2007

Another hippy cootie! :-)

Whoa!! :-)

Okay, you saw the cooties, and now...a marble. Is there any point to this photo? Not really.

Here's a Central New York snowstorm going full blast, although it can actually get much heavier than this.

That isn't fog, that's blowing snow during a storm.

The Hotel Utica is one of the best-known buildings in Utica, once being the most popular hotel with visiting celebrities. It's since done its time as a lower-end hotel and as public housing, but now it's a hotel again. The skyscraper on the rear left is the State Office Building, the tallest building in town.

This is the official, as opposed to the unofficial, water of the Boilermaker 15K road race. Right....

Nuselsky Most, easily the highest bridge in Prague, crosses a valley through Nusle from I.P. Pavlova, and the neighborhood south of I.P. Pavlova known as Zvonarka (where I once lived), to Vysehrad. It has two levels, the upper level being open to the sky for street traffic, connecting Legerova and Sokolska (the streets merge at the bridge) on the I.P. Pavlova/Zvonarka side to 5. Kvetna on the Vysehrad side. The lower level, visible here as a box running down the centerline of the bridge, carries DPP metro trains from I.P. Pavlova to Vysehrad. Nuselsky Most is the oldest bridge on the metro, being part of the original Kacerov-Florenc metro opened in 1974 (Or 1971, according to some of my sources. Who's right? Does anybody know?).

Public tranport is everywhere in Prague, so here we have an example of all three modes. Down at the tram stop is a Tatra T3 tram, up on the lower level of Nuselsky Most are the Metro tracks, and then the upper level of the Nuselsky Most hosts night buses.

I doubt if Vysehrad is still an interlocking box, but it is still an active signal box and maintains a feel that the steam era never left. I love this particular spot as a place for watching trains and taking photographs, except for that its cramped and I rarely have my camera to my eye fast enough to actually get anything. I only like Nusle and Vysehrad because they look so authentically steam era as neighborhoods, and well...I love steam era trains or the illusion of them. :-)

Although there's a light leak slashing through the tram in this photo, I still like it reasonably well. I love the contrast and the general tones of it.

As the sunset illuminated Belehradska, I couldn't resist taking this.

Mestan is a 19th Century brand of Czech beer that is now the cheapest brand name beer you can buy in Prague, with a half liter bottle sometimes going for less than 4Kc, which comes out to less than 20 cents. This is the original Mestan Pivovar, or brewery, if I'm not mistaken, opened in 1898. Nowadays, though, Mestan is brewed at the equally historic Staropramen Pivovar in Smichov, and this old brewery has become an office complex on the upper levels, with an Arnold supermarket in the basement.

This is another, brighter shot of the old Mestan Pivovar.

Here you can see a little bit more detail on the Kommunardu (that's a street) side.

Here you can still see the original lettering on the pivovar, which I think was probably kept for historic purposes.

Ortenovo Namesti isn't far from Mestan Pivovar, and in fact is probably the closest tram stop. This was the tram that was going to take me home as the sun was setting, giving me great late-day lighting to give me a darker, more dramatic shot than usual.

This was another dusk shot of a tram in Holesovice, this time at the train station, with similar dramatic late-day results.