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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Issue 32 STOP

12 Issue Contributors 15 Letter from the Editor 18 The Conversationalists Interview by Ben Siegel Muralist Candy Chang on re-invigorating public spaces with public opinion. 22 Roadside Assistance Interview by Patrick Simons Pittsburgh bus riders get relief. 24 Stop That, Right Now! Column by Block Club Losing patience for egregious errors. 30 Into That Good Night By Ben Siegel Photos by Steve Soroka Illuminating the dark in Bu!alo’s late shift. 40 Return Ticket By Laura Sikes Photos by Kyle Schwab Going underground in Rochester to find clues to decades of halted progress. 56 Woman Committed Short !ction by Chastity West A brief diary of a woman on the verge of another beginning. 61 Dead In My Tracks Illustration by Adam Weekley Bumbling about.

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WE WANT BETTER.Block Club is a branding and marketing agency founded in 2007 in Bu!alo, NY. We work to develop and strengthen brands for forward-thinking businesses and organizations with Block Club Creative. We tell stories about a bet-ter Rust Belt in Block Club magazine. We help locals save money with City Dining Cards, and create fun, inspiring gift products with Fridge Phrases. We do this because we want better.

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ISSUE CONTRIBUTORS

BLOCK CLUB MAGAZINE EDITORIAL STAFF

PUBLISHER PATRICK FINAN patrick@blockclubonline.com

EDITOR BEN SIEGEL ben@blockclubonline.com CREATIVE DIRECTOR BRANDON DAVIS brandon@blockclubonline.com

PHOTOGRAPHER STEVE SOROKA steve@blockclubonline.com DESIGNER JULIE MOLLOY julie@blockclubonline.com DESIGNER TIM STASZAK tim@blockclubonline.com

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT COPY EDITOR PATRICK SIMONS patricksimons@blockclubonline.com

Adam Weekley pg. 61

Adam is a multi-media artist who has lived and

worked in Bu!alo since 2001. Born and raised in

West Virginia, Weekley often mines personal his-

tory when developing content for his installations,

sculptures, paintings and drawings. He is an assis-

tant professor of fine arts at Villa Maria College.

Kyle Schwab pg. 40

Kyle is a Rochester-based editorial and commer-

cial portrait photographer. He currently shoots for

Rochester Magazine, the Democrat and Chroni-

cle, and Subculture Magazine, among others. A

UB graduate in philosophy and cognitive science,

he uses neither degree in any o"cial capacity.

Laura Sikes pg. 40

Laura Sikes is a doctoral candidate in American

history at the University of Rochester. Her disser-

tation is about rock music criticism in the 1960s.

She lost on “Jeopardy!” last year and loves to tell

everyone about it.

Chastity West pg. 56

Chastity West is a mom, partner, friend, counselor,

nutritionist, baseball coach, and activist—and a

writer and editor. She recently edited a short

story collection, Cifiscape Vol. 2: The Twin Cities,

and a monster-pocalypse, Rotholme, both avail-

able through Onyx Neon, Inc.

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

!e end stinks; there’s no way around it. !e fact that good things die—early, or at all—is the hardest, and big-gest, truth we know.

!is is hardly news, but it’s too easily passed aside. We ignore the inevitable and replace it with laughable theories of perpetuity, youth and narcissism. We waste time being stuck in a time and place where we once thought everything would live forever. !e glory days.

Our cities, though, their histories are marked di"erently. We’ve been likened to shepherds serving over this land that we’ve inherited, charged with the responsibility of leaving it better for our kin.

Maybe death is not the enemy of progress. Understand-ing why something needs to end; preventing unjust closures; renewing that which shouldn’t have stopped in the #rst place—these are the forward-moving ideals of the cities we all want to live in.

Stopping has as much to do with sustainability as it does with its antidotal “genesis.” !is is the central challenge to all of the “post-” work in our progressive cities: how to build on what already exists, all the while maintaining its heart, and sustaining that growth as healthily as possible.

!is is power, my neighbors. !is is what happens when you decide to keep going. It’s the in#nite #gure-eight.

Time and time again, we see proof that our cities have incredible strength in their darkest corners. !e very sug-gestion of “post-industrial” accepts that something equally as sustainable as industry could exist, that something does,

and should, come a$er what we all thought was the heyday.And yes, it has. We’re here. Now what?We must engage with our mythical past—the strewn-

about remains of our former identities, the broken plans of attempted evolution. Some ideas are worth ditching, while some never had a #ghting chance. But the brainstorm start-ed before we showed up, and we must pick up where others le$ o".

!is doesn’t always happen.What will it take to hold on tighter to our institutions

that we cry so loudly for a$er they’ve le$ the building?Some of these answers exist in a much bigger picture

than what we see in our metropolises. Yes, some things do go away. !at can be sad, debilitating. But new things take up their space. Landlords #nd new tenants. !e cycle cycles.

!e stars know. Some have been dead for millions of years, and yet they remain present, relevant. !eir tiny light glows in the sky, reminding us that where it matters, nothing really stops. Some things move over, step back, disappear. But they come back.

What comfort, to know that life continues. !at these wrongs can be righted, and that we can try again.

!at the end is only the beginning.

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RECEIVEASK AND YOU SHALL

YOU PROBABLY DON’T KNOW WHO CANDY CHANG IS, BUT SHE’S BEEN

LISTENING TO YOUR DEEPEST THOUGHTS AND SECRETS FOR YEARS.

Interview by BEN SIEGEL

C andy Chang loves a good quotation. !e art-ist-activist is quick to reference philosophers and academics in conversation, and given her non-stop world tour of speaking engage-

ments, art installations, and TED conferences, at which she’s presented and twice been a fellow, it’s likely she’d drop a wise line "om an intellectual punk rocker or prodigal tech entrepreneur, too. Chang’s installations pose questions to those who walk by, hypothetical inquiries about your secrets, desires, doubts, dreams and even #nances.

It began in her New Orleans neighborhood, an unusu-ally dense district called the Bywater, where low shotgun houses and shallow "ont yards are met by artist studios, co$ee shops, bars and the occasional empty side lot. It’s a quiet neighborhood, though not disengaged; this is a famil-ial city, through and through. But Candy wants to know more, like what kind of rent her neighbors pay, and what they want to accomplish before leaving this Earth. With chalkboard paint, a stencil, and baskets of chalk, Chang turned the wall of an abandoned building into a public forum. And the public responded. Chang’s various instal-lations have been a%xed to abandoned buildings, side-walks and public spaces around the world. !is spring, a Before I Die wall made its way to a vacant Fillmore Avenue house slated for demolition on Bu$alo’s East Side.

In all of Chang’s work, anonymity calls our attention to intimacy, the entwined paradox of space and self. Every-one needs validation of self and intellect. Curious neighbor that she is, Chang just makes it easier to listen.

BCM People have many platforms on which to share, yet they come out of the woodwork to pour their hearts and souls onto your installations, and with such profound o"er-ings. Why do you think people feel free to share here?

CC It’s an easy way to share deeper feelings with your whole community. !at’s still hard to do. !e city histo-rian Lewis Mumford once wrote that the origins of society were not just for physical survival but for “a more valuable and meaningful kind of life.” Some of the earliest gather-ing places were graves and sacred groves. We gathered so we could grieve together and worship together and console one another and be alone together. Our public spaces are our shared spaces and they have a lot of potential to o"er us a more valuable and meaningful kind of life. !ere are many ways the people around us can help improve our lives. We don’t bump into every neighbor so a lot of wisdom never gets passed on, but we do share the same public spaces. At their greatest, they can nourish our well-being and help us make sense of the beauty and tragedy of life with the people around us.

BCM !ere’s a beautiful line your work walks, between de-spair and hope, hate and love. We all walk around with so much baggage, these boards are almost like little airports, where you can hop on a jet and go somewhere else—some-where more evolved. I imagine the act of sharing, of unload-ing your baggage, is almost more bene#cial than some of the actual ideas coming to fruition. What’s the psychology of this exercise, in your view?

CC We’re all trying to make sense of our lives and there’s great comfort in knowing you’re not alone. And you’re not. Everyone you’re standing with in line and everyone you drive by on the road and everyone you walk past on

Candy Chang is based in New Orleans, where she

owns and runs a collective creative studio space in the

Bywater neighborhood called Civic Center.

