Editor’s Note: What follows is a retrospective of the controversy surrounding an abandoned site in a secluded spot near the Chevron refinery in Richmond, California. Since I moved to the small city in the East Bay, the site has been on my list of places to photograph.  But Point Molate also represents a darker side of city politics that few are willing to talk about. Interspersed with photos of the abandoned “castle,” I’ll tell you about the very prescient influence of Indian Gaming on city politics in California.  I hope you enjoy.

Plagued with the highest homicide rate on the West Coast, Richmond, California often gets the brunt of bad media attention.[1] The East Bay city of 100,000 is gripped by the problems of urban blight and industrial legacy. On the North side of town is the Chevron oil refinery.  Since 1902, its effluence has seeped into the surrounding air. The winds from the San Francisco Bay sweep across the former Bay island of Potrero (now a peninsula) and carry refinery pollutants towards the impoverished neighborhoods to the East.  But on the West Side of the Chevron refinery is the city’s best kept secret – a small, little-developed waterfront stretch of 423 acres that reached the BRAC cutting room floor during Clinton-era military cutbacks.[2] As a result, a former military fuel depot has fortuitously landed on the City of Richmond’s doorstep.  This gift – sold to Richmond for $1 in 2003 – has quickly become a veritable ‘toxic asset’ for the city, which now finds itself at the center of controversy and competing interests.[3]

The 423-acre plot at Point Molate represents the very distillation of the struggle between Use Value and Exchange Value in local land use politics. At stake is a billion-dollar Native American gaming project; the interests of a coalition of environmentalists, municipal parks, and biking groups; the third most profitable corporation in the U.S.; and a slice of the $5.1 billion Native American gaming industry in California.[4] Few other examples in California development history portray the intricacies of local land conflict as much as the conflict over Point Molate; knowing that, this paper will assert that Native American gaming compacts present some of the most controversial and challenging problems of modern urban planning history, and their implementation lacks the consensus that serves the best interest of most communities. Ultimately, Point Molate represents the continuing struggle between community autonomy, Federal law, and big business.

Brief History & Background

Point Molate began its life of land use over 5,000 years ago, as a home to the Ohlone tribe. The Native inhabitants left behind shell mounds (heaps of discarded shells) as evidence of their presence.[5] The Guidiville Rancheria band of Pomo Indians say this is definitive justification for the land’s designation as federally recognized reservation; however, opponents – including Randall Milliken, Ph D. of Davis, California – claim that the same justification refutes the claim made for the Point Molate casino. “Pomo Indians have no traditional cultural connection with lands on the east side of the San Francisco Bay,” writes Milliken in his letter, which is included in the draft EIR. “It was the homeland of the Chochenyo Ohlone speaking people and remains the homeland of their descendants today.”[6]

Richmond’s industrial base was born when Standard Oil Company moved into the East Side of what was then Potrero Island.  The surrounding hills served as a perfect, terraced holding-place for a large tank farm, which was continuously replenished through oil tanker arrivals at the nearby pier in the San Francisco Bay. Prior to 1900, the unique geographic assets of Potrero Island (which had become a peninsula in the early 1900s) led to its formation as a Chinese shrimp camp;[7] after 1906, Point Molate was further exploited by the growing shipping needs of the California Wine Association, whose headquarters in San Francisco was devastated by the Great Quake.[8] The California Wine Association – once the “world’s largest winery” – had gone largely out of use during Prohibition. By 1941, the United States Navy entered the fray.  War-time demand for petroleum meant that Point Molate would be ground zero to store and distribute oil for the Pacific Ocean theater of operations at Iwo Jima, Marshall, American Samoa, Bikini, and beyond.

Chevron

Since 1902, oil has played a major role in the development of the Point Molate area. As one of the earliest industrial heavyweights in California, Standard Oil’s Richmond Refinery used the promontory of Potrero Island to their advantage, eventually becoming “one of the world’s largest refineries.” Today, Chevron produces 243,000 barrels a day from its Richmond facility; the company boasts of contributing $61 million to community development in the city of Richmond.[9]

Chevron is just as vehement as the Guidiville Rancheria tribe in establishing their interest in Point Molate. In fact, the company hired former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to lobby for them with the Richmond City Council.[10] Community leaders contend that Chevron’s interests in the land are to provide a “buffer” of security between their refinery and any further human habitation.

Gary Fisher, a Chevron external affairs manager noted that wildfires and security are some of Chevron’s top concerns. “The opportunity for trespassing and vandalism, including an avoidable increased risk for a potential terrorist act directed towards the refinery, increases with public access,” Fisher wrote.  What Fisher doesn’t mention is perhaps the most compelling reason for Chevron’s interest in the land: Liability and the concern of class action lawsuits. According to an environmental report from the Navy, “an ammonia leak at the refinery could create a toxic cloud,” which would endanger the life of anyone who is nearby.[11]

Chevron offered the City of Richmond $83 million for Point Molate (in addition to the ongoing property taxes assessed for the property) making it the most lucrative up-front offer for the land (the Guidiville Band offered $50 million).[12] Chevron maintained that it intended to keep the land as a privately owned open-space preserve. This produced an unlikely partnership: Environmental groups that are generally “anti-Chevron” joined forces with the oil company to oppose the Point Molate casino project.

Development, Investment Interests and the City of Richmond

Even more powerful than Chevron were the development special interests. They were able to provide the promise of long-term revenue and infrastructure improvements for the cash-strapped city of Richmond. Point Molate development interests are largely represented by their ‘patriarch,’ Jim Levine. Levine is a successful Berkeley developer who made his riches in the toxic cleanup market. The development interests – not the Guidiville tribe – were the first to conceive of Point Molate as a casino Mecca. According to the Berkeley Daily Planet, Levine’s Upstream Development Company “went out and recruited [the Guidiville]… to take the land as a reservation and claim formal ownership of the land.”[13]

Surely, money was a big part of the motive for all parties involved. The city of Richmond hired a consulting company to analyze the casino potential of Point Molate – most telling was that the city did this before they received ownership of the land from the Navy. What the consultants found was a gold mine for the city, but more importantly, for the developers. The report estimated $500 million in economic activity each year; Upstream signed an agreement that the city would receive $20 million annually.[14]

Early in the process, Levine contacted the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (the “leading lender in the world of tribal casinos”); and, ultimately, Harrah’s signed on as financial partner.[15] Thus, the world’s largest gaming corporation had come into the fray, along with Levine and other financial backers. Further cementing the backing Levine’s Upstream had in government circles (particularly in obtaining reservation status from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and approval from the State of California), the powerfully connected William Cohen, Republican from Maine who was Secretary of Defense under President Clinton, joined the team as “consultant.”

In the midst of it all, Levine sold his plan to the public through a combination of promises of largesse (3,000 onsite jobs, 3,600 offsite jobs and 1,000 construction jobs); ^[16] environmentalism (Levine greenwashed the development as the “greenest project ever erected in California”);[17] and rehabilitation of the historic Winehaven buildings (probably to appease the Design Review Board).

