Return to Monasteraki, Athens, Greece - revisit with Tri-X film

During my 2016 trip to Greece, I revisited the Monasteraki district of Athens, the crowded urban core of the city. I have been there before many times, but the old twisty streets and mixture of early 20th century buildings and modern concrete monstrosities warrant careful exploration. The main commercial street is Athenas, a straight line which connects Monasteraki plaza (near the Pláka) to Omonia Square, but the side streets have no obvious grid or pattern - they are confusing.

Pallados Street

This time, I was struck by how much worse the graffiti was. I know that many Greeks people object to the austerity and cutbacks imposed by the EU in exchange for loaning Greece money, but defacing their once handsome city does not serve anyone's interests nor make much of a statement.

Trendy ladies on Pallados.

Some of the street art is slightly interesting. Note how this building is triangle-shaped to fit in one of the odd corner lots.

Junk (antiques) shop on Aristogonos.

There is a cluster of flea-market-style shops on Aristogonos, off Athinas. I did not see much of interest, but they seem to stay in business. Many of them now are owned or staffed by Middle-eastern men. It is not a nice atmosphere, and there is a lot of filth and debris on the streets.

The metro runs from Piraeus (the harbor) through downtown and on to the suburb of Kiffisias.

This is approximately the same location, photographed in 1951 or 1952.

A trip downtown is never complete without a visit to the Central Market (click the link for an earlier article).

After you are done watching the fish mongers chopping up fish or arranging octopi and squid, stop at one of the small restaurants in the Market to tuck in to fresh grilled sardines and some Retsina. Then have a Greek coffee at the Mokka coffee shop next door. This is the real Greece.

I took the square photographs with my Rolleiflex 3.5E camera on Kodak Tri-X 400 film. The 1951 photograph of the metro is from a Leica IIIC 35mm camera, film stock possibly an Agfa emulsion. The IIIC has recently been overhauled and is back in operation.

Railroads of Greece 6: Abandoned Steam Trains, Myloi

Myloi is the final resting place for old steam locomotives. The town is on the west side of the Bay of Naufplio (Nauplion), which is at the north end of the Argolic Gulf in southern Greece. The narrow-gauge Peloponnese railroad passes through town. The main line to Athens comes in from the north via the town of Argos. Heading south, the rail line runs along the coast and then turns west and ascends the mountains to eventually reach Tripoli, the main town in the central Peloponnese.

Not much is happening at the rail yard now. Not long ago, many of the track beds were overhauled and new rails laid, as shown by the clean crushed rock in the second photograph. But after spending significant funds on upgrades, the Greek national railway system abruptly stopped rail service on the narrow gauge system in most of the Peloponnese. What an amazing bike and hike trail this would make.

The real reason to stop in Myloi is to look at the old steam locomotives, many of which have been abandoned for decades. I have no idea why they were parked here rather than sold for the scrap iron.

Asbestos cement is dripping off the boilers.

More old locomotives are parked among the huge eucalyptus trees. I do not know the types or manufacture, but there are web pages that have inventoried lost locomotives around the world.

This is one of the water tanks that once supplied water to the locomotive tenders. The need for water to generate steam was a major logistical problem in the steam locomotive era. Today, a diesel locomotive only needs diesel fuel and it can run for days.

A family was living in the old train workshop, possibly immigrants. They had bicycles and laundry.

One diesel-electric unit was abandoned on a siding.

What do you do when you are finished exploring trains? Well, you go to the taverna and eat fish and squid, of course. These small seaside restaurants do an amazing job - and the ingredients are locally sourced. None of this processed crap full of artificial ingredients and salt that comes in on a Sysco truck.

Please click the link to see black and white photographs of the Myloi rail yard. 

Most images are digital from my Fuji X-E1 digital camera.

Travels on the Mother Road, Route 66: Part 10a, Return to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, New Mexico

Dear Readers, I drove another piece of Route 66 in 2017, from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Tulsa, Oklahoma. We will continue our tour of the Mother Road with a short return hike in the amazing Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument. Archaeologists have documented evidence of 4000 years of human habitation in the region. This implies a dependable water supply throughout the year. The Peublo de Cochiti people still inhabit the surrounding area. My trip was in July, the "monsoon" season in New Mexico, and the skies were amazing with towering thunderheads. Also, this time, I used black and white film instead of digital.

The Slot Canyon Trail is an easy way to get the feel of the desert, rock formations, and views. From a parking at about 5,200 ft altitude, you gradually ascend across dusty desert and enter a narrow slot canyon. You wind your way through the narrow canyon with vertical walls, and then ascend to the plateau at about 6,300 ft. The last part is steep but well-marked. The trail ends at an overlook of the Monument’s teepee (or tent) shaped rock formations.