THE CONVERSATIONALISTS

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photo by BEN SIEGEL

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the street is going through challenges in their life. Maybe it’s their relationships or family or work or health. Maybe it’s something they’ve been meaning to face for a long time. Plato said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is #ghting a hard battle.”

But it’s easy to forget this because we rarely venture beyond small talk with strangers. !ere are a lot of barriers to open-ing up. !e interactive public art projects started out as my quiet way to ask my neighbors things I was too shy to ask in person. Only later did I realize it goes the other way around too. You don’t have to be outgoing to share your thoughts on these projects. You can share as quietly or as loudly as you like. And the responses are anonymous, which allows you to open up in ways you might not have otherwise.

We’re all #nding out what is meaningful to us, what feeds us, what drives us. And we’re all #nding out who we are, why we feel certain ways, why we do what we do. Personal growth starts with re%ection. We have so many thoughts meandering in our mind. It’s easy to let a thought meander by without walking along with it for a while. Other people’s responses not only provide an enlightening understanding of the people around you, but they also help stir your mind about things you’ve been thinking about in your life.

!e Before I Die and Confessions projects have revealed an honest mess of the longing, pain, joy, insecurity, gratitude, anxiety, and wonder you #nd in every neighborhood. See-ing other people’s feelings encourages me to lean into my own.

BCM !ese installations o$en appear in downtrodden parts of town, on derelict buildings, places where we don’t want to look up and notice our surroundings. But you’re asking us to stop, look up, look around, and take it in. What would you like people to do or experience in this pause?

CC I started making things on abandoned buildings as a way to easily share our memories and hopes for these places. Many of us walk by under-used areas of our cities and have opinions of what we’d like to see in them. We know what things would make our community more comfortable, more complete, and more ours. But I’ve been to a lot of com-munity meetings where the voice of the community ends up being the loudest person or the 10 people who can make it to the meeting. It would be helpful to lower the barrier and add more ways to get involved.

Stopping and sharing your thoughts is a #rst step towards considering yourself an active citizen with ideas that can

make a di"erence in your life and other people’s lives.

!ese days I’m really interested in turning abandoned build-ings into sanctuaries to help us pause and examine our lives more deeply. !e projects are all a form of self-help and abandoned buildings have become a tender canvas to insert the things I wish were in our public spaces. Our neglected buildings are like the neglected parts of ourselves. It’s easy to let parts of us languish. I’ve neglected the solitude I need to read, re%ect, and make. And in our age of increasing distractions, it’s more important than ever to #nd ways to maintain perspective and be proactive about what really nourishes you. It’s easy to go with the %ow and postpone your deepest needs. It’s easy to neglect your relationship with yourself.

!e mythologist Joseph Campbell once said, “!e privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” To be true to yourself, you need to take the time to step back, pause, be quiet, and re%ect. You are constantly growing and changing, and with every experience you gain new perspectives that can reshape your guiding star.

BCM To what do you attribute our inability or refusal to acknowledge these spaces?

CC Abandoned buildings have become such a common sight that they o$en slip quietly into the backdrop like an accepted part of our landscape. It’s easy to forget them, but these places played a meaningful part in our lives and they can become meaningful again. !ey’re the perfect place to restore perspective, to remind us of our deeper history, to help us contemplate life’s biggest questions together.

I’m currently working on two projects on abandoned build-ings. I’m making an installation for the Centre for the Liv-ing Arts in Mobile, Ala. Five blocks away is Barton Acad-emy, this beautiful historic building that was the #rst public school in Alabama. It’s been abandoned for years and steps towards renovating it are slowly moving forward. It inspired me to make an interactive project to help us contemplate the fundamental idea of school—the things we learn, the ways we learn, and the role our schools play in making us who we are. !ere are things I wish I learned when I was younger.

And I’m very excited to start working on a long-term dream. !e writer James Reeves and I are working to transform an abandoned gas station on Route 66 into a library dedicated to pilgrimages and personal transformation. !e Philoso-pher’s Library will be a remote sanctuary #lled with books

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about leading an examined life, as well as a card catalogue where travelers can share their philosophies for personal well-being. Road trips have been a constant source of thera-py for me, and this library in the Mojave Desert is a culmi-nation of everything I want in my life right now.

BCM One might categorize this kind of sharing as an active exercise—extracting the secrets, ideas or wishes we all hold onto—and you could also say it’s passive, since at the end of the day, it’s still just talk. Do you think positive energy is enough to make these wishes come true?

CC It’s the #rst step and it’s an important step. It’s a com-mitment to turn abstract thoughts into something more concrete, to make sense of it, to follow where it came from, to imagine where it can go. I’ve written many things on Before I Die walls—to hole up and read books for weeks, to enjoy more cities with the people I love, to write a bedtime story, to revive a ghost town. It took months before I even began to act on some of these things, but once I wrote them down, those inklings of urges took root and became #rmer in my mind. It’s like that scene in “!e Little Prince” where the prince repeats out loud the things the fox says so that he would be sure to remember. I’m a distracted, forgetful per-son with a short attention span. I need constant reminders of the actions that will really nourish me.

BCM Your work asks us to think about mortality without the fear of morbidity. How does death enter your life?

CC I avoided thinking about death for a long time, in part because I was taught to avoid it. If you bring up death out of the blue, people will o$en say “don’t go there” or “it’s too sad” or “you don’t need to think about it until you’re older.” When I lost someone I loved for the #rst time, I couldn’t avoid it any longer. I went through a period of grief and depression, then gratitude for the time we had together. I thought about death a lot and I found a deep comfort and clarity I didn’t expect. Past the tragic truth lies a bright calm that reminds me of my place in the world.

When I think about death, the moment gets more tactile.

!ings that were stressing me out are reduced to their small and silly place. !ings that matter to me get big and crisp again. I’m more in-the-moment and more in-the-universe at the same time.

Now I think about death all of the time; it’s the quickest way to #lter the noise and make decisions obvious. I’ve found great comfort in reading philosophy. So many people have come before us who have thought deeply about the same universal questions. !e Stoics were champions of reg-ularly contemplating death. It’s a powerful and healthy tool to re-appreciate the present and remember the things that make your life meaningful to you. !inking about death clari#es your life.

BCM What trends do you #nd among responses?

CC We want to love and be loved. We want more trees. We want to experience the world. We want fresh food. We want to feel our life has purpose. We want more places to stop and enjoy for a while. We want to understand who we really are. One of my favorite responses on an I Wish !is Was sticker is “a place to sit and talk.” One on the original Before I Die wall is “be completely myself.”

BCM How is design a factor in your work?

CC I think it’s helped me try to communicate my ideas as strongly as I imagine them in my head. I’m glad I stud-ied graphic design. It’s like being able to speak eloquently. !e typography and layout of my projects are all deliberate choices to set the mood and enhance or counter certain feelings. But you don’t need to go to school to be a good designer. I learned the most outside of school, just trying to turn my personal projects into a reality. I learned a lot that way. I also picked up a random book from the bookstore that ended up becoming my design bible for years. It’s called

“Letters from the Avant-Garde” and it’s a book of stationery designed by artists from Constructivism, Bauhuas, De Stijl, and other modernist movements.

Finding that book was one of many serendipitous experi-ences that shaped me. I’ve tried a lot of things out over the last 10 years and I’ve stumbled on so many things that have changed the course of my life. It’s made me realize that it’s good to have goals, but it’s even greater to keep an open mind and to allow random experiences to become meaning-ful to you. !ere’s a Buddhist proverb: “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” I like that. Sometimes we’re not ready for the insights we’re o"ered. But when we’re ready, the wisdom is there.

We want to love and be loved.

We want to understand who

we really are.

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Roadside AssistanceInterview by PATRICK SIMONS

F or millions of people in this country, public transportation is a critical part of their day. Getting to work, school and health care facili-ties can mean an inconvenient schedule with

ine&cient routes. Relying on a metro’s bus system can be tough enough, and that’s when busses are on running on time. In Pittsburgh, where persistent transit problems incon-venience travelers of all vehicles, busses tend to run signi#-cantly late. In 2011, a research team at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science got to work on a remedy, something that would put real-time informa-tion about late arrivals, at-capacity busses, and accessibility issues right in the palms of riders’ hands. !ey developed an app called Tiramisu, that crowdsourc-es data from those both on busses and waiting at bus stops. !e team’s co-director, Aaron Steinfeld, discusses the power of this technology.

