My love-hate relationship with the Northeast

Roy is back home in New Jersey for the time being, while I’m in Philadelphia whiling away the last month and a half before the bar exam. I’m looking forward to heading back to Tokyo in August, but one thing is for sure–there will be a few things I miss about this part of America. Certainly not the food or the security. But the architecture alone will be something of a loss:

Looking up Broad Street

30th Street from across the river

It’s definitely a trade-off: majestic moments for steady fascination. Ah well, this is why God invented frequent flyer miles.

7 thoughts on “My love-hate relationship with the Northeast”

  1. Preach it. Although Tokyo’s architecture is growing with me, even if it does lack the Greco-Roman glory of 19th century America.

  2. What about recent Marunouchi with it’s pseudo-Greco Roman buildings?Or perhaps Potemkin village like Makuhari?Anyway enjoy your stay back in states.

  3. You won’t miss the street meat and the pretzels? For shame, Joe. For shame… (Actually, I hate the pretzels.)

    In the two years since I left, I don’t think I’ve ever for a moment missed anything about Philadelphia. And I’m anticipating that I’m going to like my next stop, Kansas City, quite a bit more as well.

  4. Jade: Seconded.

    Aceface: You’re right about Marunouchi. I lived pretty close by last year, and I was always going for evening walks around the Imperial Palace to enjoy the buildings, like MacArthur’s old headquarters:

    Dai-Ichi Seimei Building

    Nathan: The pretzels and “wooder ice” are actually kind of growing on me (especially since I live in Souf Philly and I’m practically surrounded by them), but I’ve long since gotten sick of the street meat.

  5. Haven’t been to Marunouchi recently, though I am looking forward to the completion of the Tokyo Station restoration.

    Nice pic of the Die-Itty-Bitty. “I LOVE the night lighting on this building: it should be a supervillain’s lair.” Hmmm – are we meant to read anything into that about the General? Actually Tokyo has a really surprising number of impressive old western buildings. They were saved largely as the rich did not live in the shitamachi and the gardens would serve as firebreaks to some extent, but even so, it’s pretty impressive how many are left.

    If I remember, Philly has one really impressive Town Hall or something similar, actually. Also, I think it’s very easy to forget that the US cities of the East Coast date back to the Baroque (one of Mozart’s librettists is buried in NY) and Neoclassical periods in Europe, so in many cases these aren’t cheap knockoffs but the real thing.

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