At the corner of Eyre and Woodquay, the shops don’t cater as much to the visiting trade, and appearances aren’t kept up too carefully. In places like this, the city displays the history of human ingenuity, as its exterior skin is retrofitted for new ways of living. You can trace how the old houses adjusted from coal to electricity, and how they strapped plumbing pipes on the outside.
The utility poles are made not from wood but from steel pipes of graduated thickness. They support automobile traffic signs, electric lights, Internet and television cables, and security cameras.
One lady, perhaps expecting a more postcard view, stopped and said, “It’s a lovely drawing, but I wouldn't think of making a picture of it.”
But for the next couple hours, three or four guys saw my wife and me painting, looked at the view, decided it was “artistic,” and took out their cameras to snap a photo.