NAME Tiramisu

LOCATION Smartphone app available for:

Pittsburgh, PA

Syracuse, NY

New York, NY

DEBUT 2011

FOUNDER Rehabilitation Engineering Research

Center on Accessible Public

Transportatation (RERC-APT)

DIRECTOR Aaron Steinfeld, co-director, RERC-APT

WEBSITE tiramisutransit.com

DOWNLOAD App available for free in iTunes Store

and Android Market. Compatible for

iPhone, iPad and Android phones.

CASE STUDY

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Why is public transit a problem in Pittsburgh?

Public transit in Pittsburgh, and in the U.S. as a whole, is chronically underfunded. Funding has gotten worse in recent years. !is corresponds to a signi#cant lack of re-sources and repeated service cuts.

Fixing an issue as common as “waiting for the bus” is, in actuality, a massive undertaking. You took matters into your own hands, and didn’t wait for the Port Authority to act. How did you decide to solve the issue with an app?

!e Port Authority of Allegheny County [is] unable to purchase a traditional real-time arrival system. Based on re-search by the Transportation Research Board, it would cost about $10 million to purchase and deploy a real-time arrival system in a city the size of Pittsburgh. We realized that the same data could be gathered using the riders’ own smart-phones, thereby bypassing the cost of a traditional system.

What kind of research did you conduct before creating the app?

Our initial research was focused on helping riders with dis-abilities identify and share information about accessibility barriers and solutions. Some of our participants pointed out that this was useful, but real-time knowledge about the bus arrival time and fullness were higher priorities. Wheelchair users and people who need seats noted that a full bus is just as bad as a bus that never arrives. !is led us to look at how to deliver real-time arrival and fullness information.

How is mobile technology relevant now in ways it wasn’t, even five years ago?

I think the change is most dramatic [during] non-work hours. Many transit agency call centers have restricted ser-vice times. !is means riders couldn’t get information early in the morning or late at night. If you were lucky, you had a printed schedule in your bag or a current one was posted at the bus shelter. However, printed schedules are useless to people who are blind and call centers are mostly useless for riders who are deaf. Smartphones allow riders to access relevant public transit information whenever and wherever they want. Unfamiliar routes are another area where mobile technology shines. Today’s dynamic smartphone interfaces make it easier to explore and plan new trips.

How has the Port Authority addressed these problems?

!ey are trying to improve even with their limited funds. !ey made two important changes, recently. First, they dramatically improved their mobile website. It is now easier to get schedules, access detour information, and plan trips through mobile phones. Second, they have a very active Twitter account during working hours. !is allows riders to ask questions and receive detour and service alerts.

Unreliable public transportation is an issue ev-erywhere. What are similarities and differences in the challenges faced with public transit in Pittsburgh, Syracuse and New York City?

Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Bu"alo, and many U.S. cities [face] similar challenges in public transit. Public transit is general-ly an a$erthought to most state and federal decision-makers, which means chronic underfunding. !e service cuts seen in Pittsburgh are occurring across the country.

People who don’t ride the bus are o$en unaware of how pub-lic transit [a"ects] them. Buses reduce congestion on roads, thereby making it easier for car drivers to get to work and reduce air pollution. Transit also reduces demand on park-ing in urban centers. !is keeps parking costs in check and increases availability of street parking. Parking problems are pronounced in Pittsburgh since the urban core is tightly constrained by the rivers. Transit is also critical for people who can’t drive to work, due to cost or ability. !is helps businesses #ll jobs and reduces unemployment. !ese types of broader impacts are why public transit is subsidized by the government. In fact, these community-level bene#ts are why some cities have completely fare-free service.

Crowdsourcing gives people a chance to have at least a little more control over something that has been historically burdensome and often in-accurate. How do you think app technology can be adaptable for other issues and in other cities?

Right! A key point about Tiramisu is that it allows riders to improve their transit service and help their community. !ey can take matters into their own hands and make a di"erence. We are extending this idea in the next version of Tiramisu. We’re currently updating the app to let riders communicate with each other and share a [wider] range of information. But there are other areas where crowdsourc-ing can help citizens make a positive impact on the services provided by their local government. Crowdsourcing has already been proven [e"ective] for parks, street plowing, road maintenance, and urban planning.

illustration by TIM STASZAK

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VIEWS

Stop that, right now! EGREGIOUS ERRORS THAT,

FRANKLY, ARE DRIVING US NUTS.

by BLOCK CLUB

S AY HELLO. Debunk what all the old people think about social networking and how it’s ruined our ability to function in the world. !e next time you meet someone, talk to them

as though you don’t need to Google them later. Ask them real questions, look at them in the eye, remember their name, tell them yours, and try, for just a few minutes, to be engaged in humanity. People aren’t robots, not yet at least. Typed chit-chat and spoken conversation are not interchangeable.

HEAR YOURSELF. Like our heretofore misunder-stood inability to smell our own breath, it’s almost impos-sible to hear the nonsense that falls out of our mouths.

!e time you were talking about your beloved hometown to your friend in Chicago, or your relative in Richmond, or your friend’s roommate in Los Angeles—you know what, it doesn’t matter who it is—and you apologized for where you live? For how cold it gets, and how small it is, and how it used to be bigger and better, and all this nonsense? Made excuses for the dirtier facts, instead of embracing them and understanding their role in our city’s larger history?

Please, don’t do us any favors. You don’t deserve to be our ambassador if you’re not going to take ownership of and pride in your city. Reverse myths; don’t perpetuate them.

KNOW YOUR PLACE. !at time you were riding your bike on the sidewalk because you mistook it for a sce-nic landscape? Bikes belong on the roads (if you’re an adult), not on the sidewalk, where even your casual riding can easily put pedestrians in danger. Ever see a two-wheeler inadvertently plow through a group of Canadian tourists? It doesn’t look friendly.

!e more responsible bikers we have on the roads, the more visibility bikers’ rights have for automobile drivers out there, which helps raise awareness and keep everybody in their respective, proper places.

COAST TO COAST. Drivers need to know their place, too. You’re not supposed to coast in the le$ lane; you’re sup-posed to pass in the le$ lane. It’s illegal to pass somebody in the right lane, in fact. (Illegal! You’re all criminals. Happy?)

Confusion over this simple rule can lead to horrible consequences. !e rest of the world knows this road rule, and knew it the day they took their driver’s exam.

USE YOUR WORDS. “Literally” doesn’t literally mean that you’re literally going to die because you liter-ally don’t have a thing to wear tonight. It means you don’t have anything to wear tonight. You’re actually going to live. Which brings us to...

“Actually.” Actually doesn’t reinforce what you literally think because actually, it’s only meant for the clari#cation of something previously misunderstood.

Unless, of course, you’re being ironic, which means the unexpected or opposite use of a word in context to its de#-nition, and in which case literally being bored to death isn’t funny anymore. Langauge is fun, and it adapts, alongside fashion and climate, but it shouldn’t be mocked at the ex-pense of its misuse. Actually.

IMMODESTY. I see your handbag. It’s nice. It’s big. I assume it cost a lot (or I assume it’s Dots, because I just saw three of them). Don’t tell me how much it cost.

THE ’BURBS. !e thing about the suburbs is, they don’t make sense anymore. !e space might be nice, and the quiet can be a gi$, but the roads, and the construction, and the build-outs, and the cul-de-sac-upon-cul-de-sac, and the new plazas going in next to the old plazas, and the highways for Main Streets, and the gross misuse of public dollars, well it’s just su"ocating. !e hope of a sustainable city depends on residents embracing city living, understanding the need for compact, intentional design, and the immeasurable ben-e#ts of living closer together. Waste is out; e&ciency is in.

BUTT DETAIL. If you’re going to smoke anywhere other than in your private home, do the rest of the world a favor and throw your butts away in a proper receptacle. !ey litter our streets, cause harm to birds (and curious children), and smell like your trash. !e sidewalk is getting asthma.

