photo américain

Beirut graffiti

Well, my year here is over in a week. When we get home I may try to convert this blog into "photo baltimore."  But until then I have more photos from Beirut and the South to post and several rolls of film left to shoot. So, don't give up on me yet.

I've really enjoyed this sketchbook of a blog and hope you have too.

Here is some relatively recent graffiti.

[Ain Mreisse, bottom of the steps. I have been told that the person who did the pink "love bomb" is behind these -- serve, tolerate, love, respect.]

[Ashrafiye.]

[Hamra street, near the intersection with Sadat street.]

trees along walls

Many of the large trees in Hamra are on the edges of parking lots. I assume this is because they used to demarcate the edges of agricultural or garden plots. When these individual plots of land were converted one by one for buildings (or parking lots) some of the trees were left on the borders.

Trees in the Gefinor plaza

The Gefinor plaza is home to one of our favorite restaurants, Gruen. The lines of stylized trees seem to compliment the modernist design of the building. The Gruen Eatery is named for the architect of the office complex, (first name: Victor), know as the designer of " the world's first true shopping mall."

"Victor Gruen was a Jewish bohemian who began to design shops for fellow immigrants in New York after failing in cabaret theatre. His work was admired partly for its uncluttered, modernist look, which seemed revolutionary in 1930s America. But Gruen's secret was the way he used arcades and eye-level display cases to lure customers into stores almost against their will. As a critic complained, his shops were like mousetraps. A few years later the same would be said of his shopping malls."

    From "The Rise and fall of the shopping mall," The Economist Dec 19th 2007