the natural areas of world should be. This is a dream that can be made into reality, as long as we are all willing to do our part, and be conservation-minded.
ENG 102
Take Only Memories, Leave Only Footprints
Travel and camp on durable surfaces. Dispose of waste properly. Leave what you find. Minimize campfire impacts. These are some of the tenants of Leave No Trace trail ethics, a widely adopted set of guidelines developed for individuals and groups visiting the wilderness to follow in order to minimize human impact on the environment. The Appalachian Trail, particularly in Grayson Highlands National Park, Virginia exemplifies the benefits of these rules, as this highly trafficked trail is pristine and wild. In unfortunate contrast, the Red River Gorge in the Daniel Boone National Forest, Kentucky demonstrates what happens when these guides are not followed.
While hiking in the Gorge, the first thing you will notice is the large number of campsites that are very close to the trail within a mile of the trail-head, along almost all of the established trails. These sites tend to be overused and suffer from fairly severe erosion. The ground is littered with trash and broken glass from beer bottles, and the trees in the immediate area tend to be wounded and scarred. This is a far cry from the pine carpeted clearings found well off the trail in Grayson Highlands, where the only signs anyone has camped recently are the damp pine needles in the footprint where a tent stood the night before.
As you continue down any of the Gorge's many trails, you will notice that there are many places where the trail forks only to rejoin itself on the other side of an obstacle, and shortcuts avoiding switchbacks on the side of a ridge seem as permanent and intentional as the trail itself. It seems with hiking trails, where one walks, a thousand will follow. Leave No Trace teaches to keep to the center of a trail, even when wet and muddy to avoid widening or eroding the trail, and not to trail blaze shortcuts. On sections of the Appalachian Trail, people have adhered to this so well that even though thousands have hiked through, the path is no more intrusive than a game trail.
The Gorge is renowned for its breathtaking rock formations, from natural arches to caves and sandstone cliffs. Sadly, even the hardest-to-reach formations are covered in carvings and graffiti. Many rock shelters have been damaged by the smoke of campfires, and some have even gotten so bad as to have been barricaded to prevent people from camping under them. The barricades, intended to protect the areas they block off, are as much an eyesore as the damage that led to their installation. The only true solution is to teach Leave No Trace trail ethics to as many as possible, and make the information available to all who visit the Red River Gorge.
Leave No Trace states that you should “travel and camp on durable surfaces”. At the gorge this would be best interpreted as hiking only on the official trails, and camping in the established campsites found farthest from the trail. When a group is crossing an area where there is no trail, they should spread out to avoid unintentionally creating a new trail. It is also wise to avoid areas where you can still see the impact of a previous group, to allow time for a natural recovery. This helps to reduce the unavoidable impact caused by even the most conservation-minded individuals, and gives the forest its best chance at continued survival.
Perhaps the least practiced guideline is to minimize campfire impacts. Everyone loves a big roaring campfire, but they aren't always appropriate. When back-country hiking, it is preferential to avoid fires when at all possible, cooking by stove and using flashlights or candles for light. When a fire is needed, it is best to keep it small, and use existing fire pits when available. Everything thrown into the fire should be burned to ash, and scattered over an area the size of a football field once completely cooled. When a campsite is left, it should be impossible for the next group to tell that you even had a fire.
In order to preserve an area, you wouldn't want to remove anything from the environment that belongs there. It is important to leave anything you find, where you found it; look but don't take. Leave flowers, rocks, wildlife and artifacts where they lay, so the next group to happen across that spot can see it just as you did, without your personal souvenir missing. Some of the trails at the Gorge are hiked by thousands of people every year. If they all took a plant or a rock with them, it wouldn't be long before things were looking awfully bare. Just as you shouldn't take anything you didn't bring, it is pertinent to make sure you leave with everything you brought.
The most visible concern at the Red River Gorge today is litter. Standard trail practice is to pack out anything you pack in. Any trash you generate as well as any you find should be stored in a bag in your pack and thrown away in a proper bin when you next encounter one, usually at the trail head. Repackage food and beverages to cut down on trash before you hit the trail, and avoid anything in a glass container. Broken glass makes for a very unfriendly campground, potentially cutting feet, tent floors, sleeping pads, and other gear. It seems more and more of my favorite spots at the gorge are covered in broken glass each year. My four-legged friend does not approve.
As if trash on the trail wasn't enough to ruin an otherwise beautiful area, proper disposal of human waste is becoming an issue at the Gorge. The statistics would surely be disgusting as to how many people actually distance their waste from water. It is necessary to maintain a minimum distance of two hundred feet from any body of water when leaving human waste and when washing. Liquids and particles of waste can seep into groundwater and carry into water sources, contaminating the water and, at worst, spreading disease. When latrines are not available, cat-holes should be dug six to eight inches deep, and when done being used, should be covered and disguised. While these things may all seem like common sense, it is amazing to see the impact being made by not taking these simple steps to preserve the places we love to visit.
