Daily: Our Building (or My Other Bike Is A Bus)

Today I was chatting with Fred, our building superintendent, and we got on about how it sucks to own cars in big cities. Talk to me for more than five minutes, and I’ll get around to this topic. It’s one of my favorites. Or should I say: favourites.

Fred’s a cyclist himself and is a supporter of my firm belief that automobiles are ruining our society and ultimately will lead to The Armageddon. At least that’s how I interpreted the conversation when he said, “Oh, yeah, I've got a push bike, too. It just makes sense!” ( A "push bike" is a bicycle in England. A "bike" is usually a motorcycle.)

Anyway, I mentioned that I was on the lookout for a good deal on a bike. Lo and behold, he said there was a former tenant who had abandoned one the garage and that I could just HAVE it. For free. He said he’ll break the lock for me this week.

It’s a bit rusty, the breaks are loose, it could use a new seat and chain. But that entices me even more because it is now a Project. Bike maintenance is a new subject that certainly I could get enthused about.

Fred is awesome by the way. When we get a video camera, one of the first things I’m going to do is interview him for you guys. He's a stocky man in his 50s or 60s who has the greatest, thickest accent and LOVES to talk about anything and everything. He’ll chat your ear off. In a good way; he's a wealth of information.

Today I was asking him about our building’s history. He told me it was converted to residential apartments from a printing company called Royle.

Each floor was an open studio in which many artists would make original artwork for stationary, greeting cards, and Christmas cards. Drawing and painting. Fred said they used reproduction methods that hadn’t changed that much since the Elizabethan era, similar to silk screening. One of the printing presses is still in our lobby and is pictured below.
According to Fred, the computer era drove the company out of business a decade ago. Royle couldn't keep up with the swift reproduction of digitally producted art.

This building and the one next door, which was used as a warehouse, were left derelict for more than three years. The back of our building abuts a canal. I guess the company had a third building across that canal that was torn down. There used to be a bridge connecting our building and the one accross the canal.

Even up to a few years ago they had stacks and stacks of great artwork rotting away in the buildings, he said. Then someone bought the buildings, gutted them, sectioned off the huge studios into apartments, put in plumbing and wiring, and, well, here we are.

I did a tiny bit more digging on Google and found out that a company called The Paper House Group bought out Royle Publications, and it still has a greeting card selection they call the Royle Collector's Gallery, with artwork like this in it. Who knows if this is really the sort of art that was wasting away in the buidlings? What a shame if it was.

We had guessed that the building was some sort of industrial warehouse in a past life. Our biggest clue was that we have exposed brick and cement beams in our place, although we didn’t know if someone was trying to be stylish or something. To the right is a pic of the corner of our living room:

Our other, more obvious, clue was that very other building on our street still is a working warehouse. Our street is only a block long.

The other side of the street is a good-sized park where little boys play soccer. Sorry, football. It’s about 1.5 times the size of Arrigo Park, for those who know the old Chicago ‘hood. There’s also a memorial mural to a teenager who died in 2004. It's focus is some kind of rodent/insect. You can see more detail of any of these pictures if you double click them, and then click them again.

R.I.P, Daniel, R.I.P.

I set out today to do a Daily post about grocery shopping, but some manager caught me taking pictures. I had to erase all the pictures in front of them, or risk the camera being confiscated. I’ll have to be sneakier next time because you know The Man won't keep me down!

However, Sainsbury officials did let me keep the photo of a local Football Hooligan who is, I guess, moonlighting as a grocery store stockboy.

My reporter training has 1) given me a super-human (or should I say sub-human?) ability to zero in on All That Is Local and 2) rendered me fearless when it comes to requesting an average person to be photographed for publication. Damn "Man on the Street" features. Amiright or amiright, Mr. Caffeine?

Anyway, here he is. His name is Mark and he roots for our local team, Arsenal. At least his forearm does. I tried to tell him to act tough. You know, like a hooligan should...But he just giggled. Hah.