RECEPTACLES. !row your cigarettes away, but also—hello!—don’t throw garbage out your car window, or toss it to the curb! !at’s why they invented receptacles, and called them “garbage cans,” or recycling bins (we’ll get to those next); they’re meant for exactly that.

CONSERVATION. We #rst heard about the !ree Rs—reduce, reuse, recycle—decades ago, and though pro-active they didn’t land with the same urgency as they do now. !ey were cautionary words about a future so poten-

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tially bleak and desperate, we couldn’t fathom the conse-quences of our inactions. Turns out, these words prophesied what has since happened.

You’ve run out of excuses. You should feel the guilt of a nun’s blank stare when you don’t sort your garbage. You should whimper at the thought of a dying puppy on Christ-mas Eve when you throw away your yogurt container. You should know better by now.

LIVE WITH IT. We consume too much garbage. !e multiplying islands of trash in the ocean are our proof. Even if you recycle, the point is to use less—reduce.

Buy something because it has the quality to last, to sus-tain itself over many uses. Buy something because you know you’re going to use it to its fullest capacity, not just because you really, really, must have it.

COME ON. Have some decency. Tanning yourself in January to the point of jerky? Wearing pajamas to run errands? It’s not a “style” or a “look”; it’s a travesty. Where is your mirror? Shame.

SPEAK UP. !e last time you heard a group of brutisth college bros—a fair assumption—pass by a young lady and holler things that they’d never be caught dead saying in front of their mothers, why didn’t you say something?

Or the last time you heard a derogatory word being used against someone, whether you knew them or not, how come you didn’t call them out?

We don’t all come equipped with the same thick skin; some need our support. Embarrass these fools in front of everyone; they deserve it. While you’re at it, remind them that collars haven’t been popped since the last presidency.

BE KIND, REWIND. Don’t work in, or open, a store unless you can handle being nice to people. It goes beyond customer service; it’s just a matter of decency. You don’t need to blame customers for not understanding your asi-nine rules, or be sarcastic because it’s your “sense of humor.” Plenty of stores close because of reasons beyond their con-trol. Take control over what you have, and value your cus-tomers. Don't go down because you couldn’t say “thank you.”

FACEBOOK. Some of your status updates leave a lot to be desired. Tell us about what you’re thinking, not what you’re chewing. And stop friending us and then ignoring us in real life.

LOSING. Please, for the love of all that’s holy: try win-ning a game for once. Like it’s your well-compensated job.

THINK ABOUT IT. Just don’t be a fool, OK? It’s the very least you can do.

illustration by TIM STASZAK

That’s why they invented receptacles, and called them “garbage cans.”

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Into That Good Night

By Ben Siegel Photos by Steve Soroka

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T he #ve stages of sleep tell an insightful story about being awake. !e waves of our sleep cycle have varying degrees of depth, consciousness and awareness.

!e deeper you sleep, the higher you wake. In the REM, or rapid-eye movement, cycle, the #$h of #ve that our bodies naturally rotate through every night, is where we dream. During this stage, our eyes move, rapidly as it suggests, and so does our brain. We are most active in this stage, working our way through a terrain dug out of our rampant sub-conscious and suppressed hopes. During REM, our muscles become weak to the active movement in the brain, where #gments of our day and shards of our memories swirl around into a place that feels, upon waking, both unrealistic and familiar. It’s a heightened, even dramatic, place to rest. Con-sider any dream you’ve had and recreate the narrative without tripping over yourself, stopping for interpre-tation and meaning. Volumes have been theorized about our dreams. !e remaining stages of our sleep, the NREM, or non-rapid-eye movement, cycles, are where we rest. !ey’re where our bodies quickly and then slowly, and then more slowly decompress. Muscles relax, the brain receives a much-needed respite, and things slow down. Your body temperature lowers as a result, your body using less energy than it exudes all day. !is goes in and out a few times, REM rearing its storytime in and out along the way. !is is where the real work takes place. It is night’s ebb to day’s %ow, our tired mind's rest to our noctur-nal curiosity's exploration—and in an unexpected way, the brightest light in all our darkness.

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ON THE FRANTIC CORNER of Allen Street and Elmwood Avenue—a priority on Bu"alo, NY’s social calendar—things are busy, motors are running, but life is hanging on by a lone thread. Everyone is in need of re-suscitation. A Greek diner revives benched revelers with plates of meat, cheese and fried potatoes; a secondhand-bookstore owner waits at her perch, o"ering casual customers the chance to revive one of her old friends; and therapists open their bars to lonely patients in need of a friendly ear. !is is the weight of the nucleus in one of downtown’s busiest entertainment districts. It looks common, all this evening banter, this routine revelry. It’s what working-class Bu"alonians do at night: they trade their day in for something more forgetful. It moves during the day, with all its restaurants, o&ces and storefronts, its envied residents in their sought-a$er homes; but it truly lives at night, when most of the popu-lation goes to sleep.

It has never slept. Only we have. Allentown is a rich petri dish for nocturnal observa-tion. Unlike downtown’s other entertainment district, which exists in many contrasts—lit like a football sta-dium, trampled through like a locker room—the energy at this intersection is deceivingly focused. !ings may be dark, but they are not invisible. Attention can be paid to a number of impulses, like the eclectic, rich architecture, a veritable glossary of artisan woodwork, architectural personality and ornate decora-tion. !ese are buildings made when time and money allowed for such extravagances—though to those look-ing, they do not only epitomize luxury, but expression. !e streets are a museum unto themselves in day or night, but especially in the dark, where shades of street- and car-light illuminate those crevices whose shadows are not visible in the light. Another light, another shade. Ghosts of artists past linger in the layered concrete, now repaved but still punctuated by their clawing grasps.

“Night hasbeen our kindof incubation.It’s been a timeof what somethink is theend, or thedarkness.But there’s a lotmore going on.”Dana Saylor

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!eir murals have been painted over many times. Layers of paint crumble, of course, revealing more depth than the bright sunshine would otherwise have you know. But if these are things worth noticing—and surely they are, unavoidable to a hungry eye—they still exist on the surface. !ey excite the brain, teasing with remnants of our pasts and others’ pasts. Stories of place and time re-veal themselves to anyone available to listen, or interested to look. But there are more than these grungy fairy tales. New layers are being applied, adding to what will be noticed by future residents. Each summer, a motley crew of renegade artists, ragtag musicians, subversive dramatists and every other shade of dark, march into Allentown for the Infringement Festi-val. !eir creations leap out of alleyways, spring up from sidewalks, and are heard from roo$ops. Its art is inclusive in that it is omnipresent, but it is exclusive in that it is meant for those who wish to be active with it.

It is not for everyone, but it is available to anyone—the antidote to that other festival here, a mainstream-tailored art fair that bears gilded door knockers and decorative lawn ornaments. !e di"erences between the two are stark and divisive. Opinions vary on which is more real. But that’s okay. We see what we look for.

SOME TWO-DOZEN BLOCKS BELOW Allen-town’s sea level is another chest of treasures. It’s decidedly darker than even the moody Edward Hopper-esque streetscape up north. But here, too, a light emerges. Silo City, it’s called; a be#tting name. It is both a mis-nomer—this is not a municipality, or at least not ours—and a promise. A forest of towering homes, structures created to stand tall and empower and belittle us. !is Is A Real City: A Tall City. In reality, this name evokes something stronger for those who have been paying attention to its territory.

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Allentownhas never slept.

Only we have.