As I wrote before, these teepees remind me of the cones of tuffa in Cappadocia, in central Anatolia (Turkey). Read more about the geology at the New Mexico Bureau of Geology & Mineral Resources.

The bent-over and weathered trees are especially interesting.

Late afternoon, and the lightning crackles in the distance, and the thunders rumbles. The signs warn you about flash floods. But the tourists were still coming in and heading to the slot canyon.

I took these photographs with my Yashica Electro 35CC camera (with 35mm f/1.8 Color-Yashinon lens) using Kodak BW400CN film. I scanned the negatives with a Plustek 7600i scanner. Note, in the 1970s, the word "color" was applied to all sorts of optics to demonstrate that they were so superior, you could use them for color film. Brilliant. Today, the marketers would use the word "digital" instead. Or maybe they would use "nano."

Small Towns in Mississippi: Return to Edwards (B&W film)

Kansas City Southern railroad and Front Street, Edwards, Mississippi

Edwards, Mississippi, is a small town just south of Interstate 20, near a bend of the Big Black River. Before World War II, the Big Black was a Federal navigation project and was dredged and kept clear of snags, but now it is no longer maintained for commercial traffic. Like many small Mississippi towns, Edwards was prosperous up through the 1970s, but has slipped into a multi-decade decline and population loss. As usual, I do not understand the causes, considering the town is on the Kansas City Southern rail line between Vicksburg and Jackson and has easy road access to I-20. It is a mystery.

Walker Evans (American, 1903 - 1975) Railroad Station, Edwards, Mississippi, 1936, Gelatin silver print 19.3 x 24.2 cm (7 5/8 x 9 1/2 in.). The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

This is supposed to be a picture of Edwards taken in 1936 by Walker Edwards. Was it taken from the same bridge as my photograph no. 1 above? Was there once another bridge or crossover from which Evans took this frame? Where is the church on the left? I think the 1936 photograph may be mis-labeled and show another town. But it is not Bolton nor Bovina.

Front Street parallels the KCS tracks. The city hall is there, with the police department a short distance away.

103 Magnolia St., Edwards, MS

205 Magnolia St., Edwards, MS

Magnolia Street has some gracious old houses, demonstrating former wealth in the town.

This is the former Dodge automobile dealer, at the corner where old U.S. 80 makes a sharp right-angle turn. An old-timer in town told me that Edwards was prosperous enough in the 1970s to have two car dealerships. (Update April 21, 2018: the old car shop is being demolished)

The high school gymnasium was designed by architect James Manly Spain in the Art Moderne style. It was completed just before we entered World War II in 1941 by the National Youth Administration (from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History). I have photographed this building before, and there has been no change in status.

The water tower is a prominent feature at the corner of U.S. 80 and Main Street. I was surprised it was over a century old. The big rivets are an example of early 20th century steel and iron construction. This was solid construction, intended to last the ages.

Main Street, which runs north-south, was once, well, the main street, with stores and small companies.

Both the east and west sides of South Main have stores with collapsed roofs. (Update April 21, 2018: this southernmost building has been demolished)

On Main Street north of the tracks, the former Woodmen of America building was in poor condition in 2008. A former coworker from the Waterways Experiment Station had bought the historic building to preserve it, but the task may have been too much for her. It is now gone. Other historic buildings on Main Street were demolished in the mid-2000s, with the bricks salvaged for use in McMansion construction (recall, this was in the last gasp of the construction orgy before the 2007-2008 housing collapse).  Much of Utica's former commercial core suffered the same fate.

Drive around the streets and the scene is pretty depressing. Joe's Lounge on Utica Street is a short distance from a collapsed store. (Update April 21, 2018: the collapsed store is gone and the lot is empty.)

On Williams Drive, a store of modern construction, also closed.

Just off I-20, the fellow who restores old cars still has interesting Detroit iron in his yard. I am not sure if all these very cars are still there because the lot looks a bit more empty now. I have not seen any Edsels recently, but there may be some in there under the kudzu.

I took the 2017 photographs with my Yashica Electro 35CC compact rangefinder camera on Ilford Delta 100 film. There was rain and drizzle, and the contrast worked out perfectly with this film and development. I bought this little Yashica as a convenient walkabout camera for an upcoming trip to Nepal. The 35mm ƒ/1.8 Color Yashinon-DX lens, a Sonnar type, is very high quality. Praus Productions in Rochester, NY developed the film.

The 2008 frame of the old Chevrolets is from Kodak Panatomic-X film, taken with a Fujifilm GW690II medium format camera.