The boards didn't used to be here. There were dirty, cracked windows, with simple graffiti tags and spray-painted arrows directing pedestrians to an imaginary cafe. How sad, that after passing this building every day, I can't remember the ghost cafe's name, or whether the graffiti was spray-painted in silver or grey, or how many windows were intact or shattered. What does that say about memory? Or for that matter, perception? There were doorways, too, where homeless people curled up tight inside sleeping bags, their feet sometimes sticking out onto the sidewalk.
I wonder what purpose the boards serve, and why they were installed. When I look at the doorways, I think a little space has been lost, in a neighborhood where so many have already been displaced. And from the windows, a dream has been erased. I wish I could remember what it was.
Comments (4)
If images can have a rhetorical quality this one does. It痴 like an Edward Hopper painting, full of questions and no statements.
Posted by Alan | May 31, 2003 3:16 PM
Posted on May 31, 2003 15:16
a memory is a story. i now remember that street in a dim sort of way.
Posted by Matthew B | June 2, 2003 12:03 AM
Posted on June 2, 2003 00:03
I had been photographing with someone who slept in one of those doorways... and I remember driving past, seeing them put up on the plywood. Checking my photo archives.. they were put up on november 12, 2002.. and the one place was called argus bistro, another was Pollo Arroz.
Posted by steve | June 3, 2003 4:15 PM
Posted on June 3, 2003 16:15
Thanks, Steve, for checking your photo archives. When I took that picture the other day, I couldn't remember how long the boards had been there. It could have been a month, six months, a year . . . I had this overwhelming sense of longing for what had been, maybe because it seemed irretrievable. Argust Bistro and Pollo Arroz. As soon as I read those names, I remembered. Thanks for bringing those names back. And thanks for your photographic work as well. - Karrie
Posted by karriehiggins | June 3, 2003 4:25 PM
Posted on June 3, 2003 16:25