WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.360 --> 00:00:08.439 The blue glow of my monitor described a neat rectangle 2 00:00:08.480 --> 00:00:11.400 on my desk, the only true geometry in the cluttered 3 00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:14.720 little room we called the Satellite Planning Office. I sat 4 00:00:14.759 --> 00:00:17.320 in the after hours hush, a mug of cooling paper 5 00:00:17.320 --> 00:00:20.600 cup coffee, forming a ring atop someone else's old save 6 00:00:20.679 --> 00:00:23.719 the clock tower flyer. The rest of the city's planning 7 00:00:23.719 --> 00:00:26.679 team had already decamped, but I'd asked to stay late, 8 00:00:27.120 --> 00:00:31.600 ostensibly for plan revisions, but in reality because I enjoyed 9 00:00:31.640 --> 00:00:35.920 this quiet slice of the night. After five, the bureaucracy's 10 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:40.119 endless noise faded to a gentle background hum, windows open 11 00:00:40.200 --> 00:00:43.679 to the sting of early spring traffic out front had 12 00:00:43.679 --> 00:00:48.799 settled into that midnight rhythm, slow and soft, everything steadied itself. 13 00:00:49.840 --> 00:00:52.880 My task, as mundane as they came, was to verify 14 00:00:52.960 --> 00:00:57.240 Bell Street's boundaries for the upcoming pedestrian plaza proposal. Just 15 00:00:57.320 --> 00:01:00.920 confirmed the dimensions and property lines Amir had tossed over 16 00:01:00.960 --> 00:01:04.760 his shoulder before dashing off to his daughter's choir concert easy. 17 00:01:05.159 --> 00:01:09.799 I'd handled messier jobs, five way intersections, medieval alley plate puzzles, 18 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:13.560 even the infamous Lock Street loop. Bell Bell was as 19 00:01:13.599 --> 00:01:19.239 central and straightforward as city streets came in theory blueprints. First, 20 00:01:19.719 --> 00:01:23.640 I scrolled through Hyree's scans, cross checking the Engineering Department's 21 00:01:23.640 --> 00:01:27.120 site plans. Bell Street from its official start at Pine 22 00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:29.959 South to the marker Stone and Stub intersection at lower 23 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:33.719 Reed simple seven tenths of a mile. I traced lines 24 00:01:33.760 --> 00:01:37.239 with a ruler even re measured pixels for good measure. Next, 25 00:01:37.280 --> 00:01:39.439 I flipped open the city gee's portal and dropped a 26 00:01:39.439 --> 00:01:42.359 digital pin at both ends. The tools spat out a 27 00:01:42.439 --> 00:01:46.719 number point six miles hah, a smudge of difference, possible 28 00:01:46.799 --> 00:01:51.959 rounding or a recent construction update routine variants if a 29 00:01:51.959 --> 00:01:55.599 bit odd. The kicker was the historic map amir lent 30 00:01:55.680 --> 00:01:58.560 me original. As near as I could tell from a 31 00:01:58.560 --> 00:02:02.480 battered nineteen twenty six civic survey, Bell Street wandered across 32 00:02:02.519 --> 00:02:05.239 the page one point two miles long with a dog 33 00:02:05.319 --> 00:02:08.800 leg jog near the old bakery. The line twisted, wove 34 00:02:08.879 --> 00:02:12.560 under sketched street car wire, and then straightened. I squinted 35 00:02:12.599 --> 00:02:16.680 closer a bridge I didn't recognize, and strangely addresses that 36 00:02:16.759 --> 00:02:19.639 climbed to one hundred ninety three, a good two dozen 37 00:02:19.680 --> 00:02:24.159 properties higher than our current plan assigned my pen hesitated, 38 00:02:24.479 --> 00:02:29.039 then scribbled notes. Maybe a century of rezoning had collapsed blocks, 39 00:02:29.400 --> 00:02:32.919 But why hadn't that appeared in any redevelopment summary. I 40 00:02:33.080 --> 00:02:36.080 just signed off on the district's housing density last quarter. 