more from the 'hood...

There are, seriously, so many different and varied neighborhoods! This is what Miss S'mee LOOOVEs about cities. Turn your head or walk a block and you have gone from Prussian Chapels to Mexican Barrio, or the industry of the past rolling into the condos that are replacing the old Jewish neighborhood.

These are photos (albeit mixed up because I still can't figure out why they are downloaded in one order, and posted in a terrifically different order...) photos of things I found wonderful!

The glazed Madonna in her turquoise robes and golden crown standing above the entrance to yet another church. This time Catholic. Around the corner from this Catholic church there was a Greek Orthodox with the most intricate windows of stained glass...in the basement!


In the heart of the industrial neighborhood, completely surrounded and dwarfed by the other structures was a restaurant. Hidden and cloaked down an alley way and guarded by the iron gate. How anyone finds this place (except by accident, like I did!) is beyond me! The food must be great because the street was lined with cars and folks were clamoring to get in there. But take heed to the sign on the gate and don't let the dogs escape! (there is so much here that needs to be commented on. Hidden restaurant, funky neighborhood, dogs where food is being prepared or served, dogs that want to "escape"....egads!)

I drove through a very crowded neighborhood with amazing tiny little 2, 3, and sometimes 4 story homes. Packed on each other with tiny little yards and very little space between. The tree lined streets were what brought me there first. Huge over grown, likely never pruned trees that clung to each other from across the narrow (and I ain't kiddin') street. The grasses from the lawns creeped over the sidewalks in places and happily began to grow in squiggles through the broken asphalt. Only four or five blocks deep and wide, the house were all unique; like each one had been custom build and over the last 2oo hundred years. Every style and every medium used from wood clap board, brick, stone, stucco and left over corrugated metal. Among them was a faerie tale house, the kind where you know Merlin lives if he had to live in the city. It seemed so out of place. I drove around the block twice just to get the picture. I like the brickwork around the door, the point on the porch roof and the way the soot from the street and wet is climbing its way up the unmaintained wood entry. I can imagine the visitors who are greeted through the door window as the owners peep through to see who has come to chat. Cool house.

I actually sat in my car, on the tracks to get the picture. The way the old tracks curved and snaked its way through the modern rail system above was just very pretty. Still used everyday, the train below doesn't deter the plants from growing along side nor the moss from making the cross rails home.

I missed the Rock and Roll Museum (except the parking lot, yeah, I took pictures from the sidewalk like a dork.) but I had so much fun driving through all the nooks and off beat places that I ran out of time to see the places I can actually see on line. Oh well, the drive was worth it.