I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least--and it is commonly more than that--sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.
I am alarmed when it happens
that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there
in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations,
and my obligations to society. But it sometimes happens that I cannot easily
shake off the village. The thought of some work will run in my head, and
I am not where my body is; I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain
return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking
of something out of the woods?
The north side of Starkweather Park is bounded by Highway 30. Underneath the overpass the Marsh View path, Starkweather Creek, and rail tracks owned by Wisconsin & Southern all converge, more or less. There was the obligatory graffiti everywhere. "Kode" was painted everywhere. Sagacious advice like "Eat pussy not animals" was interspersed among words and shapes I could not discern.
Graffiti aside, the overpass was rather neat. Sun and shade made for some striking contrasts while the overpass and the rails created a neat tableau of harsh lines.
The scene reminded me of The Conformist. Any Vittorio Storaro fans out there?
I took the rail tracks southwest and encountered a rail switch which looked to be manual. Not being an expert in rail infrastructure, I wasn't sure. But a friend of mine who drives trains for a living has told me stories about rail infrastructure in use today that engineers who voted for Grover Cleveland would have used. This switch directs trains to a siding that runs most of the way to Fair Oaks Avenue.
Along the siding were two platforms with a ramp on one side.
Presumably freight was taken off of rail cars here at some point in the past. As you can see from the top photograph, the area beyond the ramps is a grass field along with a retention pond that's out of view. Google Maps show this spot as being wooded so the clearing was done fairly recently. There's also a gravel road that runs to Jacobson Avenue parallel with the tracks. Besides the trees, Google Maps also shows a Stock Avenue here running one short block north-south to the end of Commercial Avenue which has a stretch that runs south of Highway 30 as well as north of it. I wonder if this area was more industrial/commercial in the past. There is very little commercial to Commercial Avenue here and a lot of the houses look like they date from the 1950s. I'd bet that this area pre-war looked a lot different. Surely Highway 30 got a big facelift when the interstates were constructed too.
Once you go west you enter a little section of the Town of Blooming Grove. I believe the City of Madison will annex this and other bits of the town in 2027. If you go through this area, you'll notice how the street signs are blue instead of green. There are some nice older homes here in amongst the ones from the 1950s and 60s. This one caught my eye.
I suspected this was a repurposed Trachte shed but didn't spy a nameplate. However, there was a verified Trachte shed just down Fair Oaks Avenue.
I presume it's storage for one of the businesses there.
I took the long route home, going through O.B. Sherry Park. On the way there I found a utility pole that got a lot of love from the neighbors.
I had intended to wander the park a bit but the ground was much too wet. And so I wandered along Starkweather Creek which was looking pretty good, lacking the PFAS foam that we'll no doubt see in a couple of months. Instead there were mallards everywhere.
A couple blocks from home I spied a feline taking in the sun.
My hope is to walk this route again when there is more foliage and I have my binoculars with me so I can peer deeper into the marsh and see more birds. The plan is also to learn how to use this camera, specifically manual focus. I've got a whole pandemic to figure it out.
It seems likes it has been a couple weeks since we've had a day here in Madison with more than a few minutes of unadulterated sunlight. It's bad enough being cooped up inside in a bid to flatten the curve and avoid Covid-19 but the constant cloudiness has seemed as oppressive at the stay-at-home order, at times. Still, this spring seems like the most normal one we've had in years. My local weatherperson can probably prove me wrong, but it feels to me like spring here in southern Wisconsin the past few years has been a period of highs just above freezing abruptly ceding to 60°+ temperatures overnight. Instead we've had some lovely days in the 40s this spring, with lows dipping just below freezing. No wonder I've seen people collecting maple sap around town.
The last day we had extended sunlight I took a neighborhood stroll. It wasn't long before I noticed that my neighbors have more log cairns in their yard for growing mushrooms. I presume there will soon be shiitake shrooms bursting from the spore holes on them.
My destination was Starkweather Park. I had previous done some wandering around the west side of the park but now I would do the east and north bits. So I headed east on Milwaukee Strasse. The little strip of the park that abuts the street looked so forlorn with the leafless trees and bushes. Plus there was garbage – empty drink containers, mostly – scattered about. The old Swiss Colony warehouse was waiting impatiently to have tenants once again. Plans for it to become an Amazon distribution center are moving forward to the dismay of many who were hoping for that area to become housing and commercial. But the land is still zoned industrial or whatever classification you need for a warehouse.
However, the land owner was quoted as saying that "a low-cost housing development" was going to be built adjacent to the warehouse. This got the Urban League of Greater Madison to bite. Of course the proof of the pudding is in the eating. We will just have to wait and see if those 145 jobs materialize. I'd bet a lot of those are given to robots. But housing there isn't a bad idea as it's very close to the East Transfer Point meaning public transit is a hop, skip, and a jump away for people of more limited means.
Speaking of which, it was rather odd in a Twilight Zone kind of way to see the transfer point completely deserted.
The retention pond by Corporate Drive was full of melted snow. There was a smoking area tucked into a shady area next to the pond.
Once I was on the Marsh View path, the marsh that is Starkweather Park was to my left.
To my right I saw my first robin of the season. Unfortunately, it was hanging out in a sea of parking.
What a waste. On the bright side, there was a brace of sandhill cranes wandering the grass between the expanses of concrete.