Of course, along the way, there was plenty of opposition. Some opposition to the Casino Plan hailed from the County Board of Supervisors (who retracted their opposition upon learning that they – too – would receive $12 million a year from the casino).[18] Later, the State of California filed a lawsuit against Upstream; Governor Schwarzenegger’s office penned a letter to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Richmond’s mayor, saying the project “undermined the constitutionality of California’s Indian gaming regime.”[19] The state cited Proposition 1A as reasoning for their opposition, and Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer wrote to the Secretary of Interior that they had “serious concerns about the recent practice of tribes and municipalities seeking advantageous gaming opportunities on lands that are not traditionally tribal lands.”[20] It all culminated in April of 2005, when the State Attorney General’s Office joined a lawsuit with Bay Area park agencies against Levine’s Upstream and the city. The suit claimed that that the sale of the land failed to adhere to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). An Environmental Attorney for the Attorney General’s Office, Janill L. Richards spoke for the Attorney General’s office, saying that there was not adequate review “before a decision [was] made on an important piece of public property with significant public interests.”[21]

For a while, it looked like the project was dead in the water, but City Council member Gayle McLaughlin  (who opposed the project) said that the city – perhaps a bit too giddy with their newfound wealth – had already spent some of the $15 million in deposit money that Levine and his partners paid early in the process.[22] Upstream simply restarted from scratch, hiring consultants to draft a behemoth 3000-page Environmental Impact Report. Perhaps most telling about the project, however, came through silence that followed.  There was relative lack of large-scale community involvement in opposition to its plan. Perhaps the Environmental Impact Report was just too long?

Local Environmental Groups/Citizen Groups/Historic Preservation Groups

If one were to read the news reports of the project, one would get the sense that the project was a well-conceived plan with little public opposition – if a bit susceptible to the whims of bureaucratic rigamarole.  Of the dozens of newspaper articles that describe the controversy, very few – if any – include comments from actual community members. In the case that community concerns are cited in stories, it’s usually in the form of concerns that the project won’t go through.  And even in the rare case that community opposition is cited it’s actually community members from communities other than Richmond. It appeared that Richmond wasn’t the developers’ only target – it was simply the most convenient. Napa resident John Salmon, who is a partner with Levine in the project, originally was strongly against casinos in a talk in 2005 to Napa Rotarians. Apparently, Salmon said that the Richmond casino was a good deal for the Napa Valley, because it would relieve pressure that might otherwise lead to a gambling in the middle of Wine Country (where the Guidiville Pomo actually did originate from). The March 5, Napa Rotagram quoted Salmon as saying, “Molate will bear a likeness to Ghirardelli Square, and with its high-end qualities, will take the pressure off Napa and other North Bay locations that may face future casino proposals.”[23] Additionally, The Guidiville had originally proposed a casino in nearby Solano county, but the Board of Supervisors were adamantly against it – along with all community members in attendance at the meeting.

However, the absence of community involvement portrayed in the media isn’t the entire story. When one looks at the appendix of the Environmental  Impact Report – nearly 2000 pages by itself – the true community opposition reveals itself fully.  In Section 4 of Vol.  2, starting at page 74, the public review documents are displayed – over 400 pages in all; many of them state ardent opposition to the plan. Members of the community cited crime, traffic, gambling problems and the need for open space. But towards the end of Section 4, is the impassioned transcript of James Easter, who has lived in Richmond for 57 years. His words sum up – I think – the very real issue of Indian Gaming, and ultimately it arrives at the crux of my thesis and the true reason why communities are most often affected negatively due to Indian gaming, despite their presumed tax bounty.

“So what – I’m against Point Molate. I have been to a casino six or seven times in my life. I don’t consider myself a gambler, but I go through.  I do know that there’s a time and place for all things. It’s hard for us on the South Side. We can’t even get a decent shopping center down there… I’ll donate a little bit of money to the Indian Affairs. And I’m not against Indian gambling, but it seems strange to me that Indians got[sic] so much money to do all of this all of a sudden… I’m against a casino here, because it won’t bring no dollars. We lost Safeway. We lost Ford Motor Company. We lost all the big jobs. And now we’re broke and going to bring a CASINO? I’m against it.”[24]

Footnotes

[1] “Richmond leads per-capital murder rate in California.”

[2] BRAC – which stands for “Base Realignment and Closure,” was an Act of Congress in 1988. The Act helps return former military bases to public and community use.

[3] “BRAC – US Gov,” para. 3.

[4] Korosec, “Exxon, Chevron Win in a Loser Year for Top 500 Companies | BNET Energy Blog | BNET”; “Indian Gaming in California.”

[5] Santiago, “Betting on Point Molate.”

[6] “Draft Environmental Impact Statement / Environmental Impact Report,” 138-139.

[7] Weinstein, “Storming the Castle,” para. 10.

[8] Fronistas, “Before Napa, there was Winehaven,” para. 3.

[9] “Chevron Energy and Hydrogen Renewal Project,” para. 6.

[10] Vega, “Point Molate Casino On Track After City Council OKs Proposal,” para. 3.

[11] Williams, “Point Molate: Waterfront Dream or Terrorist Nightmare?,” para. 6.

[12] Rosen Lum, “ChevronTexaco Hires Willie Brown to Undo the Deal,” 10.

[13] Brenneman, “Berkeley Developer’s Big Dreams Dominate Richmond Landscape,” para. 16.

[14] Simerman, “County ready to back Point Molate casino plan – ContraCostaTimes.com,” para. 8.

[15] Brenneman, “Berkeley Developer’s Big Dreams Dominate Richmond Landscape.”

[16] “Richmond OKs Point Molate casino project,” para. 6.

[17] Brenneman, “Point Molate Casino Gets Fast-Track Status,” para. 4.

[18] Simerman, “County ready to back Point Molate casino plan – ContraCostaTimes.com,” para. 1.

[19] Hoch, “Governor Letter Against Pt Molate,” 1.

[20] Tam, “Sides still divided over Richmond casino-hotel plan’s potential impact – Inside Bay Area,” para. 17.

[21] Brenneman, “State Attorney General Joins Point Molate Casino Fight,” para. 5.

[22] Ibid., para. 19-20.

[23] Brenneman, “Lawsuit Challenges Point Molate Casino. Category: News from The Berkeley Daily Planet – Thursday January 29, 2009,” para. 31.

[24] “Draft Environmental Impact Statement / Environmental Impact Report.”

Sources

“BRAC – US Gov.” Government. http://www.bracpmo.navy.mil/basepage.aspx?baseid=50.

Brenneman, Richard. “Berkeley Developer’s Big Dreams Dominate Richmond Landscape.” Berkeley Daily Planet, April 26, 2005. http://www.berkeleydaily.org/issue/2005-04-26/article/21243?headline=Berkeley-Developer-s-Big-Dreams-Dominate-Richmond-Landscape-By-RICHARD-BRENNEMAN.

———. “Lawsuit Challenges Point Molate Casino. Category: News from The Berkeley Daily Planet – Thursday January 29, 2009,” January 28, 2009. http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2009-01-29/article/32111?headline=Lawsuit-Challenges-Point-Molate-Casino.

———. “Point Molate Casino Gets Fast-Track Status. Category: Front Page News from The Berkeley Daily Planet – Thursday June 12, 2008.” Newspaper, June 12, 2009. http://www.berkeleydaily.org/issue/2008-06-12/article/30235?headline=Point-Molate-Casino-Gets-Fast-Track-Status.

———. “State Attorney General Joins Point Molate Casino Fight.” Berkeley Daily Planet, April 22, 2009. http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2005-04-22/article/21212?headline=State-Attorney-General-Joins-Point-Molate-Casino-Fight-By-RICHARD-BRENNEMAN&status=301.

“Chevron Energy and Hydrogen Renewal Project.” Corporation. Chevron, Spring 2009. http://www.chevron.com/products/sitelets/richmond/renewal/.

“Draft Environmental Impact Statement / Environmental Impact Report.” http://www.pointmolateeis-eir.com/documents/draft_eis-eir/report.htm.

Fronistas, Phoebe. “Before Napa, there was Winehaven.” Blog. Richmond Confidential, October 13, 2009. http://richmondconfidential.org/2009/10/13/before-napa-there-was-winehaven/.

