how uncanny to stumble across a photo of a spot i’ve walked past hundreds and hundreds of times.
north alamo is an unassuming little side street that runs parallel to broadway, but in recent years has been swept up in the city’s latest urban planning disaster. after passing a 100 million dollar bond to “beautify broadway” by adding bike lanes and huge planters down the middle of the road, it all fell apart when they reached this exact spot. broadway actually used to be a highway and thus owned and maintained by the state, but at some point decades ago they sold the leg south of 35 to the city and otherwise forgot about the upper portion they technically still owned. but when they caught wind of the project (which was already underway) they nixed it and barred the city from doing anything further than the 35 overpass.
the city council threw a fit but ultimately couldn’t do anything about it, so they decided to simply move it all one street over, onto north alamo. i lived in three different apartments on broadway during that time, including the one you can see in this picture. (those two little arches peeking up over 37 is the roof of the parking garage). the other two backed up to north alamo.
it was (and still is) an endless mess of construction that no one wanted. we don’t bike in the streets here, it’s too dangerous and not a reliable form of transportation in an area so large. the planters were ugly as sin and whoever chose what kind of plants to go in them must have been fresh off the boat because it all withered and died in the texas heat after a few weeks. the planters also obscured view and made driving even more dangerous.
all that funny business aside, i did enjoy living in the urban core, it was so different from the sleepy plains town i was raised in. i never needed an alarm during those years because the jackhammering in the streets always started at 5:30 am on the dot. i collected bits and bobs from the construction sites including some fun signage and uniquely shaped chunks of concrete. buttercups always bloom around the overpass in the spring. i learned pigeons have a way of making anything into a nest. i had a perfect view of the drag racing held at midnight on the weekends. the dull rush of the highway right outside my window turned into a lullaby after awhile.
i can’t tell you the amount of times i stopped at that exact spot on my way to get to class. this photo doesn’t do it justice, but the overpasses seem to frame the big blue texas sky in a way that always made me stop and appreciate it in contrast to the abundance of steel and concrete around me. must be something special about it that would make a stranger viewing it through a screen stop and look at it too.
dededos
germansingergirl
blakekathryn
baratheonpilled
izzy806
annaxmalina
theartofmadeline
yousharknotpass