On May 12th, 2010, the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics declared the Red River Gorge as it's inaugural Hot Spot in an effort to “raise awareness for areas with critical recreational impact”. Their goal is to set up programs to educate the public and provide materials about conservation. They will also be teaming up with local associations which help to maintain the area to restore the natural beauty of the Red River Gorge. For their cause to be effective, it will take a public understanding of how to enjoy nature without destroying it. If their efforts are embraced, perhaps the generations to come will see the Gorge in the same awesome glory our generation can find along the Appalachian Trail, as all of the natural areas of world should be. This is a dream that can be made into reality, as long as we are all willing to do our part, and be conservation-minded.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Mark Chamberlin: Refining The Art Of Preservation
Refining The Art Of Preservation
by Mark Chamberlain
Journal of Aesthetics & Protest
The Threat of Countrycide
In the spring of 1980, my partner in bc space gallery, Jerry Burchfield, and I agreed to undertake a long-term project, documenting the gateway to our hometown of Laguna Beach, California. Laguna Canyon, with its gently winding two-lane country road was one of the last pristine passages to the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, but it was also clearly the target of numerous long-range development projects by some very powerful forces.
With the seemingly inexorable exurbanization of Orange County pressing in on all sides, our canyon was slated to be consumed by the accepted concept of progress. Leading the pack was the privately owned Irvine Company, which controlled the bulk of the land in this region. Under the new ownership of Donald Bren, who had wrestled control from the more benign Irvine Family with its dedication to farming, the new direction called for intense development, including building another “Master Planned City” in the canyon, under the grand name of Laguna Laurel.
Major new urban centers, such as the burgeoning City of Irvine, were consuming the surrounding farmland, while the bedroom communities of Mission Viejo, Laguna Niguel, and Leisure World (now Laguna Woods) were rapidly expanding. The older adjacent communities of Tustin, Newport Beach, Dana Point, and Santa Ana were also seeing their formerly pastoral hills sprout homes, business centers, commercial strip malls, and numerous gated communities. was quietly working with county, state, and federal highway agencies to promote several major new roads to facilitate development. Included in these plans were California’s first toll way, the San Joaquin Hills Tollroad, and two additional toll roads, which would link the region from north to south, and east to west. As developers saw the gold in our hills and valleys, this sleepy part of Southern California was rapidly becoming identified as one of the fastest growing regions of the nation.
Like many refugees from urbanity, we had chosen to settle in this small seaside community because of its relative isolation, as well as the unique topography that distinguished it from the monotonous homogeneity that was spreading across the inland flatlands. Laguna Canyon Road was our link to that larger world, but it was also the filter that protected our identity. This umbilical cord was about to become another Freeway and there was a redtiled tsunami following in its path – unless something was done.
Extending Documentary Photography
Our original intention was primarily to document this still bucolic canyon as a way to preserve it in the established tradition of documentary photography. But more importantly, we hoped to find a means to awaken the public to the dangers of losing that landscape, while challenging their will to save it. We titled this grand ambition The Laguna Canyon Project: The Continuous Document and began the first phase, The Daylight Document on April 18, 1980. The continuous aspect refers to the fact that once we took our first shot, we were committed to the journey on a very tight timeline just to physically complete it, plus it expressed our commitment to pursuing this project in various phases over a very long time.
To physically accomplish Phase I, we assembled a small crew of six people to sequentially photograph both sides of the entire nine-mile length of the road from the off ramp at the Santa Ana Freeway all the way into the Pacific Ocean. The resulting six hundred and forty-six frames per side were subsequently printed into twin color prints, each three and one half inches wide by two hundred and sixty-seven feet long. The pair of prints depicted our passage down the “last nine miles of the westward migration” in classic photographic detail. With this metaphor, we hoped to link the potential development of this still beautiful canyon with the concept of “progress in the West” and the danger of unchecked urban sprawl.
We did not publicize our plans for this phase until we were already into the actual shooting and then only alerted a few reporters we felt we could trust, since we were concerned that the highway authorities might shut us down. This fear that was realized in subsequent phases (when we were actually threatened with arrest and ushered off the road), but we managed to successfully complete this first nine hour marathon without detection.
To Read the Rest of the Essay
by Mark Chamberlain
Journal of Aesthetics & Protest
The Threat of Countrycide
In the spring of 1980, my partner in bc space gallery, Jerry Burchfield, and I agreed to undertake a long-term project, documenting the gateway to our hometown of Laguna Beach, California. Laguna Canyon, with its gently winding two-lane country road was one of the last pristine passages to the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, but it was also clearly the target of numerous long-range development projects by some very powerful forces.
With the seemingly inexorable exurbanization of Orange County pressing in on all sides, our canyon was slated to be consumed by the accepted concept of progress. Leading the pack was the privately owned Irvine Company, which controlled the bulk of the land in this region. Under the new ownership of Donald Bren, who had wrestled control from the more benign Irvine Family with its dedication to farming, the new direction called for intense development, including building another “Master Planned City” in the canyon, under the grand name of Laguna Laurel.