Hoch, Andrea Lynn. Letter. “Governor Letter Against Pt Molate,” October 12, 2009. http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B2Vh92XtfvhnNWRkYjNmMTktMjFkYS00NDVlLTk4NjItYTdhNTU3OTA0NTU4&hl=en.

“Indian Gaming in California.” http://igs.berkeley.edu/library/htIndianGaming.htm#Topic1.

Korosec, Kristen. “Exxon, Chevron Win in a Loser Year for Top 500 Companies | BNET Energy Blog | BNET.” News. BNET, April 20, 2009. http://industry.bnet.com/energy/10001114/exxon-chevron-win-in-a-loser-year-for-top-500-companies/.

“Richmond leads per-capital murder rate in California.” San Francisco Chronicle, June 10, 2008. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/06/10/state/n103604D95.DTL.

“Richmond OKs Point Molate casino project.” Contra Costa Times, November 10, 2004. http://www.tombutt.com/forum/2004/041111.htm.

Rosen Lum, Rebecca. “ChevronTexaco Hires Willie Brown to Undo the Deal.” Contra Costa Times, November 11, 2004.

Santiago, Chiori. “Betting on Point Molate.” Bay Nature, 2005. http://www.baynature.org/articles/jul-sep-2005/betting-on-point-molate.

Simerman, John. “County ready to back Point Molate casino plan – ContraCostaTimes.com,” October 31, 2009. http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_13685421?source=most_emailed.

Tam, Katherine. “Sides still divided over Richmond casino-hotel plan’s potential impact – Inside Bay Area.” Oakland Tribune, September 19, 2009. http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_13368891.

Vega, Cecilia. “Point Molate Casino On Track After City Council OKs Proposal.” http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/11/11/BAG869PFRE1.DTL.

Weinstein, David. “Storming the Castle.” Preservation Magazine, July 25, 2009. http://www.preservationnation.org/magazine/story-of-the-week/2003/Storming-the-Castle.html.

Williams, Susan. “Point Molate: Waterfront Dream or Terrorist Nightmare?,” October 9, 2009. http://www.baycrossings.com/Archives/2003/09_October/point_molate_waterfront_dream_or_terrorist_nightmare.htm.

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3. An Abandoned Mansion from Lebanon’s Past

Downtown Beirut is full of silent and boarded buildings, which stand between the featureless identical cement apartment blocks that make up the periphery. Most are pockmarked with bullet holes and — in places — red, Mediterranean-style ceramic tiles have fallen away, revealing the woodwork beneath. Still, these damaged, pre-civil war houses, mansions and apartment buildings manage to recall more than a little of the elegance that earned Beirut the title, “Paris of the Middle-East.” It’s a blatantly colonial term, given to the city by the French during their “administration” of the country from the end of the first world war until the end of the second. But the dirtied white facades of these buildings manage to catch the low-slanting light of sunset with a defiant brilliance their sterile replacements just can’t muster. They were designed to catch Mediterranean sunsets.

On Rue Spears, a couple of blocks past the Saneyeh park towards downtown, a prime example of Lebanese pre-war architecture sits mouldering behind a forbidding stone wall. I saw it on my first day of a 2008 winter break trip to Beirut to visit my father, a professor at the Lebanese American University. There is a certain prestige implicit with being the first explorer to hit an important building, and as far as I could tell there were no active explorers in all of Beirut. As such, I was out on the street every day at sunrise, hoping to make the best of my two weeks there.

This building is a standing, contradictory dichotomy — dark and gorgeous at the same time. The 10-foot high wall and chained, rusting gates create an atmosphere of something off-limits yet irresistible; its very demeanor from the outside implicitly suggests a world of secrets to discover.

On my first trip out I circled the block alone to find myself receiving suspicious stares from the urban-camouflaged Lebanese police. These eagle-eyed sentries stand near red and white striped guard houses glowering with their M-16s. Societally, cameras are looked upon with suspicion in Beirut. Tourists fare better than most, but any photographer walking around taking snapshots can expect to be questioned by a security or policeman.

This was especially so around the LAU campus, where I studied in 2003. The LAU campus sits adjacent to Saad Hariri’s palace, a gigantic structure built in the old pre-war Mediterranean style. Every time I walked in or out of the front gate with a giant Nikon hanging from my neck a security guard would run up to me repeating “No photo, no photo,” like a magic, protective mantra. I wonder if it ever occurred to them that a spy would probably use a smaller, less obtrusive camera than a D200. I mean, a DSLR doesn’t exactly fit into a belt buckle or a pack of cigarettes. I wonder how they would react if they knew the entire layout of the grounds is readily available on Google Earth. Still, they have good cause to be nervous.

In 2005 Saad’s father, former prime minister and billionaire Rafic Hariri was killed, along with 21 other people, by a massive car bomb in front of the St. George Hotel in Beirut. A Lebanese man I met told me that the hotel’s owner was one of Hariri’s opponents, and Saad has since blocked any attempts to rebuild the place. It sits vacant on the sea, another monument to violence. Since then, Saad has assumed leadership of the Sunni and Maronite anti-Syrian coalition — Hezbollah’s chief competition. These simmering tensions, amplified by the subsequent withdrawal of Syrian troops from the country and the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, exploded in a mini-civil war in 2007, during which Hezbollah fighters occupied and burned FutureTV, owned by Saad, the mouthpiece of the anti-Hezbollah Future Movement.

I recall speaking to my father on the phone then, me in rural Illinois working my first newspaper job, he in his campus apartment — the roar of gunfire from the street below competed with his voice for my attention. I recall not only the expected, intense worry for his safety, but how disconcerted I was by his own apparent lack of it. He was more upset by the fact that the cable was out than by the rocket propelled grenades aimed at Hariri’s Palace, a couple of hundred feet away.

My father’s relative indifference could have stemmed from a regional adjustment to conflict. The waves of violence in Beirut hit like the seasonal flooding of an undammed river. The waters pull back, the silt settles and the shop keepers on Hamra sweep the dust off their doorways, no longer surprised by much of anything.

The decaying mansion I set out to explore sits across the street from the new FutureTV office, and the guards, manning a checkpoint a block way, stare in that way that always strikes the few American tourists who come to Beirut. It’s simply not considered rude to lock eyes with strangers for extended periods of time. And when the person staring at you is holding a loaded machine gun it sets your nerves on edge. So, after two trips around the block trying to find a way in, I decided to head home rather than have to again explain to a policeman why I had a camera; what I was taking pictures of; why I wanted to take pictures, etc. At first, the only glimpse I got was through a hole in the back gate. I saw an overgrown courtyard, full of trees and bushes that obscured the quiet and vacant mansion.

It wasn’t until a few days later that I went back, this time with Michel, a friend who works in computers downtown. It was his first time exploring; I don’t speak Arabic and figured a translator would be handy if I encountered anyone in the building.

We walked around to the front courtyard and bought local energy drinks from the corner shop that occupies the lower part of what was once the mansion’s guard house. Down the street is a small car repair shop, and we ducked behind it, seeking a secluded place to scale the wall. Walking down the alley between the courtyard wall and what appeared to be another abandoned building to the right, I was reminded of why exploring abandoned buildings in Beirut is a tricky business – you have to be considerate of the people who live in them.

The truth is, despite being home to a great many abandoned buildings, Beirut has very few vacant ones. Look beyond the pristine beauty of the rebuilt downtown area or the ritzy, exclusive dance clubs around Monot street — packed with rich kids going to school at LAU or AUB — and you’ll find a grossly unequal distribution of wealth in Lebanon.

About a kilometer from the giant and gorgeous blue-domed mosque built by Rafic, Syrian day laborers loiter around a filthy, vacant lot hoping for a day’s work. Many of these people choose to live rent-free in the many abandoned buildings of the city, often stealing power and even photo service from nearby lines. Look up in some places around the city and the huge number of pirated electric and phone lines forms a kind of multi-colored spiderweb, intricate and impressive.