It suggests that there’s another city in our future. !e one right in front of us. Dana Saylor is an advocate for this industrial section of the First Ward, where the Bu"alo-invented grain elevator sits in a riverfront hallway of its own museum. !ey are relics of an industrial past still standing, despite their ten-ants’ falling. Saylor, with a group of fellow artists, preser-vationists, organizers and rabble-rousers, want us to see this concrete jungle for what it is—all the dirt, all the in-dustry, all the darkness. In focusing our attention to these structures, we might have a new vision for them. Last year, Saylor and her cohorts co-founded City of Night, an all-night art and activism event hosted in Silo City, on Childs Street, south of the Ohio Street li$ bridge. Visitors had unprecedented access to elevator buildings that housed a variety of art installations, from projections to aerial dancers to murals to performance art. Outside, a DJ stage gave dancers the ultimate view of a lit-up grain elevator. It was an impressive display of art, for sure, but that work served a bigger purpose. !is was an opportunity to see a heretofore forgotten property in an unexpected light: the dark. (!e event takes place again this August.) For Saylor, the perils of this industrial district are dates in the history books, but they stay with us today. And they should remain in our line of vision. Even the low points are signi#cant. “In any capital-based economy, these things will hap-pen. Is it natural? Is it what should happen? I don’t think so. But it is the system that we’ve accepted,” says Saylor. “When you hear people speak about Bu"alo or the Rust Belt, they’re either going to be hopeful or hopeless, almost always. I #nd that the di"erence is whether or not they appreciate the darkness, what they see as a stop. But we, the hopeful—and I’m not talking generationally, nec-essarily, because there are 80-year-olds that are still hope-ful—see that darkness as a time for regeneration, as a time of opportunity, as a time of potential.” If City of Night is the start of something new, whether

that’s an art event or an industrial site’s rejuvenation, then what takes place in its resting mode is crucial to that new beginning. !at means, of course, taking the bad with the good. “Don’t sugar coat it. People who want to move here aren’t going to move here because we think it’s perfect,” says Saylor. “We want it to not be perfect. Because that means that we get to leave our mark, we get to shape it.” City of Night is a focus on these shapes, these abstrac-tions of scalloped cement. When visible in the dark, with colored lights dancing across their immense surfaces, we #nd new appreciation for their potential. !is takes a tone of optimism, a belief that a$er a long, depressive stop, a start awaits. “Some people are always going to grumble that it’s not going to be a place of manufacturing or industry ever again, but we can’t a"ord to give that too much weight. !at’s not going to happen. !is is the reality we’re living with right now,” says Saylor. “!ere’s a dichotomy of people who think that the dark either means it’s the end—you turn o" the lights and you go to bed; you wait and hope for the morning—or you work into that night.” !e name, City of Night, takes its cue from the Lauren Belfer novel, “City of Light.” !e novel tells a #ctional story about the 1901 Pan-American Exposition here, and the illumination of a city on the world’s map. !e real-life events of that fabled fair are well documented, but with this new take on the theme of innovation and renovation, we can also understand its patterns. “Belfer’s [book] was all about Bu"alo at its height. It captured the essence of a city [at the turn of the 20th cen-tury], although it also had a dark side, obviously. It fore-told the fall. And so in the opposite direction is City of Night, which also talks about the fall, but [more about] what comes a$er,” says Saylor. “Perhaps [there’s] a negative connotation of night in that, but we’re also celebrating it at the same time. We’re doing both of these. We’re saying that night has been a

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challenge, the night has been our kind of incubation, [the night has] been a time of what some think is the end, or the darkness, but there’s a lot more going on than people have even realized, and especially now.” No one would have realized that these grain silos would turn into rock-climbing walls; or that a group of students from a state research university would design and install here a magni#cent, location-speci#c, cutting-edge tower for the study of bees; or that bus loads of civic souls from other, similar cities, who have only sketches in their minds of what these monoliths look like in person, would travel from far distances to dine under their gaze, and revel in their past, current and future glories. “We can take this darkness that’s part of our history, part of our shared experience, that has been really chal-lenging and uncertain, and not just leave that behind, but bring that with us. What is it that has made us great through this time?,” says Saylor. “I believe all of the best things about Bu"alo, outside of the remaining built environment—the people, the communities, the work: the culture—I think all of that is due to the worst that has happened to us. It’s a celebra-tion of our pain, in a way. !at’s key. We’re not denying that we’re a Rust Belt city. It’s saying, Hey, look at our grit. Look at this place. It’s an example of that.”

FOR MANY, BUFFALO already feels awake. !e long, cold winter is over by now. For some indus-tries, and in some neighborhoods, it does not look tired, or worn out, or without rest. !ese are shining examples of areas where progress was the evidence of a rebound, the fruits of a hard night’s labor. But in other neighborhoods, people are still sleeping. !ere is need for it, too. Answers are not immediately ap-parent, and whole systems of infrastructure require rewir-ing. !ose areas are still riding the %ow of their sleep cycle. And just as proper sleep requires balance of high and low tides, so does an attitude on renewal, recycling, recon-struction and preservation require a balanced perspective. As Saylor points out, there’s equilibrium to our city’s history when you stand back and look at its cumulative timeline. Where we stand today is in response to where we were sleeping yesterday; and how we slumber now a"ects how we rise tomorrow. Use your sleep well, these nighttime visions tell us. Take time to settle in and dream, and dream big. !e corners of our imagination can reveal robust, profound ideas. And while you’re resting, take advantage of the chance to refuel and recharge. Because just as the evocative night falls every day, like clockwork, so too does morning rise, ready for another day of building and rebuilding.

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by Laura Sikes photos by Kyle Schwab

Rochester’s subway system has been out of commission for almost half a century,

but its platforms remain vital.

Nearly a century ago, as a growing, prosper-ing industrial center, Rochester looked like it could be the next great American city. It was so bustling that it became the smallest city in America to ever build a

subway, converting an unused Erie Canal aqueduct in the center of the town into a functioning underground. During its heyday, the subway was a symbol of the city’s potential. But its closure in 1956 marked the beginning of the end for Rochester’s optimism. !e painful e"ects of de-industrialization hit the city hard. Public works proj-ects fell to urban decay. Since closing, the subway has sat abandoned, and now straddles the delicate line between being an object of pub-lic enthusiasm and a burden to the city. Today, Rochester, like many Rust Belt cities, is #ghting its way back from years of pessimism and declining for-tunes. !e economy and the population are growing and a sense of pride and hopefulness about the city along with it. Many local boosters #nd the subway meaningful be-cause it is a reminder that Rochester was once a vibrant, vital city. It still surprises outsiders that Rochester ever had a subway at all. It is a site of historical memory that has long stirred the imaginations of Rochesterians, evidence of a better time. But what happens now to this romantic, ruined relic? Its fall from grace rehashes the past, yes, in a narrative we are all too familiar with. But in a way that certain pockets of the Rust Belt can understand, it also rekindles the need for new vision.

LAYING THE TRACKS !e site that the subway occupies was a crucial part of Rochester’s early success. !e aqueduct was built in 1823 by convicts from Auburn State Prison and connected the Erie Canal with the Genesee River. Once completed, it was hailed as a marvel of modern construction; its engi-neers claimed that it was one of the longest stone struc-tures in the world at the time. !e aqueduct’s connection to the completed Erie Canal in 1825 marked the beginning of Rochester’s rapid growth. !e opening of the canal made Rochester America’s #rst boom town. It went from a sleepy village to a bustling port almost overnight. Mills sprung up along the Genesee to harvest its water power, and the newly-minted Flour City became a hub for shipping and trade. During this pe-riod, Rochester became known throughout the country as the “Young Lion of the West,” a moniker that re%ected its youthful potential.

