abandoned subway, etc

In the morning I went out on the now-traditional Saturday morning garage sale run. It would be great if someone could write a program that would extract addresses from the classified ads in the newspaper and then compute the travelling salesman problem on them, but for now I do this manually. It was raining in the morning, and the first garage sale on my list was nowhere to be found. But all the others were in full operation, despite the pouring rain.

The first garage sale was obviously a cinema household. There were old movie cameras and reflectors and flat files and all manner of items one might need to make a film, including a treasure-box full of masks and costumes. I bought only a director's chair ($5). The next garage sale was a true garage sale in a set of old garages stuffed with antique wooden furniture, old magazines, and other odds and ends. Bizzarest find: a jacob's ladder, complete with sixteen thousand volt luminous tube transformer.

My car has the property that it doesn't start when the engine is hot (it is a well known problem). It turns out to be a feature, because for 10-15 minutes after a drive within the city, I can't start the car again, which is a perfect excuse for a walk around the block. After the last garage sale I took such a walk and ended up on East avenue, discovering a nifty little sandwich shop, Rubino's Italian Food (East Ave and Alexander St), where I bought a delicious sandwich, more than I could eat, and a snapple for a fairly reasonable $6.50. Half of that sandwich is waiting for me in the fridge.. mmmmmm.

Back at home, Ryan (four) and I schemed to go explore the abandoned subway, and fortuitously hypostatization was free at this moment and also wanted to go to the abandoned subway. dingodonkey joined our party and we set off for the abandoned subway. But first we sought coffee, and in this mission we discovered a decent and new-to-us coffee house, Spin Caffe (739 Park Ave). They are a bit of a local chain, with three stores extant and two more on the way; they also feature free wireless internet access.

Yes. Abandoned Subway. Like cities all across America, Rochester had a trolley/subway system for the first half of the twentieth century. Like cities all across America this street car system was abandoned. I can only assume that the subway was closed under the malevolent hand of General Motors Corporation. Before it was a subway it was an acqueduct for the Erie Canal above the Genesee River, and then Broad Street was built above it the the canal was moved. After it was a canal it was a subway system and after it was a subway system — the present day — it became a de facto shelter from hypothermia for the city's homeless. Maybe this is why, to this day, it is oddly accessible. There are wooden stairs leading down into it from Broad Street on the banks of the Genesee River.

I had heard the legend of the subway long before moving here, but it was with complete surprise that I happened across it myself a few weeks ago. I turned a corner and suddenly faced with a huge black abyss before me — it was quite a surprise.

We walked down into the darkness, first to the west, underneath the public library building, into what was once a station for the subway system of this city, what is now overgrown with plants and largely flooded with water, and residence of a few less fortunate persons. To the East we plunged into true darkness, eventually running into the small candle lamp of two persons who had wandered down into the depths for a concert in what the man called "the best acoustics in all of rochester." We gathered round a citronella candle and an oil lantern for a rousing guitar concert in true hobo style, guitar and voice resonating in the darkness, punctuated only by distant falling water and a sporadically rattling steam valve, lamplight flickering off of nearby spaces.

Continuing to the East we emerged eventually at Jay street, and walked back over the surface, engaged in conversation. One interesting find was where fire hydrants go to die. Good dinner and discussion (including co-op scheming) at Mark's Texas Hots, and then we went our separate ways.

Back at home, Ryan and I rested in our nascient basement lounge (now with nifty chili-pepper christmas lights and two directors' chairs), then set about our next mission: making tamales. Meat tamales sounded a bit too involved, so we're making tamales de piña. Also, we didn't have any baking powder, so hopefully they'll come out okay anyway. They're steaming on the stove right now.

Now I'm going to try to learn some complex analysis.