This abandoned building, adjacent to the mansion we sought to explore, had a similar life support system jacked in from the city’s power grid. Laundry hung out on balconies and potted plants added a bit of color. Baskets hung on ropes that reached from top floor balconies to the alley below. It’s a general rule — if a building can provide shelter for someone, chances are it does.

We scaled the wall, one at a time; Michel provided me with a boost and I pulled him up in turn. The courtyard of the mansion must have been gorgeous. Giant, old trees of that strange type in Lebanon that throws down roots from the limbs into the ground, creating a miniature forest, dotted the landscape. Garbage was everywhere — old luggage, tires, children’s toys and literally thousands of empty plastic bottles. A dead white rabbit lay in a tree, balanced on a piece of carpet. I have no idea who put it there or why; it might have been one of the army of stray cats that live short, desperate lives in orbit around the city’s dumpsters. I quickly took its picture.

I wasn’t surprised when we saw a power line leading into the side of the building, as well as a garden hose. The doors on this side entrance were nailed shut from the inside, and the hose and power lines were threaded through holes drilled in the wood. Someone was living there, that was certain. I expected Michel to want to turn back, but he’d received an adrenaline jolt from hopping the wall and wanted to find a window to climb through. Fair enough, I said, conscious that I just agreed to go inside of someone’s home. Walking around to the front, I looked back at the side entrance and was really struck by how wealthy the former tenants must have been. Even though it was only the side door, it was flanked by tall, elegantly carved columns. It was an entrance worthy of any mansion, yet before the war it was probably used by house workers to bring in food and take out garbage.

We moved around to the front. Identical sets of white marble steps flanked an empty fountain and buttressed the arched and ornate French doors. It was then, as I turned facing the cobbled entrance road, that I imagined black European luxury cars stopping to disgorge impossibly well-coiffured party guests. We jimmied the door using a long piece of cut marble fallen off the steps to push aside the board that someone had jammed into the door. Michel had a big grin on his face, finding out what more experienced explorers already know and what keeps us coming back: the need to see the forbidden and off-limits is ingrained in our DNA as humans.

The barricade fell with a clatter and we entered the grand hall, silent and accepting. There were no footprints in the deep dust that covered the floor; we walked in a silent, reverent fashion that the building seemed to demand of us. Our footsteps were light and silent; our voices half-whispers.

What immediately caught my eye was the giant pile of papers at the end of the hall. Upon closer inspection many of the papers turned out to be black and white photographs — hundreds of them, all of the same elderly man in a tall, flat-topped Fez-style hat, at what appeared to be political events. In some of the photos the walls were covered in campaign posters bearing his image. Always: Around him were supporters, cheering and clapping. The other documents, Michel told me, were voter registration lists – hundreds of names, addresses and phone numbers. There were also various memos and letters. He didn’t know who the man in the photo was.

Michel went upstairs and I took out my tripod to shoot the photos in the low light. My camera’s timer, a soft beep, beep, beep seemed to echo in the dead, cold hall. It was after the third or fourth shot that I heard the footsteps behind me, crunching the broken glass of a long-shattered window. I turned, expecting to see Michel. Instead I encountered the scowl of a very large and very humorless Syrian man in heavy boots. His shoulders were gigantic, the product of years of manual labor. His eyes had no smile lines.

“I…I’m just taking pictures,” I offered, impotently, not expecting him to understand.

“It’s not open,” He replied, in what my memory holds to have been a deep growl.

“I…noticed.” And we just kind of stared at each other.

I was saved by Michel, who came down to tell me of a desk he found upstairs. A short exchange ensued which Michel later translated to me as:

Syrian: “You’re not allowed to come in here.”

Michel: “Well, we already are.”

Michel’s kind of gutsy like that. Especially considering the man could have easily kicked our teeth in. As it was, he agreed to give us 20 minutes after realizing we weren’t cops. We moved upstairs quickly, deciding to forsake the south wing of the house where we assumed the squatters lived. The clatter of our break-in must have echoed throughout the house.

Upstairs we found more clues as to the political nature of the home. A bookshelf, full of rotting books, sat in a room no longer protected by a roof. They were all political texts, some in French, some in Arabic. A book by Francois Mitterrand; another entitled, “for Lebanon” — books ruined by years of rainy Beirut winters.

In the next room was large wooden desk, of the sort befitting a president or CEO, Michel remarked. It sat next to pointed, arched windows and a balcony with a view of the courtyard and street below. I looked out and saw two bored Lebanese policeman smoking cigarettes and watching the passing cars. One of my favorite parts of exploring is looking out of windows on upper floors and watching cars, cyclists and joggers who pass and don’t look up where I am — a place I can’t help but notice.

There were Bedrooms, too. They were covered in an inch of red sand and colorful, flowered wallpaper. A few televisions, newspapers, some empty cigarette packets. The kitchen had been used by squatters at one point — an unopened can of peaches sported a 1988 expiration date. And they had left behind half-full barrels of cooking oil and a large bag of rice. Photos of female Lebanese pop stars torn from magazines decorated some of the walls.

There were bullet holes in the wall opposite the windows. Someone who had spent his or her mornings making spare breakfasts likely sought an antidote against those bullet holes; they saw in the perfect teeth of a pop star, the rim light and soft-focus photography, something better than the monotonous clattering of gunfire that drifted in like a cold front from the Green Line.

We only explored part of the mansion, content that something was better than nothing. With our presence known and no doubt communicated to whoever else was living there, we decided that overstaying our already cold welcome would be foolhardy, especially if they found out how we’d entered.

“He asked us how we managed to get in,” Michel laughed. “I told him we climbed in through an open window”

“What if he looks at the door and finds we kicked it in?”

“I dont’ think he’d be happy.”

On our way out we grabbed as many of the photos as we could. It seemed wrong to let them slowly decay, falling prey to piss and rainwater. As we re-crossed the courtyard I looked back and saw three windows on the third floor of the south wing filled with men staring at us, these strange intruders. I waved. They did not wave back.

A few days later I dropped in on Bassam Lahoud, photography professor at the Lebanese American University. A man for all seasons, Bassam is an architect, writer and dance instructor. He’s from Amchit, a small, charming mountain village near Byblos, the longest continually inhabited city on the planet. Bassam taught me how to use a camera, a Canon 35mm A1 from the 1970s. He runs a foundation with the modest aim of collecting every single photo ever taken of Lebanon. Any photo. Of anything. I handed him the warped stack of black and white photos from the mansion.

“Takkieddin el-Solh” he said. “He was a prime minister.”

We had broken into the former prime minister’s home. Evidently he had abandoned it when Beirut began to tear itself to shreds in 1975. His time in office had ended a year before. In 1980 he was asked by the president to form a government but was unable to find consensus in a country at war with itself. He died in 1988 in Paris.

“Can I keep one of these? For my foundation?” Bassam asked.

Of course. Of course. I gave him all of the photos, and copied 8 gigs of .jpg files onto his desktop. I wanted to feel like I was contributing something.

He looked at my photos of the mansion, the ones you’re looking at now. “Perhaps we could do an exhibition some time, at my house in Amchit, where we took the field trip.” He had taken his entire class to his home for a day to practice architectural photography. His house is gorgeous, a mansion too, built before the civil war yet free of scars. Yes, of course you can do an exhibition, Bassam. When I put them up on Flickr I set the license to Creative Commons.

