Week #11

March 27^th, 2013 

I had never been and this was a perfect opportunity to visit on such a beautiful day! My first thought was “I thought it would be bigger.” Although good with directions and orienting myself to my surroundings, big cities can turn me around in a heartbeat. Today I had no problems whatsoever – whether driving or walking around.

There were no emotions that downtown evoked in me. I noticed certain criteria only due to the assignment parameters that there were laid out. There seemed to be a great deal of older buildings brought up to code that were newer and more modern looking than their predecessors. As I walked down side streets I noticed some of the older buildings like the Edison theater, the courthouse, a gorgeous church, and the art building which felt very Washington, DC to me. The streets were lined with tables, chairs, sunbrellas, and outdoor heaters, accompanied by boutiques scattered about. The only two “commercial” businesses I saw were Subway and Starbucks (there has to be a Starbucks near the pseudo-intellectuals no matter how evil corporations are – it’s an exception to be made!).

As I stated before the architectural details were quite plain and boring with nothing jumping out at me except when I passed the original buildings from time-to-time. When I first began walking I noticed how nice and new the bricks were on the grounds only to find a placard under my feet that the first 500,000 bricks were recycled and re-laid down on the sidewalks (which looked to be in good shape).

This area is quite small and not equipped to handle volumes of vehicle traffic aside from parking in front of some establishments, however there was a large parking garage I saw on a side street that could handle the foot traffic once parked.

I ventured my way toward the waterfront and saw the Nina and Pinta boats and discovered not only one but two Army Air Fields were here – Buckingham and Page Army Air Fields. Both served as training bases for gunnery school and pilot training school. I then saw placards in two separate places about their conservation efforts in regard to releasing clean water into the Caloosahatchee River – 1) Detention basin and 2) biological storm water treatment. I was looking for other things like this elsewhere downtown but never came across anything at any establishments or local placards saying “hey were doing X, Y, and Z to integrate sustainability in our community.”