brooklyn

with an evening flight i headed out for the wander that would be the most profitable with the time left. no retracing steps what was missed will have to wait to next time. buses that are reliable - looked at the schedules and worked backward from my departure time. it was to be more bus tag but wandering until the next bus came - with a day pass every point is a transfer point.

being social almost scuttled everything as even though i had to race for the 54, at mondawmin i missed the number 16 and had to wait an hour. i was so close that i waited as nothing runs to schedule here but after three others came up looking for the bus i reckoned that it was true and headed in to see the new targeted mondawmin.

a great place if you are under 20 food courts, cheap jewellery and shoes. koisks selling mobile phones. there was a closed book shop.

there were more people at the staging point of the buses than i had seen in all my time in baltimore and baltimore not the type of city that panics, had five different types of police force out and about. in my reckoning it was one officer of some form or another to every 10 citizens. they were in groups, there were walking about the crowds, they were blocking the bus stops with their squad cars, again baltimore mimicked a third world city of a few decades ago. it seems that schools closed early and everyone was either heading to or away from mondawmin.

30 minutes later the 16 pulled up filled and left.

bus etiquette -
take forever to load. don’t get your money or card out until you are at the cash box, if you have to show an i.d. wait until asked, it is slower that way.

if you enter with friends make sure you sit as far apart as possible so that you can yell back and forth across the bus.

stand at the front of the bus preferably bunching around the driver.

when leaving push the signal but don’t get up to quit the bus until the bus has stopped, waited and has begun to pull away again. this is the time to leave your seat walk to the door and yell ‘back door!’ for more effect add an invective.

a great ride the number 16. there is no logic in this route except to connect people to other lines. it is by far the slowest way to get any place along the route and certainly slower getting to the terminus. it heads west then south to go east. it skirts downtown all together. it parallels the city limits on the southwest side and i get to see, walbrook, rosemont, violetville and landsdowne before getting down in the brooklyn homes.

kept the camera pretty much hidden walking through brooklyn homes and gardens. this was irrational am having a hard time explaining it as after getting my initial bearings, i felt safe in the area. i think that it was that safety that had me put the joãozão away. walking through the residential area along 8th street i wanted to make some images of the street furniture and the way that people were taking pride in their property while differentiating it from their neighbours. i was mentally comparing this area with armistead gardens, and west baltimore.

when i stopped to make a snap there was always someone on their porch sitting, taking in the day. while with them there i felt safe, i also felt that i would have to do a lot of explaining if i slowed brought out the camera and made snaps. i - perhaps mistakenly - thought that there would be more than quiet curiosity and i wasn’t really in the mood to explain. a pity.

joãozão did come out when i hit patapsco avenue. the plan was to walk until the number 64 arrived, i would then hop on that, head to the horror and then decide. photographed the usual suspects, storefronts, churches, vfw halls, taverns. i must have been more nervous than i thought - or more sloppy - as a lot of the frames are tilted and not usable. i made sure that i didn’t bend at the hip as i did when in copenhagen causing all sorts problems.

along the avenue safety came from meeting no-one but when i did there was a greeting and not a puffing up and posing from the other person in some strange show of strength.

across barrett park over to hanover street more taverns, more shops and a bit of a worry. when i hit patapsco avenue a 64 and a 16 passed but reckoning it too early - good thing as it was a nice walk - i decided not to hop on either. here i was across brooklyn heading across the patapsco trying to determine whether i could make it before a bus came or if i should wait. the patapsco is no polite river it isn’t the chicago or the milwaukee barely a block long this was going to be a walk, this was to be as long as the walk so far. there would be a chance at the harbour hospital then again near port covington. i decided to walk. i had always wanted to walk the hanover street bridge, this was an excuse.

time became a factor, i started to reverse calculate again, if i made it to the metro by 3:00 i would be ok, if a bus came at ... revisions came every ten minutes as i checked my progress and slowed at a bus stop to see if one was coming. i keep forgetting how compact the city is and while i walked almost from the city line to the centre it only took a couple of hours. except for the buses there should have been no panic at all.

made it into south baltimore and and the cross street market before a 64 arrived and getting on was a mistake as it was so crowded that i could have walked to the metro more quickly. regretted the lack of time as there was a ball park in swann park hidden under I-95 and apart from south baltimore. thought it too much of a diversion.

waited 45 minutes for a 54 so that i could pick up my bags and head to the light rail. the packed bus crawled up park heights - the driver threatening not to move until people moved to the back. there was a near riot was a randallstown bus decided not to stop meaning that some people would be late to work, the passengers were taking it out on this driver.

calm and in control again once on the light rail - the only mode of transport that seems to work in baltimore - i got down at lexington market for a pizza and a drink before heading to the airport.

met willie girts who told me about the music at the market asked on how the groups were chosen, found out that he was a musician and having chatted with me i made his snap along with using that as an excuse to photograph more in the market. the early evening light was great. the market was only slightly less crowded than the mondawmin bus terminal.

of course at the airport early even after slinking through the tsa line - only one checkpoint open - in homage my missed trip to the ram’s head, a pint of copperhead before heading to the gate where it seems that people use the same technique to board planes as they do buses - as the gate was closing -after the sixth announcement in six minutes saying that the gate would close in five, then four, then three minutes, ten couples came racing toward it hoping to board one person repacking their luggage to get it within the guidelines of the airline.