I said my goodbyes to Bassam and went downstairs. Outside, there was a campus demonstration against the Israeli air assault in Gaza. Students chanted and burned Israeli flags. In a brief moment of unity, yellow Hezbollah flags waved next to the red and white Lebanese. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” and for the moment they had found in war a reason to come together. It’s not sustainable, I thought. I raised my camera and took their picture. Smoke billowed from burning flags, and painted faces cheered, chanted.

Further Reference

• Full Set of Photos from the Mansion
• New York Timse Obituary for Takieddin Solh
  

Related posts:

1. Abandoned Gary – A Lost Metropolis of Indiana Industry
2. Abandoned Hotels of the Catskills Borscht Belt
3. An Abandoned Skyscraper: The Pac Bell Building

The Bus/RV entrance to Six Flags New Orleans. The barbed-wire fence was added after the storm. June, 2008.

Interstate 10 curves up and out of New Orleans, looping out of the Big Easy and chasing the Gulf Coast towards points east. About thirty minutes outside the city, just after the I-510 interchange, a set of faded blue structures rises on the southern horizon. These are the derelict roller coasters of Six Flags New Orleans, which closed in advance of Hurricane Katrina and has yet to reopen.

The park was not so much shut down as abandoned—sacrificed, almost, to the encroaching storm. Merchandise stayed on shelves, electronics remained in place, and the logs in the flume ride were left stuck halfway up their plastic hills. The sole preparation for Katrina seems to be a message on the park’s signboard, still visible more than three years later: CLOSED FOR STORM.

The empty and overgrown parking lot for Six Flags New Orleans, with roller coasters on the horizon.

The property opened as Jazzland in 2000. Rides such as the Bayou Blaster and The Big Easy Ferris Wheel were sprinkled through lands with similarly local-sounding names, including ‘Cajun Country’ and the ‘French Quarter.’ After low visitor numbers forced Jazzland into bankruptcy, Six Flags purchased the park in 2002. The park was rebranded as Six Flags New Orleans and expanded, but the expansion did little to improve the park’s profitability. Since Hurricane Katrina, the park has been derelict, with Six Flags claiming that insurance disputes are holding up the re-opening of the park.

The park as it appeared immediately after Hurricane Katrina. Photos from the online forums of Theme Park Review.

Six Flags New Orleans was flooded by Hurricane Katrina. After the storm, the park sat in water that was between four and six feet deep for several weeks. After the waters had receded, the parking lots were used as a staging area for FEMA trailer distribution. The trailers are still visible in the Google Maps satellite view of the park.

The Gator Bait Air Boat ride.

Since the storm, Six Flags has removed some ride equipment from the park, refurbishing it and deploying it to other Six Flags properties. “Batman: The Ride” has been rebuilt as “Gotham” at Six Flags Fiesta Texas. Awnings, light posts, security cameras, and other salvageable equipment has also been sent to other Six Flags properties, an invisible diaspora of amusement park ephemera.

The park’s Main Street Square, just inside the main entrance.

More interesting than what Six Flags has taken from the park is what they have left behind. The level of preservation is incredible. Parts of the park look as if they were abandoned only hours earlier. Stores, restaurants, rides were all still standing and unlocked when I visited this past summer.

An abandoned restaurant in Cajun Country.

In part, the park owes this level of preservation to its location in a desolate stretch of suburban New Orleans East, about half an hour outside of New Orleans proper. There was some graffiti and some vandalism—coin-operated lockers, vending machines, and cash registers had all been forced open—but overall, there was very little sign of human presence or activity, especially recent activity.

In a merchandise kiosk, Tweety Birds and Scooby-Doos await purchase by children who will never arrive.

Even three years later, Katrina remains the strongest presence in the park. The remaining merchandise approximates how high the waters rose: Everything still on shelves was above the waterline. The surrounding bayou has started to reclaim the park, and plants are encroaching on walkways and threading themselves through rides. This part of New Orleans is sinking, at up to 2 inches per year. In 10 years, Six Flags New Orleans may again be underwater.

I spent about an hour inside the park and covered most of the south side. What I found most interesting is how the park is historically flat: Most places, especially in New Orleans, have layers upon layers of history, capturing decades of construction, demolition, change, and reuse, each layer with its own story.

Six Flags has none of those layers: The park is so young—barely 10 years old, and derelict for the last three—that it has very little history. There was nothing before Jazzland but swamps; the park came from the swamps and to the swamps it will return. The ersatz theming of the amusement park heightens that feeling of emptiness. Not only is there nothing here, but what is here isn’t even real.

An abandoned photo kiosk, with computers, receipt printers, and sample photos still there.

The future of the property is complicated by the ownership arrangement between Six Flags and the City of New Orleans. The land is owned by the city, and Six Flags is committed to a 75-year lease requiring it to operate the park. Both Six Flags and the City owe money on a $25 million construction loan from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The Joker continues to survey his overgrown domain.

The city is loath to allow Six Flags to exit the lease, because it would have to assume the full burden of the HUD loan. Other companies have approached Six Flags about buying the property, with grand ideas about a water park or a full-scale resort, but none of these ideas have solidified.

A look across the park’s central lagoon, formerly Jazz Lake.

For the time being, the park remains caught in a post-Katrina catch-22: it is both too expensive to rebuild and too expensive to abandon.

Further Research:

• The official Six Flags New Orleans website has carried the same message for three years.
• Six Flags New Orleans has an unofficial fan site, SNFO.com. The website has maps, forums, a comprehensive photo archive, and ongoing updates about the future of the park.
• Recent Times-Picayune coverage, here and here.
• The park has spawned several tribute videos on YouTube, which show the park when it was active.
• A collection of photos on Shutterfly, likely taken by a Six Flags employee, show the extent of the flooding.
• A high-resolution satellite photo shows the park during flooding.

Related posts:

1. Holy Land: Religion Abandoned in Connecticut
2. An Abandoned Amusement Park in Berlin
3. An Abandoned Mansion from Lebanon’s Past

Interior of Castro Theatre image by Katie Spence

Movie Poster Passion of Joan of Arc

The Passion of Joan of Arc is consistently given the laurels as one of the greatest movies of all time. Maria Falconetti’s performance as the 19-year-old Saint, Joan of Arc, has been called the 26th greatest performance in cinema. Sight & Sound’s top ten films poll listed Passion three times (in 1952, 1972, and 1992). But Passion itself is not the remarkable story, despite its revolutionary cinematography and film editing techniques.

No, the real story is that of Director Theodore Dreyer, who spent $9 million in 1928 dollars on the Passion of Joan of Arc only to see its destruction by fire a year later. Dreyer died in 1968 believing that his uncut, 86-minute opus in its original format was lost forever. History, however, has strange ways of creeping back into notoriety.

When Dreyer passed in 1968, there were only a few rudimentary cuts of the film remaining (whatever wasn’t consumed by fire was censored by religious leaders for its harsh portrayal of Joan’s inquisitors who – let’s not forget – were men of ‘religious esteem’). Dreyer painstakingly tried to piece together fragments in a 1933 release that was 61 minutes long (the original was 86). The film circulated for some time in its less then perfect format until the second original was destroyed once again, annoyingly enough by fire once again.

Still, in pure, poetic justice to the film’s namesake and Joan herself (who was given sainthood by the Catholic Church just seven years before the film’s release) an uncut, original release re-emerged in 1981. It appeared in the most unlikely of places: Deep in the bowels of a closet within the maze of passageways of an abandoned psychiatric hospital in Oslo, Norway. An unknown doctor had ordered the film – perhaps intending to show it to his troubled patients as an example of Christian virtue (or maybe even to show his mentally ill patients that divinity is sometimes perceived wrongly as “insanity”). What mattered was that history had rediscovered something it never should have lost — and all because someone forgot to throw away something in their closet.

