London, Ontario Tree Sculptures and Murals

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Like many small cities, London, Ontario has street trees to break the monotony of concrete, asphalt, and brick. The tree sculptures make it different. They are positioned along the streets in similar positions that real trees might be desirable, but the sidewalk is too narrow or there is some reason that a real tree would not thrive. The pole (trunk) and the ‘canopy’ of the sculptures take less space…and they will be the same size year after year. I enjoyed the sculptures in the early fall and realized they would make the streets more colorful and appealing in winter when the real trees nearby would be without their leaves.

The city has buildings of various ages…some over 100 years old. Murals have been painted on some of the brick walls.

The sea mural was the largest…partially hidden by a construction project.

My favorite was the mural across from it – also partially hidden by the construction project.

Overall – the sculpture and murals always made my walks around the central part of London, Ontario more interesting!

Town Planning in 1909

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Raymond Unwin’s 1909 Town planning in practice: an introduction to the art of designing cities and suburbs is available in Internet Archive…a snapshot of the ideas of period with illustrations of examples. The illustrations I found most interesting were town/city plans. The ones from Moscow and the excavated part of Pompeii are the two samples I picked from the book.

Of course – a lot has changed in all the places shown in the book in the years since it was published but there are anchors in the built environment that are still around….sometimes perturbing modernization efforts and making infrastructure improvement more challenging. And there are some concepts that are still very much in evidence in modern cities – like ring roads (interstates) that surround all our major cities!

Trek to and in Druid Hill Park – Part II

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On out way to Druid Hill Park through Baltimore, there were some trees that still had most of their leaves! All the ones around our house in the suburbs to the south of the city and the airport have lost all their leaves.

I wondered if it was the heat island effect of the city or the disruption of wind by building and walls; there are some city microclimates that cause the trees to keep their leaves a bit longer…very noticeable right now. I also noticed tents periodically on medians and places along the road with a little more space (see tent on the right under the trees in the picture below); is this the way the homeless people in Baltimore are surviving this winter?

There is graffiti on buildings…but there are also bits of city art on otherwise mundane buildings. I wondered if the height and lights are have kept the art intact in some places.

On the way home – the GPS routed us through downtown and I took pictures of the Bromo-seltzer Tower as we stopped at lights. It’s used for artists studios now….next to a fire station.

Overall – the birding walk was a tiny step back to ‘normal’ for us although both by husband and I are beginning to realize that we’ll probably never be quite like we were pre-pandemic. It’s not just the pandemic that has changed us; more on that thought is few days when I write my month COVID-19 pandemic post.