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A Commuter’s View
Emily Ryan Junior Graphic Design Student York College of Pennsylvania Fall 2013, Publication Design
Š 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission. The opinions expressed in this book are those of the author only and not those of York College of Pennsylvania. This book is an experimental class project for purely educational design purposes. Design by Emily Ryan Printed by www.lulu.com
You can observe a lot by watching. –Yogi Berra
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Table of Contents Introduction.................................................................................2 Maps.............................................................................................4 Types of Homes...........................................................................6 Trees.............................................................................................8 Lines...........................................................................................12 Trash...........................................................................................14 Stats............................................................................................20 Jackson Street Closed................................................................27 Construction...............................................................................28 Gutters........................................................................................33 Stop Signs...................................................................................34 Fall..............................................................................................36 Halloween..................................................................................38 Odd/Interesting Things.............................................................40 Sky..............................................................................................44 Pretty...........................................................................................45 Rain.............................................................................................46 Lights..........................................................................................47 Entrances....................................................................................48
Introduction I am a junior at York College of Pennsylvania. As a commuter student, I travel day after day from home to school and back. My commute takes approximately fifteen minutes each way. Over the first part of my commute, I travel the same roads but when I get to Edgar Street, each day I choose to travel along one of two streets, SpringettsburyAvenueor Jackson Street. Both of these streets connect directly to entrances at the back end of York College. Springettsbury Avenue and Jackson Street run parallel to each other separated only by alleyways and short stretches of other streets. They are very close to
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each other. For the first two years of college, I traveled this route and never took the time to clear my head of whatever I was thinking about and really notice the beauty, the ugliness, the odd and/or cool things, the irritations, and the many elements that are in place to make these two roads unique. I chose to document this commute because it is a significant part of my everyday life as a college student. For many days, I simply took photographs of things I thought were cool or interesting and documented the elements of each street. But it soon became evident how radically different these two streets are from each other
even though they run parallel to one another so I added to my focus documentation of the many differences between these two streets. For the most part, Springettsbury Avenue is a beautiful stretch of road lined with lush trees and elegant single-family homes. This street is very well kept and clean all the way from Edgar Street to the entrance of the college at Newberry Avenue. There is an order to the street that gives it an upscale vibe. Except for a few homes near the college that are inhabited by college students, many of the homes on this street
appear to be inhabited by wealthy residents of York County. It is always pleasant driving along this street. Jackson Street has many different personalities depending on what section you are on. There are three types of homes along Jackson Street. On the east end, from Edgar Street to George Street the houses are mostly very small fairly wellkept single-family homes. As you continue west, between Queen Street and George Street, you see a mix of single-family homes, semi-detached homes, and row homes. Once you cross George Street heading west, all
Springettsbury Avenue was always neat and carefully placed outside the homes. In contrast, the trash situation on Jackson Street was horrific. Another huge difference between these streets was construction. On Jackson Street there was always road and sidewalk construction going on and nearly every day some part of Jackson Street was closed off. Springettsbury Avenue had no construction during my documentation project. Jackson Street also has odd Part of my documentation covered gutter problems that I documented. subjects that were significantly dif- Another difference between the two ferent between the two streets. One streets is the trees that line them. big subject was trash. The trash on As the semester progressed, I docu-
the homes are row homes. Most of the houses from Edgar Street to Pershing Avenue are inhabited by families who appear to be quite poor. The rest of the blocks on Jackson Street down to the entrance to the college appear to be inhabited by students of York College. Except for the stretch between Edgar and Queen, Jackson Street is extremely run down, dirty, and full of trash. This is especially evident when you get to the end of the street where the college students live.
mented the season change and I observed how pretty the trees became in the fall. Springettsbury Avenue is filled with lush beautiful trees that in the fall transformed the street into a wonderland of color. Jackson Street has far fewer tress and the ones they do have are stunted or topped to allow the electric wires through. Fall was was hardly noticeable on Jackson Street. Other things I noted on my commute were especially beautiful sky days, odd things that I saw on buildings or placed in front of houses, lines that were created by the fences, sidewalks and wires, stop signs, and lights. I also documented
some statistics about each street for comparison—how many homes, satellite dishes, businesses, homes with security systems, public streetlights, street signs, and trees. Although these streets are so close to one another they are also worlds apart in how they look and feel to the traveler passing through. As I commuted each day, I got to to see the good and the bad of two streets that might seem boring at first but, with careful observation, revealed their own unique personalities.