Falconetti as Joan of Arc

The warm November night I sat admiring the Castro Theater’s Spanish Colonial embellishments and the deco sconces, I imagined the original screening of the film in the very place I was sitting. The Wurlitzer Pipe Organ started the show with verve. The curtains separated. And the lights dimmed. Maria Falconetti’s face appeared, in dramatic close-up. Her tears were palpable, and hundreds of strings heralded the beginning of the oratorio created specifically, and inspired by, the film. Richard Einhorn’s “Voices of Light” could not have been a better match for the dramatic images of Joan of Arc’s final days alive.

As it turned out, Passion would be Falconetti’s final performance as a film actress. After a stint as a stage actor, she escaped from France to Argentina at the height of World War II and lived her final days in peace (no doubt from Dreyer’s authoriatarian style of directing). But the re-discovery of The Passion of Joan of Arc will always be considered one of the great blessings of modern cinema. Chances of its survival were slim – the Library of Congress estimates that only 10% of films made before 1928 exist today. But in its 1,300 individual shots, its three-dimensional multi-million dollar set, and the painful passion exhibited on the face of Maria Falconetti we see a new purpose in the preservation of history, even for something as ‘kitsch’ as a reel of old film.

Related posts:

1. Frank Lloyd Wright and His Forgotten Larkin Building
2. Auschwitz “Death Camp” Blueprints Discovered in Berlin Apartment
3. Atomic Cafe: America in the Era of the A-Bomb

photo credit: One From RM

It was in January of 1942 that it was widely believed Nazi Germany made the decision to kill 11 million Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah’s witnesses, Roma, political prisoners, and Blacks. Since then, the January 1942 epoch is what all historians have marked the actual beginning of the “purge.” But recent architectural drawings, discovered in a flat in Berlin seem to indicate that the decision was dated much earlier than widely assumed. The newly discovered Auschwitz plans (also known as Oświęcim) contain 28 pages of yellowing renderings – largely drawn by SS technicians, but also by inmates who may have eventually faced the death camp itself. These plans may provide definitive proof that the decision to purge the Jews was made as early as the drawing of these documents: Oct 23, 1941.

The documents, other than the vital evidence they provide in the way of dates, also point towards the systematic and deliberate understanding of most SS officers and high-ranking German officials: Hitler’s plan was not a secretly carried out attempt, but rather a well-recorded and deliberate effort, of which even low-level officers were well aware.

The gas chamber architectural drawing for Auschwitz, recently discovered.

The blueprints themselves reveal chilling details.  One area, boldly marked the “Gaskammer,” or gas chamber, shows a 11.66 metre by 11.20 metre room where prisoners were tricked into entering by believing they were communal showers.

“The documents disprove beyond all doubt that which Holocaust deniers claim…” said Hans-Dieter Kreikamp, head of the federal archives office in Berlin, “… That Auschwitz was nothing more than a labour camp where no gassing took place.”

Kreikamp even affirms that a portion of the blueprints, drawn in distinctive green ink, are from the pen of none other than SS chief Heinrich Himmler. Still, speculation is swirling about the potential authenticity of the documents. Prof. Robert Jan van Pelt, an expert on the planning and construction of Auschwitz, believes that the plans are not Auschwitz, but rather plans for a forced labor camp meant to house 130,000 prisoners. He said the plans have been acknowledged for years, and that they may exist in the Polish National Museum at Auschwitz and in an archive in Moscow.

These blueprints show a building whose basement contained a gas chamber.

Even though the plans that were in the SS offices in Berlin during the 1944 bombings by Allied forces were said to be destroyed, it’s possible that they survived, but unlikely. Van Pelt believes that the “gas chamber” room in the drawings was likely a room meant to disinfect clothing, and that Heinrich Himmler, as such a high-ranking official, would not be found scribbling on the plans of a camp, despite how large. Van Pelt speculates that the document itself is likely a forge, likely copied from the Polish National Archives record, considering the large interest and market for Nazi memorabilia online.

Further Research

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1035958.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/3411647/Auschwitz-plans-found-in-Berlin-flat.html

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3. Inside a Ghost Fleet Ship – AS-32 U.S.S. Holland

Before there was the North Capital (Bei Jing) there was Chang’an, the city of Perpetual Peace, which is now called Xi’an, Western Peace. Ten ancient Chinese dynasties had their capital in Chang’an, including the Qin Dynasty, which represents one of the most interesting and tumultuous periods in the city’s history and the start of the Chinese Empire.

The first emperor of Qin, Qin Shi Huang (Ying Zheng), ruled the unified kingdoms of China between 221 and 210 BC. Before that he was a ruler of the Kingdom of Qin and the warlord who conquered six other kingdoms in order to create a unified China that lasted for about 2000 years.

Besides being a brilliant and ruthless general and something of an innovator and visionary, he was incredibly paranoid. During his reign he decided that the new empire needed to be better protected, mainly from attacks from the north. So, he began a bold and ambitious project of connecting the remaining fortification walls of the kingdoms he had conquered. That was the start of the Great Wall of China.

He also realized that he had been responsible for much death and suffering in his quest to create a strong Chinese Empire. In fact, it occurred to him that there were many more enemies of his “on the other side” than remained alive. The ones who had been dispatched to the world beyond were undoubtedly waiting to take revenge on him. He needed protection of his army. Even though he had lost a great number of his soldiers it was not enough to defend him. The story goes that as he was building his tomb on the outskirts of Chang’an (Xi’an) it occurred to him that he could take his best and bravest warriors with him to the other side. He ordered his adviser to pick several thousand of his best soldiers and bring them to the capital for his approval. The ones that made the cut would be killed and buried along with their armor, weapons, and horses (if they had them) in formation in the king’s tomb. That way they would be ready to defend the emperor once he crossed over.

The adviser was horrified and tried to talk the insane emperor out of it, but only incurred his wrath and was ordered to assemble the soldiers under penalty of death. So, he began selecting the soldiers, as ordered, meanwhile thinking of a way to save their lives and appease the emperor. He finally came up with an ingenious plan: order the best and most skilled artisans to create perfect clay replicas of the soldiers, armor, weapons, and horses, and place them in formation at the tomb. At first, Qin Shi Huang was beside himself with anger and wanted to execute the adviser. But Li Si had been his adviser for many years and was able to persuade him. He explained that the human bodies of the soldiers were weak and would wither away over the years, meaning that they would not be able to defend the emperor effectively should his foes choose to attack him. On the other hand soldiers made out burned clay would last for many centuries and would be tougher and stronger than real soldiers. All the emperor had to do was call on them in the night and their souls would be confused and would enter the terracotta bodies instead of their real bodies.

The Construction and Display of the Terracotta Soldiers

It took hundreds of craftsmen many years to construct perfect replicas of the soldiers. To this day we don’t know how many there are. The Terracotta Army museum of Xi’an is one of the most wondrous places in all the world. More soldiers and equipment are still being unearthed at this active archeological site where visitors are allowed a glimpse of the process of uncovering and repairing the soldiers and their horses and equipment.

There are about 8,000 unearthed terracotta soldiers in three pits, armed and ready for battle. They are an awesome sight, each unique and very lifelike. In fact they look so real that an occasional shiver might travel down your spine as you walk around the giant pits and inhale the aroma of ancient clay.

It’s really miraculous to see that many statues of different people constructed with such an amazing attention to detail that you can’t help but watch for movement out of the corner of your eye. If you know anything about ancient Chinese military history you can spot soldiers of different ranks and units. There are archers, charioteers, infantry, even the rear guard, standing at full attention ready to be called upon.