Rochester’s remarkable expansion showed no sign of slowing as the 19th Century progressed. Already, by the 1830s, the massive number of ships passing through the canal required that it be expanded. Meanwhile, civic pride blossomed as the “Flour City” became the “Flower City.” Rochester hired some of the greatest architects, land-scapers, and city planners in the world to create spectacu-lar parks, buildings and public spaces. Investments in the city’s improvement were a solid bet at a time when Roches-ter was on the upswing, and the beauti#cation of the city re%ected the idealism of the town’s pride. But two major changes around the turn of the last century pushed the canal and the aqueduct toward ob-solescence. First was the changing nature of the city’s business. Far from seeing the area’s industries slow down, Rochester’s prosperity climbed higher than ever as cut-ting-edge companies like Kodak, Bausch & Lomb, and Western Union settled in the city. !ough bene#cial for the city on the whole, the shi$ to an industrial economy soon overshadowed the %our mills and other manufactur-ers who relied on the waterway to transport their goods. !e #nal blow to the aqueduct was the construction of an Erie Canal bypass, completed in 1919. What to make of the newly abandoned structure quick-ly became the subject of public debate. One early proposal to build a highway running through the city in the path of the aqueduct was deemed unrealistic in the 1910s, when there were only about 3,000 cars in the entire county. !e most popular proposal for the use of the canal bed was the creation of a mass transit system. In some ways, a subway was the most obvious option for the city. In other cities with underground train systems, the construction of the tunnels was a complex, expen-sive undertaking requiring that the major swathes of the above-ground portion of the path be razed. In Rochester, however, there was already a deep, solid and established space for the train that ran right through the center of the city. So while the city might not have had the population of other cities with undergrounds, it did have the advan-tage of the empty aqueduct. Also essential to this growth was the attitude of the citi-zens of Rochester toward their city. It was a city on the rise and had been since its earliest days. !ough the canal was instrumental to its early growth, the city’s industrial suc-cess proved that it was no longer reliant on the waterway. In fact, the #rst decades of the twentieth century were a time of greater prosperity than ever. !e streets had be-come congested with tra&c and bus and trolley lines were overloaded. !e subway would be a massive expenditure and Rochester would be the smallest municipality to ever attempt such an undertaking, but Rochesterians were un-

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intimidated. !e subway proposal passed the Chamber of Commerce with a unanimous vote. Construction began in 1922. !e existing structure was enlarged and reinforced with concrete. !e underground portion of the subway was short, running for only two miles beneath the middle of Rochester. At a total length of about 10 miles, the system reduced the trip from one end of the route to the other from 40 to 13 minutes. !e area above the subway was converted into Broad Street, which became a major artery for Rochester’s bustling downtown tra&c. !e New York Times reported on Aug. 31, 1924 on the subway’s construction: “Rochester has made for itself a new street, and while they were about it they made ar-rangements to put subway tracks under it. !ere is hardly a city in the country that does not look upon this improve-ment with greedy eyes, for the cry is heard everywhere for more room.” !ey reported the cost of the project as $6 million, but wrote that the outlay was “expected to justify itself in a short time.” When the subway opened, there were about 270,000 people living in the metropolitan area. !e city was bank-ing on projections that the populace of the city would continue to grow, and its transit needs along with it. Some estimates in the 1920s showed Rochester’s population doubling within the next 50 years. !ere was little reason to doubt it: the population of the city had doubled in the years between 1900 and 1930, a$er doubling again and again in the century before that.

“AN ADVENTURE IN OPTIMISM” !e subway was a successful enterprise for the majority of its existence. It survived the worst of the Great Depres-sion, rebounding quickly from reduced ridership in the early 1930s. When World War II began, Rochester was a crucial part of the war industry with its large, techno-logically advanced manufacturing center. Workers fueling the wartime production drive used the subway system en masse. Meanwhile, shortages on fuel made public transit invaluable—using the subway was even viewed as patriotic because it saved on resources. It was during the war that the subway #nally began run-ning at maximum capacity, running full loads every day. By 1944, more than four million passengers were using Rochester’s underground annually. A$er the war ended,

Members of Rochester’s homeless population

often sleep underground in the winter.

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in both 1946 and 1947, more than #ve million trips were taken on the subway annually. Meanwhile, however, it seemed that the “Young Lion of the West” had #nally reached its limit. !e population-growth projections on which the future of the transit system was based had proven overly optimistic. But even without continuous population growth, the subway had shown itself to be a viable enterprise. Nonetheless, by 1949 —only two years a$er its peak business—ridership had hit its lowest ebb ever, the result, in part, of the country’s widespread urban shi$. Car culture had taken over in America in the years following World War II. !e massive industrial output initiated by war pro-duction shi$ed to domestic manufacturing once again, and Detroit began churning out cars to meet the demands of a nation experiencing an economic boom. Suburbs sprung up along interstates and highways, places the subway system didn’t reach. Even those who remained in the city began using cars with increasing frequency. Rochester’s urban planners ignored the public’s calls to improve the subway, choosing instead to focus on highway construction. !e subway system tried to compensate for its reduced use with hiked fares, a move that would be the #nal nail in its co&n. In 1949, the city council voted in secret to shut the transit system down. From then to its closing in 1956, the subway hobbled along, becoming a #nancial burden to the city. June 30, 1956, the day the subway made its #nal run, became a day to celebrate Rochester’s past glory. !e local newspaper ran an editorial about the closing of the system that captured the feeling of the city at the time, proclaim-ing that this was “the end of Rochester’s adventure in op-timism.” !e city that had, from its founding, experienced nothing but extraordinary growth and prosperity was coming to terms with a new vision of the future—more re-alistic but less rosy than the hopefulness that came before. Ventures like the subway would soon be a charming relic of Rochester’s idealistic past. Of course, there was no way of knowing at that time that the optimism would give way to pessimism as Roches-ter began its slow post-industrial downward spiral. People moved out of the city in droves and their jobs followed them. !e tax base that supported the city declined along with its population. By the 1970s, the city was struggling to maintain its infrastructure. It had little money or en-ergy to devote to a relic like the subway, with no obvious utility to the public.

In 1973, a Rochester historian wrote: “!e seemingly endless succession of crises with which American cities have had to contend in more recent times has tended to replace the excessive optimism of the earlier period with an excessive cynicism.”

GROWING UP In recent years, the pessimism of the past has tempered conversation about the city’s future, which once again looks to be brightening. With a stronger economy and a growing population, Rochester has started dreaming again, ramping up investment in historic preservation and other city improvements. Many city boosters hope that part of the city’s progress will include a celebration of the past—perhaps even underground. !e question of what to do with the abandoned subway has become a major focus for some involved in the city’s revitalization e"orts. Some people want to restore the sub-way or the aqueduct to its original purposes, while others are interested in using the land in other, yet still progres-sive, ways. !ough a few promising projects have come to light, ad-dressing one social need or another, none bear the weight of a master plan, a complete re-imainging, a holistic vision, that enthusiastic urban renewal usually bears. !ere is still vacancy—both below ground, where the tracks eerily whisper, and to some extent, above ground, where stomp-ing has only just begun. One local organization, Foodlink, has leased part of the subway bed— a swathe of undeveloped, unoccupied grass running straight through the northwest section of town—for an urban farming project serving Rochester’s large Bhutanese and Nepali refugee population. !ree years ago, the garden opened on Lexington Avenue, near Mary’s Place, a ministry run by a local church to aid incoming refugees. “!e neighborhood was once at a very busy and vibrant intersection,” says Mitch Gruber, Foodlink’s community food access coordinator. Today it consists mainly of run-down houses, dilapidated industrial buildings, and strug-gling businesses, which Gruber calls the “forgotten quad-rant of Rochester.” But it remains an asset. “It’s where [refugees] get their #rst state-mandated social services,” says Gruber, further emphasizing its importance in the city’s growing, changing community. !e area is home to many refugees whom Foodlink was attempting to serve. !e non-pro#t decided to ask the

Rochester in motion at street level, above, and seemingly frozen, below ground.

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city government if they could use the subway land for a community garden, and won approval. Currently, 40 families farm on 20-by-8-foot plots. !ere is already talk of expansion —opening up the garden to other residents in coming months, making it a true community garden. !e project is part of a wider movement to repurpose aban-doned urban areas for public projects. Gruber points to other Rust Belt cities—Cleveland, Milwaukee, Bu"alo, and particularly Detroit—for lead-ing the urban farming movement and seeing great success. Rochester’s city government has been largely supportive of the farming movement, says Gruber, adding that the city leases the subway bed to the group for only a couple hun-dred dollars a year. !e cheerful Lexington Street Garden is a model for repurposing the long aboveground portion of the subway bed, which could bring underground revitalization even closer to the surface.

