Saturday, October 2, 2010

Midtown

In addition to falling in love with cities, I've been known to fall in love with neighborhoods. My own childhood neighborhood, the areas around my Grandmothers's homes, Tavistock Square in London, even a certain corner of MSU's campus have become significant to me. Of course, these places are significant because I spent a lot of time there, because I know have memories of being there.
Every once and a while I find myself at a certain place and I realize I'm just loving what the place looks like. (Usually this is followed by how stupid I was not to bring my camera, because of course I want to take pictures.) The neighborhood in question was Midtown.
There's something perfect and antique about this neighborhood. Most of them are older homes and apartment buildings are from the turn of the century. Some of them are uncared for, but their are ones that are, and there's something very livable about them. They look like they need to be lived in.
We passed by the Forest Arms, which made me sad. In 2008, the Forest Arms, an apartment complex, burned after being recently renovated. Looking at it now, I noticed that there were hanging plants from third floor windows, which, coupled with what looks like a still damaged building, was poetic. Damaged buildings should always look like new life is springing from them.
When I think of the Forest Arms, I also end up thinking about the Hard Lesssons's The Arms Forest. It's named after this same apartment area. I love the album, and seeing the building always makes me think of this.

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