Museum Surroundings

The museum itself stands on a very large property surrounded by pine groves and picturesque gardens. It’s a spacious and peaceful place kept immaculate by the ubiquitous groundskeepers and janitors. There are also two shops that offer official Terracotta Army related merchandise as well as crafts sold by merchants who lease their stalls from the museum. You can even buy a life-sized replica of a general to guard your house. Anything and everything is for sale here except the relics themselves which are closely guarded even against flash photography by the stone-faced young men in uniform. Soldiers guarding soldiers. Qin Shi Huang would certainly approve.

Further Research

• China travel information
• National Geographic: Terracotta Warriors

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2. China’s Misty Huangshan Mountains
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The Moon of Pejeng, an exceptional kettle drum unlike any other, sits high in the temple grounds, guarding the village of Pejeng in Bali, Indonesia. Well cared for by the villagers, it has its own little house built up on stilts. Although it really isn’t a moon, it is as fantastic as any member of our universe. For the Moon of Pejeng is the largest kettledrum cast in a single piece in the entire world.

The bronze-era Moon of Pejeng is just a short drive from Ubud in the heartland of Bali

The 2000-year-old bronze drum is 73.5 in (186.5 cm) high. The diameter of the mantle is 43 in (110 cm) and that of the tympanum is 63 in (160 centimeters). Its presence on the island of Bali is still one of science’s unsolved mysteries.

The Mythology Surrounding the Moon of Pejeng

According to Indonesian folklore, the moon was transported across the evening sky by a celestial chariot with wheels that shone as brightly as the moon itself. One night a wheel came loose and plummeted to Earth, landing in a tree in the village of Pejeng. Its glow illuminated all of the surrounding area. This was very irritating to a thief who saw that the light interfered with his nocturnal pursuits. So he climbed the tree and urinated on the wheel, extinguishing its light.

Immediately the wheel exploded, killing the thief. Then it fell to the ground. There is a break in the base as a result of the fall. The people of Pejeng found it and enshrined it in a high pavilion in the Penetran Sasih Temple, thereby keeping it safe from profane eyes and hands.

Kettle Drum Manufacturing During the Bronze Age

On the more practical side of things (but surely less romantic), scientists are attempting to decide if the drum was cast in Indonesia or imported from North Vietnam. Kettle drums were manufactured in North Vietnam during the Bronze Age using two methods. Some were cast in stone molds which could be used and re-used. Others were made by the lost wax method. In this method, the mold melts when it is removed so it can only be used one time. Had lost wax casting been employed, the mold would have been destroyed. This would make it difficult to identify the origin.

Many believe that the Indonesian bronze makers learned the art from the North Vietnamese and the Moon of Pejeng was actually constructed in Indonesia. The evidence to support this theory rests partially on the discovery of parts of a stone mold in the village of Manuaba near Pejeng. It appears, from studying the fragments, that the mold was designed to construct a drum similar to Pejeng. But, according to Prof. T. P. Galesten this mold was for a smaller drum than Pejeng. Prof. Galesten also states that a close observation of the drum surface indicates molds were not used in its construction

Further, the ornamentation of the Pejeng drum is different from the Vietnamese drums. The Dong Son drums were always decorated with geometric patterns, as well as figures, often of people engaged in rice cultivation; but the Moon of Pejeng has a heart-shaped face on the mantle. The face has huge, round eyes with distended earlobes, adorned with unusually large earrings and a leaf shaped ornament worn behind the ear. This is distinctly Indonesian and not found in Vietnam.

In spite of the evidence, some scientists, including Prof. Galesten, believe it is impossible to determine the origin of the drum but  he does say it is “one of the most magnificent masterpieces ever created by man.” And Prof. Kemper calls it, “in many ways the most intriguing of all members of the Southeast Asian kettle drum families.”

Video of a full moon ceremony at the Pejeng Temple

We may never know from whence the moon of Pejeng originated, but its size, design, and durability has allowed it to survive 2,000 years of conjecture, imperialism, and reverence. Frankly, it might best be left a mystery; for it’s much too tempting to imagine as the wheel of an ancient celestial chariot which – one bright night – drew the ire of a common thief… who subsequently peed on its intricate design.

Further Research

• http://blog.baliwww.com/guides/936/
• Google Books: A Short History of Pejeng

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1. An Abandoned Amusement Park in Berlin
2. Communing with the Terracotta Soldiers in Xi’an, China
3. The Moscow Subway

Tarahumaran girls selling crafts in creel.

Tarahumara women wear colorful dresses, and are often seen walking with their children in a multi-colored sling. Tarahumara men wear colorful shirts and loin cloths.

On the road to Batopilas, I spoke briefly with a Mexican landowner who needed a ride. I said yes, and all of a sudden a large group of eight people appeared and filled the bed of my pickup.

Before I knew it, my truck was full of locals. This is halfway down the Barranca Del Cobre canyon, near La Bufa – half of them had already hopped off.

The further I go into canyon country, the more friendly the people become. I haven’t seen a tourist for two days, and as the Mangoes hit the tin roof of my bedroom, I can’t help but love this place that simple fact of simplicity.

I spoke with mom today using a calling card in Creel before leaving for Batopilas. She seems to be in a completely different place than I have been for the past four days (I don’t even feel like myself). When I arrived in Batopilas, I was even further from civilization. There is only one phone in town apparently, many of the 1000 people who live here spend their Saturdays and Sundays getting “baracho” (drunk).

The Road to Satevo

Arturo, the kindhearted, barrel-chested guide of mine with golden caps on his teeth, tells me that the road to Satevo is dangerous. Many people have died because of drunk driving. As he carreened down the dusty road to Satevo, he told me bits and pieces about the history of the town. Mining companies sell the mountains like commodities; they drill prospect holes, denude the hills and sell it to the next mining company. I asked if the locals go mining in the river for gold and silver. He said no. Nobody here knows how to mine, “Viven in el pasado.” They live in the past.

In Satevo, there is a lost mission “El Ignacio Perdido.” It’s lost, because among all of the missions of the Jesuits, it is the only one that the Catholic Church has no record of. It’s as if this mission never existed, even though it’s a grand, beautiful mission sitting on the side of the crystal clear waters of the Batopilas River.

El Ignacio Perdido at Satevo (accent on the “o”). It is one of the most beautiful places at sunset that I have seen for a very long time.

As I arrived, the sun was setting, and locals walked up, asking me to buy a blanket. It was about the size of a table mat, but I bought it for the fortune of 50 pesos. To the people here, this is enough to live on for a very long time. She was ecstatic and left smiling.

Another local walked up and talked with me briefly until Arturo returned. He led me to the back of the church where they kept the keys to the door. I was given the keys and opened the large portico to reveal a magnificent interior. Even though this mission was lost, Arturo tells me it’s the second largest mission in the Sierra Madre. This is quite a feat, considering the stark surroundings and difficult trek.

An altar room inside the Satevó mission

Señora Monse

Señora Monse runs the boarding room here. I felt as if I was a part ofthe home – part of their family as we all sat around the table eatingfrijoles, arroz, y pollo. We were drinking real Tarahurmaran cafe -Monse calls it “cafe cafe,” and says the indigenous ones, theTarahumara take the beans, roast them with mesquite wood and grind them. It was good coffee. It was as if this place where the mountains meet the heavens (1 1/2 times deeper than the Grand Canyon) is a place where Manna falls from heaven in the form of coffee beans.

Tomorrow, beginning at 6 a.m. I will see some of this land with a Tarahumaran guide who looks like Mel Gibson (just a bit more tanned).It should be a memorable trip; I can’t expect any less of this place.

