128 Things About the City
Edwin Heathcote
128 THINGS ABOUT THE CITY
1. Time wandering the streets is never wasted.
2. Creative littering: foam cups impaled on iron railings, cans crushed into fences.
3. The inevitability of dirt.
4. The unimaginably complex choreography of crowds.
5. The feel of cobbles beneath thin soles.
6. Newspaper kiosks.
7. The smell outside the back of a hotel.
8. Tired kitchen staff smoking.
9. Public space is not always public.
10. Public space is not always pleasant or safe.
11. Private space is not entirely private.
12. The relationship between animals and rubbish.
13. Fruit and vegetables piled high outside a shop.
14. The sheer beauty of neons, shopfronts and brake lights reflected in the rain on the street at night. 15. Cast iron finials that have been overpainted so many times they have become black blobs.
16. The feel of a subway train moving below your feet.
17. The dynamics of the street corner.
18. Glazed bricks.
19. Nineteenth-century railway engineering.
20. The clench of the soul when passing a homeless person sleeping in a doorway.
21. The way the roots of a tree push and distort railings, paving and walls.
22. Old shopfronts.
23. Beautiful plants can emerge from cracks in the surface of the city.
24. Old paperbacks in boxes outside a bookstore.
25. Social distance.
26. Social intimacy.
27. The way stone buildings stain.
28. The smoothness and durability of terrazzo.
29. The chopping block curve of a stone step worn down through use.
30. Manhole covers as the currency coin of an underground metropolis.
31. Eugène Atget.
32. Vermiculated rustication.
33. An alley far older than the buildings which define it.
34. The puncturing of the night by a wholesale market coming to life.
35. The inequity of the distribution of space between pedestrians and cars.
36. The modesty of a stage door.
37. The sound of beer kegs being rolled over the pavement.
38. The glow of an all night café.
39. The visceral tangle of black downpipes on the backs of buildings.
40. The smell from an Italian grocer.
41. The smell of roasting coffee.
42. The smell of piss.
43. Georges Perec.
44. The sound of mass protest.
45. A public toilet that has not been closed.
46. The warm gust of air preceding an underground train.
47. Soft City.
48. The sour tang of old beer coming from a pub after closing time.
49. Awnings.
50. The panorama of chimneys, aerials and rooftops from a top floor window.
51. Ad hoc objects appropriated to hold doors open.
52. Chairs outside front doors.
53. Discarded Christmas trees.
54. Hong Kong.
55. A glimpse of canal.
56. The sound of footsteps behind you on an otherwise deserted, dark street.
57. The Trevi Fountain.
58. The way dogs navigate the streets at the junction of ground and wall.
59. Door pull handles worn shiny through use.
60. The way the sun sparkles on a river.
61. The symbiosis between our lives and feral animals.
62. Illuminated vitrines for menus.
63. Looking into illuminated apartments or the backs of houses from trains.
64. The El.
65. Drinking fountains that work.
66. Cobblers.
67. The infraordinary.
68. Improvised ramps for trolleys.
69. The sounds of shutters opening up.
70. The echo of a dog’s bark in a narrow street.
71. Small old buildings next to skyscrapers.
72. The sunny side of the street.
73. Overgrown cemeteries.
74. Cast iron lights.
75. Junk shops.
76. Suddenly realising you have been in this street before, perhaps for a party thirty years ago.
77. The glow of a lit-up bus on a cold night.
78. A Spanish food market.
79. How clouds consume the tops of towers.
80. Curved glass shop windows.
81. Cherry blossoms in a suburban street.
82. Urban carpets of petals.
83. Slate roofs after rain.
84. Taking shelter in a doorway in a summer downpour.
85. A street suddenly transformed into a market.
86. The smell of a baker.
87. Slender shelves outside a bar that work as tables for glasses.
88. A fragment of older wall contained within a newer one.
89. Fanlights.
90. Shops with shutters and no fronts.
91. Peeling paint on plaster revealing all the colours ever painted on.
92. The thrill of being able to walk in the middle of the road where the cars usually are.
93. Glimpsed interiors with formica tables and fluorescent lights.
94. A Japanese backstreet of small restaurants.
95. Food carts.
96. Corner towers.
97. Ghost signs.
98. A sofa in the street.
99. Midtown Manhattan.
100. The importance of rubbish collection.
101. Desire.
102. That pigeons are descended from rock doves so their feet adapted to architecture.
103. Sitting alone in a café looking out of the window.
104. The ruthless logic of the grid.
105. The magic of the lack of a grid.
106. Shabby, neglected arcades.
107. The echo of conversation in a narrow street.
108. Ennui.
109. Building lobbies with shops in them.
110. Railway stations with international destinations on the departure boards.
111. A glimpse into a restaurant kitchen.
112. Chinatown.
113. Bus shelters.
114. The safe embrace of background noise.
115. The idea of the dérive.
116. The first newspapers arriving at night, still warm.
117. The uses of a shop doorway.
118. The smell of the underground.
119. The power of a flood.
120. The Man of the Crowd.
121. The breeze that blows along the river.
122. The wind at the base of a skyscraper.
123. What a phone booth used to feel like.
124. The smell of chips late at night.
125. The beach below the pavement.
126. Condensation on a café window on a cold day blurring the interior.
127. Tiled shopfronts.
128. Housing.