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My commute zoomed out
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My commute zoomed in to show the exact roads that were documented in this project.
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Types of Homes When you travel down Springettsbury Avenue between Edgar Street and Newberry Street you see mostly one type of home, a single-family home, with a sprinkling of semi-detached homes. As you travel from the east end to the west end of Springettsbury Avenue toward the college the quality of the houses changes. The homes from Edgar Street to Queen Street are small and clean, but a little run down. Once you cross Queen Street, though, there is an incredible transformation of homes into gorgeous, large, and well-kept properties. These homes are as varied as the beautiful trees that line the street and sit on the properties. The people that live in these homes clearly have some money and are proud of their homes and their neighborhood. The houses give off the vibe of the whole street–order, cleanliness, and style. It is very pleasant driving through this part of Springettsbury Avenue.
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As you travel down Jackson Street, you see three different types of homes. From Edgar Street to up to where Jackson intersects with Arlington Street, there are mostly very small single-family homes that are fairly well kept. At that point, though, the street changes dramatically. The rest of the way up to George Street the houses turn into semi-detached houses, quite dilapidated and sad-looking. Once you cross George Street, the houses shift to tall row houses that may have been quite majestic a long time ago. But today they are in near total disrepair. As you travel through this portion of Jackson Street, the homes are occupied by poor people and are probably rentals. Once you pass Pershing Street, the college student rentals become prominent. The state of the college student rental area is incredibly disordered and dumpy. It looks as though nobody ever takes care of anything and party trash often appears strewn around the yards. Once you cross the creek and get to the college entrance on Jackson Street, the quality shifts to more order and cleanliness.
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Trees As you travel along Springettsbury Avenue you see gorgeous large trees–oaks, maples, willows, pines, and more–that line the street in nice form and they have the space and grass area to grow tall, straight, and thick. One tree I became especially fond of was a beautiful willow tree on Springettsbury Avenue. As I travelled along Springettsbury each day, I noticed that the willow tree didn’t change color over time like the other deciduous trees around it. This made me wonder why? Are willows different? Yes, they often don’t change color and simply drop their leaves in winter. Interesting, I learned something new!
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In contrast to Springettsbury Avenue, Jackson Street’s trees are not well kept. They do not have nice grass areas to grow in and they grow twisted and ugly in the small spaces given to them inside the sidewalks and in the small dry front yards of the homes. One large oak tree on Jackson Street was suffocated by having a fence placed next to it. This tree broke the fence in order to have the space it needed to grow.
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Lines As I traveled along Springettsbury Avenue I noticed the beautiful lines created by long stretches of sidewalk, the fences encasing York College, the fire escape on the sorority house, a particular set of plants on a private home, and some carefully manicured hedges.
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On Jackson Street, I also noticed visually appealing lines created by fences, trees, sidewalks, and electric wires.
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Trash One of the big differences between Springettsbury Avenue and Jackson Street is how the trash is handled. When you travel down the whole of Springettsbury Avenue you only see trash on trash days. When the trash is out for collection it is mostly in neat bags and everything is in trashcans. There is an order to how the trash is placed on the sidewalk. Because the trash is in black bags you can’t tell what kind of trash is in the trashcans. I noticed that once the trash had been picked up, the trashcans weren’t thrown willy-nilly back onto people’s lawns. In fact they were overturned and placed carefully back on the sidewalks. I also noticed that the day after trash collection, trashcans were off the streets. Everything was kept nice and tidy all the time.