VOCAL ECHOES !e problem of what to do with the underground por-tion of the subway is trickier. !e tunnels have functioned as ad hoc housing for Rochester’s homeless population of nearly 9,000 for decades. During the harsh winters, the pipes and ducts running along the walls provide heat. While it doesn’t routinely house a permanent popula-tion in the way some cities’ subway tunnels do, a few bar-rels with burned wood and some litter show that people have occupied the space for sleep and shelter. But there are rats; it is exposed, largely unsafe; and furthermore, it hides a homeless population that deserves more than a conve-niently dark annex in which to derive shelter. In this nar-rative, the city hides its unspeakable present as well as its heralded past. According to Mike Governale, a Rochester transplant who has become a major proponent of the subway’s rev-itilization, the city has been working in the last couple of years to clean the area up, improve its maintenance, and address the city’s struggles with homelessness that have made these tracks a viable, if not su&cient, shelter for them. Interest in the tunnel abounds among mainstream day-trippers who adventure through the open tunnels with %ashlights and maybe a local guide to tell about what it used to be like. Its romantic “ruin porn” is keenly appreci-ated by some—bands have played shows there; promoters have hosted huge dance parties. Elsewhere, the mythology of this once and former space

pervades cultural interest. Michael Jarvis, a professor of American history at the University of Rochester, takes his class to the historic space every year. In recent years, a modernized version of the subway map, designed by Governale, has appeared in shops, businesses, and houses throughout the city. In 2010, the World Canal Conference was held in Rochester, drawing numerous visitors to the tunnels along with attention to their neglect. Another draw is the gra&ti that has built up on the aqueduct’s walls; indeed, some of the best street art in the city is there. !e ample natural light that streams in through the arches of the tunnel onto the colorful artwork makes for a stunning sight. A walk through the tunnels reveals impressive large-scale murals that attract frequent visitors to the space, de-spite the area being o&cially o"-limits. Governale calls these works of art “organic and ever changing. It’s constantly being painted over; layer and layer on top of layer.” !ough he, like many, appreciates the beauty of these works, he says the walls’ purpose is temporary. “[!ese artists] will #nd other places to write,” says Governale. “I don’t know if there is any e"ort going to save the gra&ti—unless someone stepped up. I know that if it was le$ up to the city, they would just as quickly remove it. I don’t think the city has any love for the artwork there.” A few proposals have %oated around in recent years for the future of the space, though there is no current viable front-runner. Many proposals re%ect a great deal of historical senti-mentality. Some have argued in favor of celebrating the site’s history as part of the Erie Canal. !e aqueduct is one of the canal’s best preserved sections and other cities along the canal have built successful museums that showcase similar locations. !e Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse, for example, attracts thousands of visitors from around the world every year, noted one proposal. A group called the Canal Society of New York State promotes returning the canal to its original use. A func-tioning canal would be impractical, though, says Jarvis, who called it a “pie in the sky” idea. Jarvis argues that an attempt to return the canal to a working waterway would be to ignore the problems that prompted the canal’s di-version in the #rst place. !e result would be largely orna-mental. “If they build it, people won’t come,” says Jarvis.

Graffiti art promoting Rochester-based hip-hop artist Thievin’ Stephen.

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Some media have piqued interest in returning a light-rail system to the city, an idea thought to be equally as im-practical as a restored aqueduct. Despite di"erences of opinion, the structure is not something the city can a"ord to ignore. Maintenance on the tunnels costs about $1 million a year. Some sections are in worse repair than others. In 2008, to minimize maintenance costs, the city started to #ll in a large section of the system, much to the opposition of grassroots groups like Subway/Erie Canal Revitalization (informally known as Chill the Fill). !e group tried to raise public awareness about the subway in their battle to maintain the aqueduct, encouraging family tours of the tunnels with local historians who would use their expertise to educate the public about the historical importance of the site. Petitions garnered thousands of signatures and the City Council held a town hall to dis-cuss the fate of the subway. In the end, the movement failed to come to an e"ec-tive consensus. !e city promised that whatever they put in the #ll could always be taken out in the future. !ough Chill the Fill ultimately lost their argument, they proved adamant about the vocal interest locals have in the tun-nels’ fate, and a willingness to work toward revitalization.

NEXT STOP !ough progress in restoring Rochester’s historical sites has been schizophrenic at times —with the city demolish-ing certain historic sites while investing millions in pre-serving others—the attitude toward the future of the city has become more positive. Whichever idea for the revitalization of the subway prevails, the renewed interest in its fate marks a change in Rochester’s attitude. !e subway is an important site of historical meaning for precisely this reason. Since the city was founded, the structure has served as a mirror for the city’s outlook. When the city’s fortunes have been good, so have the tunnel’s. Conversely, the un-derground has su"ered along with the city during tough times. With the revitalization of the city and an economic upturn, interest has returned to the projects that had to be put aside during the city’s less stable years. In the excitement of new-project planning and neo-ur-ban renewal, it remains imperative to accept the reality of change. !e weight of altering entire systems of operation, and the exponential history that will follow these deci-sions—long-term e"ects to short-term solutions. And that even a$er a half-century of inactivity, with all that grime, quiet and destitute, some trains can ride again.

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SHORTS

S he looked to her right and discovered there a small green notebook with a black, capped pen lying on top of it. !e notebook and pen lay purposefully on her bedside table for these

moments when she’d suddenly awaken and would need to record a memory or a dream or a terrible plaguing train of thought. With some e"ort, she heaved herself out of a sleepy haze and onto her side so she could reach the notebook and pen. She %ipped the pages with her thumb, %uttering them like a deck of cards, until she came to the #rst blank one. !en she swiped backward one, two, three pages to the be-ginning of her most recent entry.

Day 31, I think. Nighttime.I seem to have been more present than not today. Can’t say

whether that’s a permanent or even a positive development, but it’s the truth for today. Not that I really gained anything "om being more “with it.” Nothing much happened, and if every day is like this, what’s the point of it? Something about loved ones, and making the most, and gratitude for what we have, invest-ments in the future. I try not to listen too much; that’s bad man-ners. I know it, and they know it. Nevertheless…

I started this entry, despite having written earlier today, be-cause I suddenly remembered a day I wanted to record. It came

to me "esh and green and alive, and everything I know now is brown and dying. I want to hold this one, see if it can sprout in my palm, shoot its roots down to the earth and anchor me here just a bit longer. I was young, 10 maybe, and it was Easter Sunday. It was everything an innocent Christian girl would wish for in an Easter Sunday—sunny, new swarms of gnats claiming the air, and my shiny white buckle shoes clicked on the sidewalk. #is year I didn’t have to wear lace socks—they were plain cu$ed instead, and they were new so they wouldn’t crumble and bunch under my heel like those lazy, hand-me-downs "om last year. To this day, I maintain, few things feel quite as satisfying as a new pair of good-!tting socks. Well, a "esh cup of hot co$ee.

#e day was pristine. New life emerging everywhere, ev-eryone on their best behavior—Mama and Daddy included. Smiles and sunniness warmed away the last chills of winter. Despite some minor and typical childhood bumps, I hadn’t yet learned fear. Pretty soon, and forevermore, but not just yet.

My Easter dress was yellow… … … and I’ve just been idling here, chewing my pen for I don’t know how long trying to de-scribe this yellow. It wasn’t of lemons or buttercups or egg yolks. It was breezy and ethereal and entirely unto itself. I remember sitting on the hard church pew, my tip-toes just barely touching the %oor, hands resting in my lap, perfectly pleated yellowness

Woman Committed“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the

essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not,

when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” - Henry David Thoreau

by CHASTITY WEST

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illustrations by JULIE MOLLOY

fanning over my knees, and I remember ordering myself to lock that moment away. Why did I, at 10, order my mind to take note of a moment and hold it for so long? With that picture, I told myself, “You’re happy right now. Don’t forget.” And so I’ve held it all these years. Sometimes I forget that I know this mo-ment, but then, like today, it all comes back fully formed, and for the splittest second I can feel, really feel, “You’re happy, right now,” of my 10-year-old self and know she was right. #e ghost of that happiness plays brie%y in the air about me as I live inside the memory, but then I sigh blowing away the happy spirit, and I’m le& wondering whether I really remember what I thought I remembered?

She #nished reading and closed the notebook deciding she had nothing new to add a$er all. She turned it over and over in her hands, fussing with it, something pinching at the back of her mind, something she couldn’t get to. It agitated her, and she crunched her eyes tight trying to see backward into her head, backward into time to #nd—her eyes popped open, startled by a knock at the door. She thought, with somewhat less bitterness and more resignation than usual, how it would be nice if she could just be le$ alone.

“I’m #ne, you know,” she called toward the door.“I know, but I’m coming in anyway,” said the door.

