Tag: black & white

Street Level, Ho Chi Minh City

Street Level, Ho Chi Minh City

The woman squatting is selling small snacks. The man is one of the thousands—or more likely, hundreds of thousands—of men sitting on motorbikes waiting to give people rides for a fee all over Saigon. A subset of this group hustle rides for foreigners and the constant solicitations can finally become fairly annoying, especially when a simple no is not enough for many of the drivers. Walking 50 meters involves fighting off multiple requests for rides, shopping, tours, massages, “massages” and lord knows what else. One does not want to be rude, but… Finally, the woman behind the other two has a takeout meal, either for herself or food she is delivering.

 

Boston City Hall

Boston City Hall

Boston City Hall opened to a lot of fanfare (and controversy) in 1968. A lot of people saw it as a dramatic symbol of a modern, new Boston. As I recall, that is how it looked to me when I moved to Boston in 1970. Almost 50 years later, the building sure has lost its luster. It looks ugly and out of place in Boston’s otherwise people friendly, rather intimate downtown. Brutalist Modern indeed. When I visited recently, a friend told me Boston is thinking about tearing the place down and building a new city hall, something more comfortable and on a more human scale. Good idea.