41 00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:41.639 The Bell shaped street apparently still rang out in unexpected ways, 42 00:02:42.240 --> 00:02:46.319 Yet the discrepancies multiplied. I ran a property count blueprints 43 00:02:46.520 --> 00:02:51.360 fifty one properties, geeze forty two, the historic map sixty two, 44 00:02:51.439 --> 00:02:55.120 with three alleyways rescued from inky oblivion. Cross streets didn't 45 00:02:55.159 --> 00:02:59.520 line up. Business licenses mismatched with parcel IDs, an address 46 00:02:59.560 --> 00:03:02.080 for a bike shop sandwiched between a dry cleaner and 47 00:03:02.120 --> 00:03:05.439 an art gallery, neither of which showed on Google street View, 48 00:03:05.719 --> 00:03:09.680 or the zoning overlays. Footnotes in the records hinted at 49 00:03:09.719 --> 00:03:13.840 a nineteen eleven renumbering, a nineteen forty eight block consolidation, 50 00:03:14.400 --> 00:03:19.599 and then, incoherently, a Bell Street South extension project never completed. 51 00:03:20.400 --> 00:03:25.080 The project's paperwork ended in ellipses. The never completed underlined 52 00:03:25.199 --> 00:03:29.599 twice in someone else's anxious pencil. I sat back. You 53 00:03:29.680 --> 00:03:32.479 see numbers on a map aren't supposed to behave this way. 54 00:03:32.520 --> 00:03:37.039 In a modern city, street segments might squabble over exact boundaries, 55 00:03:37.280 --> 00:03:40.520 but not basic length, not whether a block existed at all. 56 00:03:41.240 --> 00:03:45.479 These mappable truths parcel length, address were supposed to be 57 00:03:45.520 --> 00:03:49.919 the bones of my profession. I cycled through theories, ranking 58 00:03:49.960 --> 00:03:56.280 them old paperwork, clerical error, street realignment, plausible, routine, even comforting. 59 00:03:56.719 --> 00:03:59.719 But as I filled a page with inconsistencies, a weird 60 00:03:59.759 --> 00:04:03.879 sense of delight joined my exasperation. Here was an unassuming 61 00:04:03.919 --> 00:04:07.560 city street, quietly refusing to play by my rules. After 62 00:04:07.680 --> 00:04:11.680 years smoothing city papers into categorical piles, something in Bell 63 00:04:11.759 --> 00:04:15.039 Street's tangle made me want utterly and simply to know. 64 00:04:16.240 --> 00:04:19.120 I shut the binder, the lamp's gold circle of light, 65 00:04:19.240 --> 00:04:22.600 suddenly feeling performative, as if it were illuminating not just 66 00:04:22.680 --> 00:04:25.680 my notes, but a puzzle ey'd just accepted as my own. 67 00:04:26.360 --> 00:04:29.319 I would walk Bell Street myself, like a surveyor from 68 00:04:29.360 --> 00:04:34.319 another century document, every inch pinned down its reality, one 69 00:04:34.360 --> 00:04:38.839 step at a time. Morning came cool and undecided, a 70 00:04:38.879 --> 00:04:42.360 sleepy layer of clouds keeping the city's edges soft. I 71 00:04:42.439 --> 00:04:46.800 checked my satchel clipboards, a creased city notebook, two pencils, 72 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:50.079 a twenty five foot tape measure, and my phone loaded 73 00:04:50.120 --> 00:04:54.399 with GPS. And mapping apps. I'd also packed a battered polaroid, 74 00:04:54.680 --> 00:04:57.439 more out of habit than necessity. I'd found you could 75 00:04:57.480 --> 00:05:00.439 learn things with a photo that the hypermodern always miss. 76 00:05:01.519 --> 00:05:03.879 Bell Street unspools from the old court House like a 77 00:05:03.920 --> 00:05:06.519 ribbon in need of pressing, the sort of street meant 78 00:05:06.560 --> 00:05:09.439 for walking, not just crossing. You know at the instant 79 00:05:09.439 --> 00:05:12.399 you step onto the old brickwork. The modern overlay can't 80 00:05:12.439 --> 00:05:16.240 quite hide the generations of feet, wheels and festival parades 81 00:05:16.240 --> 00:05:19.680 that have worn every dip and rise. Cafe chairs cluster 82 00:05:19.959 --> 00:05:24.600 half tidily under awnings painted with faded linearc bells above 83 00:05:25.040 --> 00:05:29.480 second story balconies sag with years, geraniums braving the city air. 84 00:05:30.600 --> 00:05:34.240 If I sound sentimental, maybe I am. Bell is one 85 00:05:34.279 --> 00:05:37.199 of those streets whose quirks are not curated for tourists, 86 00:05:37.439 --> 00:05:41.959 but grown out of the city's ordinary, unsteady affection. My 87 00:05:42.040 --> 00:05:45.519 approach was methodical, or so I told myself. Twine the 88 00:05:45.560 --> 00:05:50.519 tape measure