Side Trak

We hosted a lecture by Vancouver photographer and all around nice guy, Roy Arden tonight. One of his series – which I’ve grabbed a cropped sample of for this post, is called Terminal City, the old nickname for Vancouver. I was happy to have caught Arden’s major exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery during a failed bid for a relocation. Seeing this series again I was reminded of a major project that our civic leaders should pay attention to and that’s the real estate along our nation’s train tracks. If you’ve spent anytime on the Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, you know what I mean. We have the same problems in the international terminals of our airports. Landing in LA or JFK is like landing in a janitorial closet. Is this really the way we want to welcome people to our cities? We’ve got a lot of work to do, America!