2.07.2011

We are the greatest city, the greatest nation: nothing like us ever was.

I have never been so convinced:









When I see these images that just seem to express endlessnessnessness, I can start to see how we began to think ourselves the biggest, the greatest, the most worthy. They seduce and convince us that we, too, shall go on forever. These spaces were built less for people than gods, made of steel and gears and glistening in the sun.

Amen and adios. In the words of a fellow Chicagoan,

"And the wind shifts
and the dust on a door sill shifts
and even the writing of the rat footprints
tells us nothing, nothing at all
about the greatest city, the greatest nation
where the strong men listened
and the women warbled: Nothing like us ever was."

But it was pretty while it lasted.

Images from shorpy. Last word from Sandburg.

2 comments:

AnitaNH said...

Nick, thank you for the pointer to Shorpy. And that quotation from Carl Sandburg reflects so nicely what I am feeling myself today!

Nick Heywood said...

Kara, responding to your Picassa comment -- the forth image is indeed Union Station in DC -- much better without all the junk, no?

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