Starkweather Park is mostly marshland and the main attraction is birdwatching. There are benches dotted along the path to accommodate practitioners of what is surely one of the more sedentary hobbies around. I did not have my binoculars with me but I still caught site of some of our flying friends, including my first sighting of a red-winged black bird.
As you get to the north side of the park, the path veers away from the marsh and continues underneath Highway 30. After crossing Starkweather Creek and some railroad tracks, it's but a short stretch until you hit Commercial Avenue.
Read the previous installment of Matutinal Meanderings, Amble On.
I've been meaning to take some photographs of the totems that someone on Baldwin Street makes for some time. Methinks this person (or people) uses a chainsaw but I am not certain about that. And so I headed over there from E. Johnson.
I was hoping that there'd be some of the totems out and that my walk over there would not be for naught. There usually are some to be seen but who knows? Maybe they'd been sold or put into storage or the carver moved. Luckily there were plenty of totems to be seen.
I trekked about some more just idly strolling down the streets. Here's Mifflin Manor which is a wonderfully ironic name considering it's a dreadfully ugly concrete bunker.
On my final walk down E. Johnson I saw some beautiful homes including the one that is perpetually decorated for Halloween.
Lastly, I saw this manhole cover. Sure, it's a banal, utilitarian object but it was nice to see such a thing given a little artistic treatment.
There are surely more around town but I don't recall seeing them.
Areas that are beginning to see gentrification or are exhibiting conditions leading toward displacement include the central areas of Tenney-Lapham, Emerson East, Sherman and South Madison. These areas have not seen demographic change but have experienced more rapid rent and property value increases.
Note how it is the central area of Tenney-Lapham that is at the early stage of gentrification. Presumably the homes with lakefront property are and have been gentrified for some time. And the eastern edge of the neighborhood is home to lots of shiny new apartments – The Constellation, Galaxie, the Factory District Apartments, and Lyric Apartments – which cannot be cheap. Plus the Madison Youth Arts Center is coming soon and that plot on the 1200 block of E. Washington which is currently owned by the city for maintenance of fire vehicles will soon be available. Tenney-Lapham is gentrifying; it's a matter of how far it goes and who gets displaced.
Heading out of Giddings Park it was down East Gorham I ambled. My plan was to check out all of the new development on East Johnson but I took a wee detour first. I moseyed up Russell Walk – carefully because the sidewalk probably hasn't seen any work since long before I lived in the area almost 25 years ago. Prospect Place took me to Washburn Place and the other house I resided in when I lived in Tenney-Lapham.
My then-girlfriend and I lived on the top floor and as I walked by I recalled sitting by our living room window listening to The Rolling Stones play "Tumbling Dice" across the lake at Camp Randall.
Washburn Place is a cozy street being only a block long, and a short one at that. It's right by the lake and has one way traffic. To top things off there were a couple mock Tudors across the street with an old pine tree between them. They just gave the street a nice vibe.
After my brief trip down memory lane, I started once again making my way to E. Johnson. I passed by this house which has a bulkhead door, something of a rarity in Madison.
The only other one that comes to mind is the house at Charter and West Johnson.
Soon enough I was at the corner of Blount and Johnson, immortalized in song by Madison's Velveteen Snackcake.
And there was The Caribou, a place I have spent many an hour.
When I lived on Dayton Street we had no air conditioning so my roommate and I would head down there to play cribbage and stay well hydrated with Capital Amber. By the time we got home, we were too tired to notice the heat. A few years later, friends and I would take up a residence there and get to know one of Madison's best bartenders ever, Ruthie.
One time I went there with a friend's father who used to work for the state patrol up in Tomah. Circa 1970 he got assigned to Madison as part of a force that was meant to keep Madison's finest from beating the student protesters too much. When he walked in he flashed back 30 years. He pointed out where a Nesco full of beef used to sit before commenting that it hadn't changed all that much.
Next to The Bou are all the shiny new apartments.
What a shame the developer couldn’t come up with something that was more like the old homes in the area. Not only do these buildings clash with the rest of the neighborhood but they are ugly. At best. Oh well - alia iacta est.
Just up the street the 800 block of E. Johnson is Tenney-Lapham's commercial center. Good Style Shop has a mural which was surely painted by the same person that did those for Next Door Brewing and Banzo Shük.
I can personally attest that Little Tibet is quite tasty.
Next to a luthier is the Cork 'n Bottle liquor store which I of course frequented on many an occasion. I fondly recall Jimbo holding court on his banjo as I perused the beer selection.
The store gave its name to Madison's beloved bluegrass group, the Cork 'n Bottle String Band.
Across Paterson Street is a place for all of your lapidary needs, Burnie's Rock Shop.
There's also a coffeehouse, an outpost of Salvatore's Tomato Pies, and a smattering of other businesses. Last year the Frau and I were at Salvatore's and I looked out the window only to see 14 storeys of the Galaxie (or was that the Constellation?) off in the distance. Things have certainly changed over the years. I don't have the numbers but there is surely more money in Tenney-Lapham these days.
I just looked up prices for those new apartments on the 700 block of E. Johnson. A 500 square foot studio goes for $1,225. This is not working class housing. Whether people of lesser means are forced out of the neighborhood remains to be seen. Gentrification need not mean displacement for the poorer residents of Tenney-Lapham.
The car wash still had not called me by this time so I kept going up E. Johnson to hopefully get some snaps of something I've been meaning to photograph for a while but had never gotten around to.
Continue to the finale of Matutinal Meanderings, "Am Ende"
