A River Runs Through It

As any travelled visitor to Haiti will tell you, Jacmel is among the country's most beautiful towns. On the south shore, facing the warmth of the Caribbean, this once-booming seaport had electric light before New York City; it was the first town in the Caribbean to get wired. At the time, countless bushels of coffee and other tropical delights came down out of the hills to be stacked in Jacmel's stunning brick-floored warehouses, waiting to be loaded onto steamers bound for the markets of the north.


Now the lone pier jutting out into the sea is moribund, and the once-grand buildings are tattered, the locks rusty. Mangy dogs roam the streets, and the tourist stalls are devoid of visitors. Fabulous pillared warehouses lie empty; some are burnt shells. Tropical loft culture has not yet managed to overcome the bureaucratic stumbling blocks posed by the dozens of squabbling heirs who control these spectacular waterfront properties, arguing amongst themselves for decades as the buildings languish empty, and termites and salt air slowly eat away at a spectacular architectural heritage of wrought iron balconies and high-ceilinged splendor.


This season's four spectacular hurricanes haven't helped spruce up the city (and it is only the end of September). The Haitian president described the devastation, nationwide, as being like Katrina, with no budget whatsoever to help those whose homes were washed away, buried under silt, or flooded to the eaves. The flat, miserable, bayside armpit that is the city of Gonaives, across the mountains in the dead center of the country, is still under water, they say, or under mud, many thousands rendered homeless. Up above, looming over every coastline of this vertical country, the treeless mountains are helpless to contain the torrential rains, and the runoff blasts down the valleys, like a flash flood in a desert canyon.


A dysfunctional, underfunded government, and a donor-fatigued international community, increasingly comfortable with looking the other way, have combined to create a museum of devastation. Jacmel, at the mouth of a river, is always hit hard in the Caribbean monsoon, but in my dozen and more trips here in the 1990s I never saw anything like the streets which today lead down to the sole jetty; no asphalt or concrete surface is left, and where pushcarts and longshoremen once rolled down to the port, there is now nothing but a rutted, riverine wash of gravel, boulders and sand. What was once an important commercial street is now a gully, at the heart of the city.

Edward Hopper Rolls over in his Grave

It is difficult to agree with Mr. Rogers that today is a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Today marks the grand opening of Ikea, Brooklyn, a massive big box store that will irrevocably alter life in the formerly tranquil waterfront reaches of our beloved Red Hook. On weekends it is predicted that as many as 17,000 cars will come here bringing shoppers, and many of them will inevitably clog Red Hook's main drag, the formerly somnolent Van Brunt St., already much busied by traffic heading to the Fairway Supermarket. Last night we wandered down to enjoy Red Hook's last sleepy evening and have a look at the monstrosity.


The last days of emptiness

The owners of an equally vast lot next door are hoping some other massive retail developer will jump on the bandwagon, raising neighborhood fears that this district of ancient red brick warehouses and desolate pilings is destined to become a grotesque, gigantic shopping mall.

Hoping to generate some press and advance publicity, Ikea suggested that eager buyers camp out, competing to be the first lucky entrants to the store. The prize? A free sofa to the first 35 visitors, and an armchair for the next 70 or so. This is the first truly urban Ikea, and this promotional idea, while it might be cute in the suburbs, attracted a motley crowd who reduced the pristine facade of the new and massive structure to a squalid vision peopled by refugees and strewn with crumpled blankets.

Squalor and Pathos: The tragic blight of homelessness? The unexpected cancellation of a regional bus service? A pre-dawn ritual of chronic users awaiting the opening of the methadone clinic? No, it's the grand opening of Ikea!




None of those waiting claimed to be in desperate need of a new sofa, although many agreed that Ebay and Craigslist would next week be full of cut-rate deals on brand-new seating, offloaded by winners of this perverted "contest." Instead the campers suggested that they were excited to be part of an historic event, as if being one of the first to enter the new Ikea was akin to meeting Obama, or shaking hands with the pope. Many shared a sense of fleeting celebrity that seemed for them to obscure the desperate lack of imagination and shuddering boredom manifested in this simultaneous embrace and indictment of consumer culture. (There were also greasy-haired and bleary-eyed fellow bloggers, irate at being herded about by Ikea security guards. To which we can only say that if you join the line waiting to go into the corral, expect to be treated like cattle.)

Object of desire: the elusive sofa, glimpsed through the still-locked front door of the Ikea store.


If the grimness of this waiting game and our anticipation of the traffic horrors to come weigh more heavily on our minds than the easy access we will now have to cheap candles and furniture predestined to collapse, we must admit being impressed with the public esplanade, which has many massive benches, waterfront views, and abundant landscaping. Ikea seem unaware that they have moved into the ghetto, and have dotted the walkway with numerous chaise longues perfect for taking in the afternoon sun, with none of the usual bumps and "armrests" designed to prevent actual sleeping. There is room for many people to live here, and it could be quite comfortable, particularly if the port-o-potty near the ferry terminal remains unlocked and in operation. Here Laura takes a quick catnap. We're considering renting out the house for the rest of the summer and moving to Ikea plaza. After all, it is Ikea itself that is promoting the idea of stopping by and camping out.

UPDATE: Although the free water taxi shuttling to Lower Manhattan every ten minutes certainly eases the sting, I'm afraid this post, more heartwrenching than the smartass postcard to Ikea I wrote above, really nails it.

Transcontinental Gas Guzzle, part 5, Blighted Industry edition

The final installment of the transcontinental marathon took us down through Michigan, around Ohio's shores and across northern Pennsylvania, areas firmly situated in the rust belt, the faded industrial heartland that was the United States' steel and auto production epicenter and blue-collar paradise. Definitively outsourced, downsized and globalized into obsolescence over the last thirty and more years, this region now offers an abundance of unique fixer-upper opportunities for those willing and able handymen still able to get a home-improvement loan during this time of difficult credit.

Saginaw pawnshop awaits your TLC and weed-killer.


Bring a sheet of plate glass and some merchandise to this breezy former pharmacy in Saginaw and you will be back in business in no time!


Civic pride in Flint

Detroit has the only abandoned skyscrapers I'm aware of, classic gems standing tall and empty. See Forgotten Detroit for photographs and histories of these ghostly buildings. The photographer Camilo José Vergara has also been making images of many of these buildings for years.


This mural fantasy, of a sylvan glade butted up against the cerulean waters of Lake Erie or Lake Michigan, was probably originally painted here to bring some cheer to this dismal block of abandonment. Unfortunately the dilapidated police barricades, meant to prevent the use of the sidewalk, and the fallen and falling shattered slate cladding peeling off the building, rather diminish the effect.