“Well, I’m not decent. You’ll have to come back later.”“Oh, please. Your indecency won’t surprise me.”!e door pushed inward along with a woman. She was

youngish and dressed smartly—probably for a day at the o&ce, thought the woman in bed. And isn’t that just nice for her, making something of herself out in the world. She’s probably tight with her money, loose with her morals, cyni-cal about everything.

“I can hear you criticizing my clothes,” she said as she pulled open the curtains next to the bed.

“I am not.” She could see the other woman’s #gure re%ected in a %oor length mirror on the opposite wall, and she noticed a familiarity in the face and stance.

“Well, you can stop it. You convinced me this was a good change. Don’t make me regret listening to you.”

“Something doesn’t match. You can’t go like that.”“Not this again, I look #ne. No excuses today, I mean it.”!e woman sat on the edge of the bed and frowned. Look-

ing toward the door, she saw that it remained closed. She pulled her eyebrows together trying to #gure something out, but the light from the window shattered her concentration. When she blinked, she glanced in the mirror, realizing she was alone in the room. She examined her clothes and hair, and everything was #ne, as she’d said. She was appropri-

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ately dressed for a workday, but…but…but…but…her heart pounded out the cadence that always accompanied these mo-ments. She swallowed, and her throat stuck. !e air around her ears pressed in. She was deafened by her own relentless pulse #ghting against the hard quiet air.

“No, I think I’ll go back to bed,” she said to no one.

Day 32. Evening-ish.I’m trying to keep track because for some reason I feel pos-

terity is important. Obviously, posterity is important, what I mean is that for some reason I feel my contribution to it is of some value. It might not turn out to be, but by that point, let’s hope I’m gone and none-the-wiser. I’m ashamed to say, I slept through the day. I got up with strong ambitions, got dressed and everything, but sometimes I just sleep. It’s an avoidance tactic for sure—as soon as I’m faced with a challenge that’s too much, I get so drowsy, my eyelids fall and I’m out. #ere’s no use !ght-ing it. So I don’t. And I spend the day in bed wrapped in guilt and self-loathing.

#en, I’m compelled to record the failure. I wonder why that is. So I can see all my incompetencies lined up neatly on the page? Marvel at the lot of them, all at attention and ready to strike when I least expect? It’s not self-%agellation; it’s reality. Today, I thought I was ready. I thought I was going. Turns out, I wasn’t. Like a dumb mutt returning to its 'omit, I daily have to replay it all (yesterday, then the day before, and then the day before that, etc…) chronologically. It’s the only way to know for sure I lived through it, so I replay each previous day, adding on as far back as I can searching for #e One that started it all.

It’s like winding up a spool of string, except I’m winding days. Wouldn’t it be nice to tie those strung-together days to a fancy kite and just let them unfurl and %y where I never could? All the days of my life soaring through the adventures I couldn’t ever have. It’s a lovely metaphor for something, I think. For "ee-dom, maybe, though that’s an esoteric concept not easily reduced to pretty metaphors. I could look out my window now, to the streets below and watch plenty of people hurrying and moving about their business, or lounging and bull-shitting on the corner. #ey are all "ee. #ey are all out and going and doing…

I don’t know, maybe they could look up and see me watching the world "om my attic perch and envy the "eedom I have com-pared to them. I !nd it unlikely, but I try not to discriminate against the improbable.

A phone rang on the stand at the other side of her bed. She hesitated to answer, without even knowing the caller, be-cause she could recite these conversations verbatim. !ey’d try and draw her out. She’d not-so-de$ly parry the move. !is was a case of the opposites—practice did not, in fact,

make perfect. !e more she denied their advances, the harder it became. !ey’re just not buying it anymore, she thought. !ey’re going to quit trying with me, and then I won’t even have the occasional phone call to pretend to answer.

I was going to write something optimistic about improbable not meaning impossible, but then the phone rang, and I just don’t think I believe that anyway. I reached over like I might answer it.

Ha! Like there’s anyone here to fool but me. Part of me thinks dinner would be nice. Catching up would be nice, but then I realize that’s delusional. #ere’s no way I’m having a good time while attempting conversation with them above all the noise in my head: What if I hate the food? And then I can’t eat, and have low blood-sugar and slide o$ my chair embarrassing everyone. What if I change my mind and have to leave instantly because I might claw through the wall if I have to sit with my back facing the room? I don’t think they understand this is a real risk. Of course they don’t. #ey don’t know I’m a wreck. (On a good day.) I hold my shit together like a vice. #ey just don’t know it. If someone knew, even just one someone, I could let go for a minute…

Oh! I remember when I was 13, I think, and panicking over something—probably a snake in the yard—I just stood there sobbing and moaning.

Mama said I was “taking a !t,” and when she found out why, she slapped the backs of my bare legs with a twig "om a bush and barked, “Contain yourself !” #e tears sucked themselves back up into my tear ducts and haven’t moved since. She, of course, stomped over to that snake and scared it back down its hole.

She was tired of the excuses, and she knew her friends must be too, so she let the phone ring. She remembered what she’d written earlier about sleeping through the day and told herself that’s all this was, a continuation of the day’s failure to go anywhere. At least she’d succeeded at consistency. Again she %ipped through her notebook to an earlier day, looking for a clue, looking for reassurance that the clockwork would continue ticking, and that maybe somehow, with time, she’d be OK. She found herself at the beginning.

Day 8.It’s been some days, some number of days. #ings blur and I

have no con!dence in my memory, the state I’m in. In my men-tal cataloging of the days, I’ve only been able to work backward "om now to Day 4. By the time I work through Day 3 today, it will be time to sleep again making it tomorrow, and I’ll be forced to remember today as yesterday, and when I reach Day

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4 again (tomorrow) it will really only be Day 5 and no matter what I do, I’ll still every day be one more day further "om the discovery of what set it o$ in the !rst place.

One day… One day… Huh. #ink of this: One day… Day One. What an absurd time trap. Let’s just call it Day 8.

I have to write this because #e Fear is winning, and some-one told me to record and preserve because maybe it would be enlightening later. Every day it’s worse. Every day I expect mag-ically to walk out of my house, unscathed by a morning of panic, convinced today is the day I get over it and get out. Because this is crazy. I’m grown, I have a life. Lots of people have it worse, and there they go doing life. No one’s arguing I’ve had my share of shit, but…what…suddenly now I’m a victim? I’m gonna sit here, wallowing in this stagnant mental swamp?

Why? Because she was hateful and absent? Because he couldn’t get it anywhere and settled on the convenience of me? #ese should not be catastrophic. I should be !ne. I hate this place.

I should be !ne. I don’t understand.My sphere of existence is becoming smaller every day.

Reduced "om work and "iends’ houses and home to just my bedroom. Soon, I will be utterly incorporeal—my entire Self stuck inside the murkiness of my own head. Brains are unkempt places, cobwebby and dark, and I’d much rather not live in one.

“God that’s depressing.”Her voice was loud and foreign, and she remembered why

she quit reading her daily purgings. It’s hard to climb out of a hole with your head swiveled backward. She %ipped ahead to an empty page, not caring whether it was the very next empty page, and scrawled fast and hard:

Day 32. Evening-ish, again.Despite whatever, I do actually want to live. Not exist, not

breathe in, out, sleep, wake, work, eat… Not this mundane cycle. #ere needs to be action worth accounting for. I’m tired of the tiredness. Whatever comes next is a giant mystery, but tomor-row the world will still turn, the sun will still blind me through the window, the old lady downstairs will still run her Victrola every time she pees… It’ll all still be the same…

But I could go for a walk in the morning to gain some per-spective. I could see the trees and hear the birds and have an epiphany. I could walk until the backs of my knees ache and my shoes rub a raw spot on my heel.

Maybe I’ll get winded "om the hills I’ll climb and the fear-some dogs I’ll dodge. I’ll wear my feet thin for the sake of en-countering physicality again.

Maybe that’s not a noble enough end. Walking is !ne, I guess. Exercise, all that. #oreau touted its many virtues. But it’s back to the monotonous rotation. I still always get o$ where I got on—back at my house. I’ve gone nowhere. I’ve accomplished…sore feet? I’m just…home…having changed nothing.

However, tomorrow I could write Day 33, Walking...Day 1…we’ll see.

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