Related posts:

1. Day 5: Batopilas to Cerro Colorado… and Back
2. Chihuahua to Creel – Day 2 in Mexico
3. Highway 101 in a Post-Industrial West

Plaza Central de Chihuahua

What I’ve seen today rivals what I saw in San Francisco, the first time I had seen a city. The U.S. calls itself a melting pot, but they can’t lay claim to what Mexico can be proud of. In the space of one block, I saw middle-class Mexican mestizos, upper-class criollos (pure-bred Spanish), Tarahumara (Chihuahua’s native indeginous people who wear colorful dresses and still live in caves – the men wear loin cloths, believe it or not). I saw Mennonites (they’re not only in Pennsylvania, apparently)

These colorful boots in Chihuahua are a reflection of Mexican culture as a whole. America doesn’t even compare to the melting pot of Mexico.

And the cattleman – they put American cattlemen to shame. They actually use their horses for utilitarian reasons around here. I was just driving down the road about an hour ago and I saw a kid who didn’t look older than nine who was riding as if he was on Seabiscuit, jumping fences and canyons, putting my truck to shame.

Everything in Mexico has to dazzle the eyes – even this dust devil the size of a tornado.

Talking Over Tecate in Creel

I rolled into Creel about 5 p.m. to encounter Americans. This made me sad. I thought it would become my special Mexican town that nobody else knew about. Creel is a tiny little pueblo. There are a few banks and restaurants. I think it boasts a population of about 6,000. As I changed my money in a casa de cambio, I crossed the street and found a little restaurant/bar.

A unique view of mountain biking in Creel, Mexico

Nobody was in there, but I asked for Tecate, and it was readily produced. The woman who I met was very talkative and easygoing. She had a small daughter with her who was nine years of age. I told her where I was from. Funny, every Mexican I’ve talked to so far always talk about the bridge. Even in the small pueblo of Creel, 300 miles south of the border, this woman knew about the Golden Gate Bridge.

We exchanged the normal conversation starters – thank god I can understand and somewhat respond to most of them. Her daughter was a bit shy at first, but she opened up to me and brought out her textbook from school. She wanted me to show her on the map where San Francisco was. She told me she spoke English and sang to me “Frere Jacques” in English. I helped teach her the word for “honga” in English (hongas are mushrooms and the woman said that there were many in the surrouding hills). I’m now sitting at the top of the Sierra Madres.

The Espactaculo in Creel

The people here are friendly, and I’ve never felt safer anywhere. It’s odd. Even though they are poor, they never ask for anything directly – they are always open to chatting. At my camping spot, I heard music playing from a tent down the block. The circus, or “espactaculo” was in town. There are only two actors in the troupe. It’s not a freak show. The best way to describe it is to say it’s a lot like the talent shows we had as kids in Elementary School. There is a magic show, lip syncing of popular songs, and the ever-so-popular ass jiggling (I’m not joking). There were to main actors and one assistant. the two actors played all of the parts. The kids in the audience loved the show, and there was the occassional young couple, old couple, random cowboy with wranglers and cowboy hat in the tent.

What struck me were the overtly sexual jokes when the majority of the audience were children.The kids seemed to laugh the most at them, too. For twenty pesos, it was a steal. I watched the people watching the circus, more than I watched the circus itself.

There are ravenous dogs around my campground. I had to barricade myself in the back of the pickup truck. Otherwise, I still feel safe, and the crescent moon is low in the horizon, a chilly breeze with a tinge of pine scent carried from the mountains sweeps by, and the sound of Ranchera music in the background. There was no feeling lonely in the company of stars at 6,000 feet in the Sierra Madre.

Related posts:

1. Casa Grande, AZ to Chihuahua, Mexico
2. Day 3: Batopilas – Paradise in Copper Canyon
3. Chacahua: Untouched, Mystical Mexico

It wasn’t my first solo road trip, but it was my first foray into a strange and uncharted territory, where the locals still lived in caves and old, collapsing mining tunnels still hold the three-hundred-year-old secrets of millions of ounces of undiscovered gold. This place was literally still living in the era of Spaniards, and I was about to leave my comfort pillow to encounter a whole different culture. In a way, it was the inspiration for Bearings… so enjoy!

 

Day 1: Casa Grande, AZ to Chihuahua, Mexico

I’ve seen some beautiful country. After a long and fruitless search for a campground among saguaro cacti, I pulled off a dirt road and drove 1/4 mile from the Highway. I woke up in the morning to pressed coffee; folded up my sleeping bag riddled with stink beetles; and started on my journey towards the border. On the way were the bucolic mining boomtowns of Bisbee and Tombstone.

A long-forgotten building in Bisbee, Arizona, where one of the world’s deepest open pit mines resides.

Finally! I was in Mexico! Alone. Free. I drove across the Northern Deserts encountering one checkpoint after another – some military, some police. The first one I reached was for frutas; I pulled over and asked the inspector if I needed a “tarjeta de viaje” or “permisa de vehiculo.” He glanced towards me and nonchalantly said, “no, no, pase.” What I do remember of this man were his striking blue eyes. He was obviously mestizo, and he probably picked that up from his distant conquistador ancestors.

The same thing happened down the road, with another military checkpoint. I spoke in Spanish to the young soldiers, who quizzically looked at me. Their superior soon came out of the roadside shack in full fatigues, commanding a limited knowledge of English so I ambled along in Spanish. Again, I asked if I needed a permit to travel, or papers for my car. Not surprisingly, he said no.

Driving East along the border, I encountered the occasional immigrant making the long and arduous journey across the border and into the Arizona desert. I can’t see how they can do it in that heat – one was carrying nothing more than a one-gallon jug of water in his hand. His eyes searched passing cars to make sure they weren’t authorities. Upon confirmation that he was safe to continue his walk, he trudged forward, off into the horizon, and into America.

Searching for Relief

As the road twisted and winded its way through desert peaks I couldn’t help but notice the beauty of it all (the trucks in front of me were creeping up at a measly three miles per hour; there was also road work – which, I might add, was much needed). And I couldn’t help but notice that Mexico, despite being a few dozen miles from American soil, somehow seemed different. Maybe it was my mind’s eye playing tricks on me, but the expansive vistas, the mesquite and whitewashed cliffs — all of it seemed to resonate with all of the stereotypes and caricatures I had seen up to that moment.

There came a time when I had to “ir al bano.” Pressed coffee had worked its magic. Let me tell you this: it’s impossible to find a bathroom in Mexico. I assume most truckers just pull over to the side of the road, but stories of friends who have been thrown in jail for public urination have convinced me for a more civilized manner of relieving oneself. I pulled off to a roadside restaurant that looked as if it catered to weary truck drivers. The facilities cost a few pesos, and I also ordered my first out-of-my-country meal. Corn tortillas stuffed with carnitas – all of it unlike anything I had ever tried before.

Turned Back to Juarez

That day, 200 miles south of the border, I finally encountered my third and final checkpoint.

“Tienes permiso?” The woman asked, as she suspiciously leered into the cab.

“No. No tengo,” I said sheepishly.

I was told that I could go no further. The sun was setting. And I had to drive back North to get my papers, to the border, and Ciudad Juarez – Mexico’s notorious record-setting town.

A map of the drug cartels in Mexico. Ciudad Juarez is ground zero for the country’s largest and most violent cartels.

Record for what, you may query? Homicides. Some 400 women have been victims of femicide in the past few years and the murders have spread to nearby Chihuahua. It seemed so unlike the places I had recently seen. The Mexico I had seen seemed a peaceful place, full of smiling people despite the dry desert and the bleak surroundings.

Ciudad Juarez – a notorious Mexican border town is notorious for all the wrong reasons

My truck rolled into a Motel in Chihuahua around 9 p.m. on my first day in Mexico. I fell asleep within minutes.

Related posts:

1. Chihuahua to Creel – Day 2 in Mexico
2. Chacahua: Untouched, Mystical Mexico
3. Day 3: Batopilas – Paradise in Copper Canyon