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Unlike Springettsbury Avenue, Jackson Street has a big trash problem along the west end after you pass Queen Street. From Edgar Street to Queen, the trash situation resembles that of Springettsbury Avenue. But once you cross Queen Street, you see the random ugly things that people put out as trash. I saw beat-up stained mattresses, broken baby carriers, smashed furniture, and soggy couches. When you get past George Street the trash situation becomes ridiculous with trash strewn everywhere. Poor York city residents and college students inhabit this part of Jackson. Day after day as I traveled the street I saw huge amounts of trash thrown everywhere even spilling into the streets and gutters. I was surprised that the students don’t seem to have any respect for where they are living. It is shocking considering that all along the street, on either side, there are trashcans that have been put there by York College and yet trash sits all over the place as if the students can’t be bothered to place their trash in the cans. On trash collections days, there are huge bags of trash filled with beer cans that line the street in front of the student housing showing that partying is a big activity on this street. Even though the trash is in bags, the bags are tossed all over the sidewalk. It’s obvious that the students do not think of this housing as home. Strangely, even the trash collectors treat the two streets differently. After the trash has been picked up, the trashcans are thrown back onto the lawns in a haphazard and careless way and they sit there all week until the next trash day.
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Stats Because from day to day there wasn’t much happening on the two streets, I decided document the numbers of some static elements of the streets—businesses, homes, public lights, security systems, street signs, satellite dishes, and trees. This counting revealed some stark and interesting differences between the streets that I would not have noticed just driving through.
Number of Businesses There are a few businesses that sit on the corner of Springettsbury Avenue and Queen Street that you can access from Springettsbury but they are technically on Queen Street.
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Jackson Street
Springettsbury
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Number of Homes My counting revealed that there are many more homes on Jackson Street than on SpringettsburyAvenue. Jackson Street is madeup of many apartmentswithin the row homes making the number of separate residences even more. I counted only front doors in my tally. The clear fact emerged that there are at least three times as many families living on Jackson Street as on Springettsbury Avenue.
Springettsbury
92 Jackson Street
278
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Number of Public Lights Considering how many more people live on Jackson Street than on Springettsbury, there is a surprisingly similar number of public lights on these two streets. If you divide the number of lights per home you get one streetlight for every five homes on Springettsbury Avenue but only streetlight for every 12 homes on Jackson. However, this may not be a good way to compare since the area covered by the lights is the same. I expected that there would be a lot more lights on Jackson Street to help make it safer, but the city put the same number of lights on each street.
Jackson Street
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Springettsbury
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Number of Security Systems Springettsbury
Jackson Street
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It seems as though these street are pretty similar in their need for security but if you compare the number of security systems to the number of homes on each street, 24% of the homes on Springettsbury Avenue have security systems as compared to 8% of the homes on Jackson Street. So either the people on Springettsbury are more nervous about break-ins or the people on Jackson can’t afford the security systems.
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Number of Satellite Dishes Why are there 75 more satellite dishes on Jackson than on Springettsbury? Well, considering how many homes on each street, 25% of the homes along Springettsbury Avenue have satellite service and 35% of the homes on Jackson Street have satellite service. That seems more even, although Springettsbury still has significantly less. I wonder why?
Jackson Street
97 Springettsbury
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Number of Signs I am not sure why Jackson Street has 43 more street signs than Springettsbury Avenue. Maybe there is more traffic and more parking issues on Jackson Street?
Springettsbury
Jackson Street
136
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Springettsbury
262
Jackson Street
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Number of Trees Springettsbury Avenue has many more trees than Jackson Street. This is obvious just driving down the streets. Springettsbury has nearly two trees per home and Jackson Street has only ½ a tree per home or one tree for every two homes.
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Jackson Street Closed Although I have not taken the time to notice Springettsbury or Jackson Streets over the last four semesters, one thing that I have always noticed was the fact that there was always some construction on Jackson Street. It was often impossible to travel the whole way down Jackson. This has been very irritating, since I have to drive extra to cross over to Springettsbury Avenue. This semester the construction was more pronounced. Between August and November 2013, there were only a handful of days the entire road was open. Some days, the whole street from George Street to the College entrance was blocked. This semester the construction appears to be paving the road and redoing the sidewalks. I am hoping by next semester, all work will be done and I will not see “Road Closed� signs again on Jackson Street.