Major new urban centers, such as the burgeoning City of Irvine, were consuming the surrounding farmland, while the bedroom communities of Mission Viejo, Laguna Niguel, and Leisure World (now Laguna Woods) were rapidly expanding. The older adjacent communities of Tustin, Newport Beach, Dana Point, and Santa Ana were also seeing their formerly pastoral hills sprout homes, business centers, commercial strip malls, and numerous gated communities. was quietly working with county, state, and federal highway agencies to promote several major new roads to facilitate development. Included in these plans were California’s first toll way, the San Joaquin Hills Tollroad, and two additional toll roads, which would link the region from north to south, and east to west. As developers saw the gold in our hills and valleys, this sleepy part of Southern California was rapidly becoming identified as one of the fastest growing regions of the nation.
Like many refugees from urbanity, we had chosen to settle in this small seaside community because of its relative isolation, as well as the unique topography that distinguished it from the monotonous homogeneity that was spreading across the inland flatlands. Laguna Canyon Road was our link to that larger world, but it was also the filter that protected our identity. This umbilical cord was about to become another Freeway and there was a redtiled tsunami following in its path – unless something was done.
Extending Documentary Photography
Our original intention was primarily to document this still bucolic canyon as a way to preserve it in the established tradition of documentary photography. But more importantly, we hoped to find a means to awaken the public to the dangers of losing that landscape, while challenging their will to save it. We titled this grand ambition The Laguna Canyon Project: The Continuous Document and began the first phase, The Daylight Document on April 18, 1980. The continuous aspect refers to the fact that once we took our first shot, we were committed to the journey on a very tight timeline just to physically complete it, plus it expressed our commitment to pursuing this project in various phases over a very long time.
To physically accomplish Phase I, we assembled a small crew of six people to sequentially photograph both sides of the entire nine-mile length of the road from the off ramp at the Santa Ana Freeway all the way into the Pacific Ocean. The resulting six hundred and forty-six frames per side were subsequently printed into twin color prints, each three and one half inches wide by two hundred and sixty-seven feet long. The pair of prints depicted our passage down the “last nine miles of the westward migration” in classic photographic detail. With this metaphor, we hoped to link the potential development of this still beautiful canyon with the concept of “progress in the West” and the danger of unchecked urban sprawl.
We did not publicize our plans for this phase until we were already into the actual shooting and then only alerted a few reporters we felt we could trust, since we were concerned that the highway authorities might shut us down. This fear that was realized in subsequent phases (when we were actually threatened with arrest and ushered off the road), but we managed to successfully complete this first nine hour marathon without detection.
To Read the Rest of the Essay
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Bill Moyers Journal: The Earth Conservation Corps
The Earth Conservation Corps
Bill Moyers Journal
"Endangered Species" tells a story of urban blight and community faith. One of America's gleaming symbols of freedom and prosperity, Washington, DC is also home to one of the most impoverished and polluted neighborhoods in America. On the banks of the Anacostia River, the Southeast section of the nation's capital has been an environmental disaster area and a home for violence. But now a non-profit group called the Earth Conservation Corps (ECC), composed of young adults from under-resourced communities, is bringing hope to this neighborhood under siege.
To Watch/Listen to the Episode and Access More Resources
Bill Moyers Journal
"Endangered Species" tells a story of urban blight and community faith. One of America's gleaming symbols of freedom and prosperity, Washington, DC is also home to one of the most impoverished and polluted neighborhoods in America. On the banks of the Anacostia River, the Southeast section of the nation's capital has been an environmental disaster area and a home for violence. But now a non-profit group called the Earth Conservation Corps (ECC), composed of young adults from under-resourced communities, is bringing hope to this neighborhood under siege.
To Watch/Listen to the Episode and Access More Resources
Monday, February 08, 2010
On the Media: Ruin Porn; Time in Detroit
On the Media
Ruin Porn
Are photojournalists obsessed with "ruin porn"? Reporter Thomas Morton recently visited Detroit, where photographers have been flocking to take pictures of the city's decrepit factories and abandoned buildings. But Morton says these photos, which he calls ruin porn, paint a misleading picture of the city.
To Listen to the Episode
Time in Detroit
Time Magazine and other outlets, including CNN Money, Fortune and Sports Illustrated, have launched Assignment Detroit. They've purchased a house where reporters will live for a year as they cover the city. Steven Gray, the writer behind The Detroit Blog and journalist and Detroit native Dan Okrent describe the project and how it will document the struggles of this once great American city.
To Listen to the Media
Ruin Porn
Are photojournalists obsessed with "ruin porn"? Reporter Thomas Morton recently visited Detroit, where photographers have been flocking to take pictures of the city's decrepit factories and abandoned buildings. But Morton says these photos, which he calls ruin porn, paint a misleading picture of the city.
To Listen to the Episode
Time in Detroit
Time Magazine and other outlets, including CNN Money, Fortune and Sports Illustrated, have launched Assignment Detroit. They've purchased a house where reporters will live for a year as they cover the city. Steven Gray, the writer behind The Detroit Blog and journalist and Detroit native Dan Okrent describe the project and how it will document the struggles of this once great American city.
To Listen to the Media
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