Water:

Cities are excellent at venting rain water off the streets, into gutters, and eventually back out to the ocean. So good, in fact, that the soil underneath the pavement hardly absorbs any water leaving the soil susceptible to sinking. Anne Spirn describes this process as "short-circuiting the hydro-logic cycle" (Spirn, pg. 130). The effects of water movement throughout Boston, and cities in general, can be observed on my site. In Figure 5, a very primitive culvert made by pouring asphalt over a plastic pipe appears to have little engineering thought behind its design. Despite its design, it does help drain water from Congress Street to prevent murky water from puddling in front of the sidewalk. However, the poor design has led to the intake filling with debris and inhibiting the flow of water (Elkins, pg. 16). This could result from the water carrying dirt, salt, and cigarette butts from the road and dropping it before entering the culvert. In Figure 6, the shape of the asphalt surrounding the culvert suggests that dammed water from the culvert slowly eroded the material and created a low spot. The low spot appears to have been filled by another type of concrete, a hasty quick fix repair approach to preventing further erosion to the asphalt driveway.

Figure 7: Stagnant Water (Taken by Jaguar Kristeller)

Water that isn't drained properly in cities tends to look like the water in Figure 7: dirty, brown, and polluted. When water runs along city streets it carries dirt, salt, tire particulates, pollutants absorbed from the air, and small pieces of trash (Spirn, pg. 129). Stagnant water can also appear from melting snow piles. In order to keep the city maintained and functioning, snow is plowed off the roads into piles. Thus, snow piles are concentrated sources of trash, dirt, and salt that has accumulated on the roads prior to the precipitation.

Figure 8: Leaking Drainage Pipe (Taken by Jaguar Kristeller)

Rain water from the roof tops of buildings gets collected by gutters and directed to underground water collection systems by vertical pipes such as the one in Figure 3. Cities are efficient at sweeping rain water off the streets and into storm water basins. A small scale example of this efficiency is found on my site. The water running through and around the outside of these vertical pipes can slowly degrade the material. The rusted color in the pavement suggests that the steel pipe is slowly rusting over time. The water that doesn't drain off immediately through the gutters seeps into the cracks on the sidewalk. The large crack between the sidewalk and the building could have formed from water pooling, freezing over night, and expanding. The yellow foam indicates a failed attempt to prevent water from increasing the gap between the sidewalk and building. The crack exposes the building's foundation to collecting water and degrading faster. The crack running parallel to the water pipe up the building could be a result from the water weakening the building's foundation. In addition, the underground transportation network borders two sides of my site. Te small vibrations and minor tremors caused by the T could also have played a role in the cracks running up the building.

Earth:

The sidewalk has been damaged enough by natural processes that its been repaired multiple times. Ironically, the repairs seem to degrade faster than the sidewalk. Where the concrete fill repair and the original granite curb meet, water seeps in, erodes, and collects dirt as seen in Figure 11. One might wonder why there are man-made cracks designed in the nearly every sidewalk. Splitting the sidewalk into sections allows for the anticipated settling of sidewalks to crack along the weakest part of the sidewalks. Thus, the understanding of settling soil influences how sidewalks are designed.

Figure 12: Painted Bricks (Taken by Jaguar Kristeller)

Faneuil Hall and its brick garden lay adjacent to the north of my site. The surface the bricks make surrounding Faneuil hall is not planar. It has imperfections, slight waves, and misaligned bricks likely because of the settling soil underneath. As a way to prevent such imperfections from happening on the State Street crosswalks, brick edges were painted on the concrete surface. Natural processes influenced how humans made the artificial brick crosswalk to increase its resistance to settling and catching water.

Life:

Figure 13: Life as a Luxury (Taken by Jaguar Kristeller)

Space is expensive around state street; its been built on since 1645. Grady Clay mentioned, in "Close-Up: How to Read the American City", that lots in old cities have been built and rebuilt approximately five times over the past hundred years. The lack of vegetation, trees, green plants, and shrubs indicates that space is limited and expensive more so than the human desire to nurture and cultivate nature (Spirn). The new 75 State Street glass skyscraper can afford to have a miniature park in front of its grand entry. In a way, its utilizing nature to show off its power, prestige and dominance over its neighboring buildings.

Figure 14: Trees (Taken by Jaguar Kristeller)

The steel brick-sized grates surrounding the trees help the soil absorb more rain-water. The red discoloration of the steel, caused by rusting, provides evidence that the grates do in fact help irrigate the soil underneath the bricks. The use of steel grates is similar to the Turf-block parking lot incorporated in the City of Dayton in 1981, "a pattern of lattice concrete blocks, with soil and grass in the interstices" (Spirn, pg. 150). The steel grates increase storm water retention in the soil, and helps irrigating the street side trees. The scattered grates suggests that there is soil directly underneath, rather than a basement substructure or subway. Maybe, similar techniques for irrigating street side trees aren't common over subways and underlying structures.