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Construction Jackson Street is slowly getting repaired and most of the work is being done between George Street and the college entrance. Early in the semester, before the sidewalks were torn up, they were all uneven and cracked full of grass and weeds poking up through the cracks. The road was also torn up, graded, and patched up before paving so driving along was always a bumpy and unpleasant experience. But over the span of this semester, there has been major improvement to this stretch of Jackson Street and it is starting to look somewhat decent although all the work in the world on the sidewalks and streets will not solve the problem of the dilapidated house and the college rentals. The whole semester, there has been lots of construction equipment littering the street, the sidewalks and roads ripped up and replaced and the corners of the street redone and new gutters put in. Eventually, the whole street will look better.
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Gutters The City of York places long green sandbag snakes around the gutters on the college side of Jackson to prevent the trash that ends up in the street from getting washed down into the sewer. This system seemed to work to keep most of the trash out but ended up having huge piles of random trash piled up around the green gutter blockers. So, during the remake of Jackson Street, York City took action and came up with a new design for gutters on this section of the street. They placed large concrete barriers around the sewer entrance that went around the drains so the trash won’t end up in the gutters at all. So far in the short amount of time that they have been up, they have kept trash from flowing into the gutters. I don’t really understand what will keep the trash from piling up around the concrete barriers, but at least the sewers will be clear for water. It’s kind of sad that these few blocks have to have a special concrete structure made just because the college students are so inconsiderate about where they put their trash.
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Stop Signs When I think of stop signs the first thing that comes to mind is “stop.” Kind of boring–not cool, odd, or interesting. But along my commute I saw all kinds of variations on stop sign “art.” Most of the stop sign “art” was on Jackson Street and specifically on the college end. The stop signs expressed the chaos of the street–from stickers and commentary on the back to the whole sign being bent. What I liked the most were the little spray painted characters found on the backs of many signs. They were neat and creative.I really like one character that looks like a combination of the caterpillar and Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland with funky eyes. On Springettsbury Avenue there were two signs that were attached to their poles by their sides and not the fronts like normal stop signs. The sign with the spray-painted 5 on it really seemed out of place on Springettsbury.
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Fall Fall this one of my favorite times of the year because of the beautiful colors that the leaves produce. As the trees changed around me during my commute, Springettsbury Avenue became a vibrant corridor of color and gave some life to the drabness of Jackson Street. Every day the trees got more and more beautiful making my commute much more pleasant and interesting. This is because I love bright colors. I wish the trees could be colorful all year long! Driving through the two streets seeing the many fallen leaves on the ground brought memories back of when I was a kid and my brothers and I would have fun jumping in leaf piles.
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Halloween As I traveled down both Jackson and Springettsbury I noticed how few houses there were that actually put out Halloween decorations. Seeing this as I drove to school made me feel like the good old days of walking around and seeing all the houses decked out in Halloween decorations as I trick or treated are slowly going away. I am a little sad because I can remember all the fun times I had as a kid trick or treating and the afterwards traditions we would have.
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The houses on these streets that did have decorations looked to me like decorating was an afterthought. Everything I saw looked very weak and sad except for the decorations on one house. This house, in the picture to the left, on the corner of Jackson and Queen had Halloween decorations out in early September!
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Odd/Interesting Things Although Jackson Street and Springettsbury Avenue did not change dramatically each day, there were some odd and/or interesting things that I noticed during my documentation. This bench in the yard of this house on the west end of Springettsbury Avenue looked inviting at first glance almost as if the owners are being openly friendly to everyone. But I immediately noticed that the bench was chained to a tree and there was a large “Private Property” sign just over the bench. The message is clearly not inviting. I think it is odd to have a bench like this in your front yard. If you don’t want people to use it, maybe you should keep it out of sight in your back yard.
There are many ways to use technology to protect our homes. But this west-end Springettsbury Avenue house uses something different. It actually has a camera attached to the window pointed right at the front door! I suppose this is to let the owners know that people are coming? I really don’t know what this is about.
