Writer and Visual Artist
A Photo-Tale of Two Cities:
Black & Brown Turned Colorless
With my trusty digital SLR eye click-clicking, time slows and space stretches. The world shrinks. The world enlarges.
My being attunes to all in my absolute present. My eyes—all of my senses—waken to see anew even the most familiar.
The catching of cascades of light shapes structures old and new. Through the camera eye I frame the shot, selecting what’s in and what’s out so as to capture an instant that contains worlds.
Walking the builtspaces of Olde Towne East in Columbus Ohio and East Austin in Texas my camera-eye asks me to take pause and soak in those deep layers of rich sedimented history shaped by human actions and interactions.
Photo-Tale I: Olde Towne East
At the Northeast gateway to Olde Towne East stands steadfast and tall a red brick building with its ornate cornices and adorned parapets. It’s brick-arched lintels crown what must have been large windows, beckoning those denizens of yesteryear to join in the good spirit and revelry that made it such a vibrant neighborhood. Yet now, both windows and grand doorways, once open wide, are boarded up.
Today, majestic wide-open windows may not greet us, but mural art does. The veiled washes of yellow, reds, and blues feature scenes of harmony. Soaring birds; youth listening to music; a child swinging; the elderly resting and conversing; hands connecting. The murals speak to a not-so-distant past and a hopeful future filled with sounds, sights, and touch that connect one human to another and to another.
Community!
But, pasted over the mural a foreboding: DANGER. But danger to who? As I click-click my camera eye I feel more and more compelled to uncover the unseen tales and hidden truths that lie beneath the built spaces of Olde Towne East.
I turn to the Internet to help peel back the sedimented layers of history, learning that this building has been designated: “Endangered.” But endangered to be actively saved and preserved? Or, endangered to be razed to the ground—as has been the fate of so many of Olde Towne East built capsules of time.
With the obliteration of its rooms, walls, arch, windows, and doorways will we lose yet another significant living, breathing testament to a past rich with human resilience and transformative action and interaction? We will lose the myriad of stories held in each of its bricks: the laughter and crying of hard-working women who once called it their boardinghouse, their home; the memories of Black families gathered to wash clothes and air challenges and triumphs; the echoes of bustling conversations and shared laughter over shared meals when it was a restaurant, shops, and more.
Maybe it will be saved, as has the row of modest brick cottages that line an adjacent street. They stand, steadfast, reminding us of a post-WWII Old Towne East when working class families of all shades could return to their refuge and dream big.
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But nearby, a disconcerting sight unfolds. An outsized contractor sign looms large. Mounds of dirt grow high. Backhoes are parked at the ready. Its imminent roar threatens to destroy ever more.
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Drab towers of grey rise from graves. Humdrum uniformity sits heavy on the earth, burying forever all those spirited conversations and intergenerational bonds forged that form Olde Towne East’s heart and soul.
Quickly disappearing—even torched unrecognizable—are all those houses with well-worn stoops that overflowed with warmth and hospitality.
Humans now squeezed into the inhuman: stacks of look-alike containers. No longer an inch of space is left to take pause and share one’s day; or to even say hello.
EMPTINESS
In between shutter clicks, I hear the swish-swish of cars zooming to and fro on freeways nearby: the 71 and the 670. The sounds are loud and harsh. They remind of a time when a few white men sitting behind desks decided with their pens the fate of Olde Towne East. To run freeways around it, cutting its people, ideas, possibilities from the city’s core.
The sounds turn to uneasy scratches of red pens that circled Olde Towne East, deciding to cut off people’s access to affordable groceries, post offices, banks, public transportation, and schools, and banks. A time when banks refused mortgages and property deeds could not be transferred to those deemed unworthy.
Incentives to “save” the dilapidated buildings and unkempt land such as 10-year tax abatements are today made available to those deemed “worthy.”
Today, only the Audi- and Range-Rover-Rich can afford what’s left of Olde Towne’s Italianate, Victorian, Queen Anne, Gothic Revival builtspace histories.
Trolly barns left to die when Blacks lived nearby today are “revitalized” for hipsters to grab a sushi, burrito, sip a non-GMO mate infused cocktail, or down an IPA brew.
Photo-Tale II: East Austin
Click-clicking my camera eye, I fold space and time, touching together Olde Towne East with East Austin. Before my very eye I see it too quickly disappearing. Only few traces seem to remain of the old as colossal machines bulldoze its resplendent lived spaces to make way for the lackluster new.
There is now repetition everywhere of the too sanitized and too symmetrical. There is now the repetition of ominous towers rising like unnatural monoliths. They cast an eerie pall overall
All this monotonous new portends a near future of asphyxiated life.
The obliteration of patios, porches, and stoops evaporate spaces that invite chatter, foster togetherness, and quench our need for human connection.
Patios filled with BBQs, smokers, and chock full of bric-a-brac carry the symphonic sounds of voices mingling as humans interact and connect. They tell tales of legacies of collective survivance in a city that has done little to embrace its Black and brown denizens.
Again, I turn to the Internet to delve deeper. I discover that the land where the old is obliterated for the new has a haunting past. It was land passed from one slave owner to the next. it’s a land haunted by a legacy of bondage and exploitation.
I learn that over a century ago, Black and brown families were actively pushed out of the white parts of Austin (west and downtown). With Jim and Juan Crow segregation policies and practices in full swing, the only place left for them: the “Negro district.” They were promised basic amenities: electricity, water, roads, and schooling. None were provided.
I learn that even by mid-century and “safely” cordoned off from the rest (the building of the Interstate 35) Black and brown’s basic needs and infrastructure would continue to be ignored.
No matter. Black and browns worked together to provide grocery stores, restaurants, barber shops, pharmacies, bakeries, clothing stores—and often out of out of their own homes. The Black owned Victory Grill became a famous music venue that showcased some of the great musical talents of the 20th century.
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I learn that the “urban renewal” policies of the 1970s did provide sewer lines, paved roads, and streetlights. But it all came at a steep cost. The burden of exorbitant taxes weighed heavily on the shoulders of the community. Stringent home improvement standards proved financially crippling to its Black and brown denizens.
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BEGINNING OF THE END
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This was the beginning of the end—the end that my camera eye sees today.
There are nearly no Black residents in East Austin. And, with the cost to live in this area skyrocketing daily, the few Latinos that remain won’t be able to hold out much longer.
This tale of two cities for me is deeply revealing. Those pushed to the deep shadows of the social margins in Olde Towne East and East Austin survived. They brought life into builtspaces that opened possibilities for hopes and dreams to live. They created vibrant communal spaces that fostered a sense of belonging and for community to thrive.
However, the heart wrenching reality is that once again these spaces that they worked so hard to turn into a home is being taken away. Once again, Black and brown communities find themselves dispossessed and displaced.
As wrap up my camera-eye journey, I think about a word I see used a lot in the media of late. Revitalization. Again, I ask revitalization for who? As this tale of two cities shows, it’s not a revitalization for those Olde Towne East and East Austin Black and brown communities who sacrificed body and soul. It’s a revitalization for the few who continue to keep the many in a stranglehold to make fatter pockets of wealth.
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References
Harrison, Chris. “8 Mount Vernon.” Columbus Landmarks. https://columbuslandmarks.org/mt-vernon-ave/
Hill, Sharon. “The Empty Stairs The Lost History of East Austin.” Texas State University. https://gato-docs.its.txst.edu/jcr:e08c7244-9193-49b1-b4d8-6cb3e4c4daab/The%20Empty%20Stairs%20The%20Lost%20History%20of%20East%20Austin.pdf
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