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Front of Eastern Market
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About Public Space and the Rule of Law
The kerfuffle about public space enforcement appears to have dissipated. The hot instant of enforcement seems over. I see the same forever-illegal parkers on my bike route to and from work…
During the height of the excitement a few people e-mailed me who, like me, believe public space is public and shouldn’t be appropriated for private use. One e-mail supporting enforcement was actually from someone who has a curb cut and could have been parking illegally for years with impunity but, believing in the rule of law, hasn’t:
“I just fired off an e-mail to [Ward 6 Councilmember] Tommy Wells saying that ‘parked space’ is important and should be protected. Also that curb cuts should be filled in where ‘garages’ are no longer used as garages. And I complained about some obvious violations that have bugged me for years.”
I thought it interesting that another of the e-mails supporting keeping public space public was from someone whose spouse, when he saw me, ranted about people being able to use their yards however they want and threatened to set up a lawn chair in MY front yard and hang out there in his Speedo. I said, “Hey, it’s public space. You’re allowed; it’s legal. I only object to illegal,” not quite getting the nature of the threat but thinking the image of this past-middle-age, graying guy in a lawn chair and Speedo was pretty funny.
Later, his spouse confided to me that Mr. Speedo also rants about people talking on their cell phones while driving. We agreed it is curious how contradictory his positions are and postulated the grumpiness was attributable to Lipitor, the cholesterol-reducing drug. In her own public-space-inspired rant, Mrs. Speedo complained about people who garden in the tree space between sidewalk and curb, obstructing use by “our dogs, imaginary and otherwise.”
“My block has this pinch-nosed balding guy with all this green and other colored stuff growing where I would want to walk a dog, if I had one, and I suspect he’s taking Lipitor because he’s so nasty to people who do have dogs.
“And this creepy old woman is always screeching at the postal peoples (even though she’s probably not taking Lipitor because she looks full of cholesterol to me) about them trampling HER front yard, which isn’t hers at all. We’d all be better off if she didn’t mess with this PUBLIC SPACE and left it to the dogs, real and imaginary.
“Oh, forget that last one. I think that’s me.
“Anyway, I’m with you! Keep public space public!”
One communication not in support of my position on public space said, in essence, what’s the big deal? People parking in their public front yards aren’t hurting anyone, and the additional street space gained by closing all the curb cuts leading to illegal parking is a zero-sum: one space added for one taken away.
But he’s wrong. The illegal parkers ARE hurting me. I can park in the space that’s added whereas ONLY the scofflaw can park in his front yard illegal space. So, every curb cut to illegal space takes a parking place away from everyone but the law-breaker.
My editors are wondering why I’m sharing all this with you, my readers. It’s because I think it’s fascinating how strongly we feel about our shared space. It reminds me of those college years when roommates and housemates had to work out, so often unsuccessfully, how to manage and take care of bath and kitchen common spaces.
Eastern Market
Now that our historic (have you noticed how the market hasn’t been called anything but “historic” during all of the recent celebrations?) market is looking so fine, here’s a picture of where we were just two years ago. Many have been, and continue, the kerfuffles about the market before and after the fire, but we can ALL be happy to have our market back, beautiful and thriving.
Dear Judith
Q. We have a big terra cotta urn on a terra cotta base in the garden. I cover it with plastic during winters so water doesn’t get in the urn and freeze. This spring, I found a rather large hole in the base.
How do you repair terra cotta? My first thought was cement, tinted terra cotta color. But then I realized it is probably not a good material as it would be a different tensile strength (the problem between old cement mixes and new cement mixes). What do you suggest?
~ Plant Guru
A. Your instincts are good: covering it in through the winter is certainly the right thing to do. When moisture gets into even slightly porous material, the material is subject to destruction from freeze/thaw. (The moisture freezes, expands, popping the brick or terra cotta apart. When it warms, the frozen moisture melts, penetrates even deeper for more destruction in the next freeze.) Even so, you got a hole! Feels like no appropriate behavior goes unpunished …
Reviewing the National Park Service Preservation Brief on terra cotta (www.cr.nps.gov/hps/tps/briefs/brief07.htm), several things occur to me.
First, is terminology. “Terra cotta,” or cooked earth, is a larger category than the NPS Brief addresses, which is about glazed architectural terra cotta, popular from the late 19th century to about 1930, often used as an economical way to achieve lavishly ornamented building exteriors (substituting for carved stone) and often glazed. A hundred years have demonstrated the weaknesses of the material, mostly cracks in the glazes, differential movement, intrusion of water, and inevitable freeze/thaw deterioration.
In the decades before the popularity of glazed terra cotta, Capitol Hill was blessed with huge quantities of terra cotta in the form of pressed brick decorative panels. Part of a really excellent technology and unglazed, these panels have survived perfectly. Go pressed brick!
I’m imagining your urn is not a valuable antique. If it is, you should move it indoors before any more damage. If it is a large, fired clay urn that you like and hope to use for as long as possible, I advise patching it in any way that works. You could try something as simple as silicone caulk, which has excellent adhesion characteristics, is flexible, and watertight. Epoxy also adheres well and is very tough stuff.
If the hole is visible and visually disturbing, you could try auto-body repair technology: often a reinforcing fabric that can be finished to look much like the pot.
Any of these possibilities might or might not last well, but you could redo the patch or experiment with other solutions, hoping to get at least a few years from a patch.
Your instinct about not using a cementitious material (concrete) for a patch is spot on: The urn is clay, and cement introduces a material unlikely to bond well.
The key here is degree of preciousness. Sometimes we preservationists forget that some elements in our environment are relatively short-lived and that’s OK. |