Today we have the technology to manufacture many beautiful things but making a knockoff of something natural is not beautiful to me. For example, this house on Springettsbury Avenue has fake brick over the front of the house. The house looks pretty from a distance but a closer look reveals the cheapness of the stone. Every time I see this house as I pass by, I imagine running my hand over the “brick” and feeling plastic.
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One thing that really bugs me is when people unnecesarily leave lights on during the day. When I saw the light on the porch of this house on Springettsbury Avenue I wanted to run up and turn it off.
I was used to seeing Springettsbury Avenue look clean and neat, so one day I was very surprised see this ugly dirty blue sink and toilet set out with the trash on Springettsbury Avenue! This looked very odd considering the makeup of the whole street. This trash would not be surprising if found on Jackson Street.
As I way coming home one night from class I noticed this street sign. There is nothing particularly interesting about the sign but what caught my eye was the lettering that was on the side of the truck. It looked from a distance that the paint was peeling away to reveal the hidden numbering and lettering. I got out to take a closer look as realized I was actually looking at a sticker.
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As I was heading home one day along Jackson Street, I noticed this marking on the side of a house. I wasn’t sure what it could be. It looked liked some kind infectious growth spreading over the house. Maybe someone attacked the brick and scraped the markings into it? Maybe someone was trying to clean up some unwanted vines and found this underneath? I still don’t know what it is!
I thought the stump on this front porch on Jackson Street was rather odd. But I shouldn’t have been surprised considering that this home was on Jackson Street. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been a tree growing on the porch that someone cut down. Anything could be possible--things are so crazy on Jackson Street. Most likely, the stump had been dragged there to be used as a seat during a party.
One day, because construction blocked me from traveling down Jackson Street, I drove up a side street to get over to Springettsbury Avenue. I noticed a construction cone on the roof of this house. It led me to speculate that some of the college students decided to have fun with the construction equipment. Just makes me wonder.
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I love the holidays but decorations should be put away after the season is done. This house had this Christmas wreath up at the beginning of the semester. I feel they are really overdoing the holiday! It seems ridiculous to have a wreath up in the summer. I suppose the owners are too lazy to take it on and off each year.
On the corner of George Street and Springettsbury Avenue is a pretty old building. I never paid attention to it but one day I noticed along the side of the building there was this beautiful letter “W.� I stopped and admired and as I did, it started to look like two flamingos with their heads up and chests puffed out. This made me think of Alice in Wonderland.
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Sky
One of the things that I noticed was how beautiful the sky was some days. This project has helped me look beyond what was right in front of me to see how the clouds were sometimes like a blanket above shimmering light in a brilliant blue sky. I was really drawn to the beautiful billowing white clouds and the overall contrast of the clouds against the blue sky.
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Pretty Both Jackson Street and Springettsbury Avenue had some things that just stood out to me as pretty. This bush on Jackson Street caught my eye every time I passed by. I love how the yellow spots dance over the green leaves making it appear like parts of a stream when the sun hits creating dancing light on the water. The closer you get to the leaves the more you can see the effect.
Every time I pass this wonderful house on Springettsbury Avenue it makes me think of a cozy home in the woods. Many homes on this block are nice and homey but this house has magic to it.
I noticed these pretty plants one day as I was going home along Springettsbury Avenue. I was drawn to them because of the vibrant rich pinkish red almost purple leaves. I love bright colors and I would love to have these plants in front of my house.
I like how there are many different styles of houses on Springettsbury Avenue but this house really stands out because of its Spanish style. This is a small gem on a beautiful street.
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Rain When commuting in the rain nothing looks particularly interesting. One gloomy October morning it had rained ferociously. The creek that separates the big commuter parking lot from the rest of main campus had flooded the whole parking lot. On Jackson Street, trash had been swept up by the rain and trashcans floated in huge pools. What a mess!
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Lights Springettsbury Avenue has many homes that have different styles of pretty lights placed out near the sidewalk. These lights are an elegant element of Springettsbury Avenue that really emphasize the difference from Jackson Street.
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Entrances
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“The most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what’s in between…” –Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth 49
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