from pine walk marker to marker, sketch every doorway, 89 00:05:50.639 --> 00:05:55.079 make notes on building materials, log addresses. It wasn't glamorous, 90 00:05:55.199 --> 00:05:58.240 but as an urban planner, I'd always felt more loyalty 91 00:05:58.279 --> 00:06:02.639 to curb heights than to celest abstractions. The neighborhood is 92 00:06:02.680 --> 00:06:06.240 alive even at this hour. Missus Leao hair held back 93 00:06:06.240 --> 00:06:09.120 by a planetary array of knitting needles, chatters with a 94 00:06:09.160 --> 00:06:13.560 friend outside her yarn store, woolves and wonders. Across the way, 95 00:06:13.879 --> 00:06:16.720 the Laughing Donkey Pub props its windows for the day's 96 00:06:16.759 --> 00:06:20.800 first lemonye breeze. I wave at Matt the bartender, his 97 00:06:20.920 --> 00:06:25.319 fingers already inkstained from crosswords, towels slung over one shoulder 98 00:06:25.399 --> 00:06:29.079 as though stage ready. Ken and Kelly, the twins with 99 00:06:29.199 --> 00:06:33.639 matching neon jackets, pedal past astride a two tall cargo bicycle, 100 00:06:33.920 --> 00:06:38.680 bells pinging to telegraph their delivery route. Jesse want a doughnut? 101 00:06:39.079 --> 00:06:43.360 Wrong delivery again, Kelly calls I accept. The doughnut is 102 00:06:43.399 --> 00:06:46.680 faintly warm, and leaves a cinnamon grit on my fingers. 103 00:06:47.439 --> 00:06:50.800 Even in this cluster of regulars, my clipboard doesn't draw 104 00:06:50.879 --> 00:06:55.800 a second glance. Here. Everybody knows everybody, or so they'll claim, 105 00:06:55.959 --> 00:06:59.120 until someone forgets your name but recalls the color of 106 00:06:59.160 --> 00:07:03.199 your front door. In nineteen eighty seven, at the next corner, 107 00:07:03.279 --> 00:07:06.639 a mere texts, you'll find Old Bell Street, is longer 108 00:07:06.639 --> 00:07:09.680 than it looks. I roll my eyes. He loves to tease, 109 00:07:10.040 --> 00:07:14.800 but my anticipation sharpens. Spending so much time moving on paper, 110 00:07:15.160 --> 00:07:18.759 it's easy to forget streets or environments, living and communal, 111 00:07:18.959 --> 00:07:24.639 not diagrams. I walk slowly, marking addresses, counting steps, the 112 00:07:24.720 --> 00:07:28.839 counting itself, steadying my early curiosity. As I walk, I 113 00:07:28.879 --> 00:07:33.240 rehearse explanations. Perhaps the nineteen twenty six map measured property 114 00:07:33.279 --> 00:07:36.839 lines rather than street center. Maybe a city block had 115 00:07:36.839 --> 00:07:39.319 been lopped off in a post war housing boom in 116 00:07:39.439 --> 00:07:44.240 full construction is notorious for hiding ghosts of boundaries. All plausible. 117 00:07:45.199 --> 00:07:48.439 But as I passed number thirty four, a formerly derelict 118 00:07:48.519 --> 00:07:52.079 row house now gleaming with new paint, my mind flickers. 119 00:07:52.480 --> 00:07:55.360 What was I really expecting to find? That a missing 120 00:07:55.439 --> 00:07:59.879 stretch of Bell Street might reveal itself physically restored that walk, 121 00:08:00.160 --> 00:08:02.120 it would uncover the error with a tap of the 122 00:08:02.160 --> 00:08:05.319 tape measure. The belief that this could be made sensible 123 00:08:05.360 --> 00:08:08.519 began to seem to me a kind of wishful optimism. 124 00:08:09.519 --> 00:08:12.920 After half an hour of measured, pleasant progress, I stop 125 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:17.040 and glance back Bell Street, a living artery of small 126 00:08:17.079 --> 00:08:21.240 city life. Every handshake, every chalk drawing on the old brick, 127 00:08:21.600 --> 00:08:24.680 every scent of cinnamon, and automobile exhaust a layer in 128 00:08:24.720 --> 00:08:29.600 the street's thick palimpsest. If contradiction existed here, it hid 129 00:08:29.600 --> 00:08:33.080 itself behind the welcome of every day routines. But the 130 00:08:33.120 --> 00:08:36.159 more ordinary it felt, the more I became convinced that 131 00:08:36.159 --> 00:08:41.519 the solution, a true durable map, was within reach, one foot, 132 00:08:41.639 --> 00:08:46.039 then the other, toward Bell Street's southern marker stone. I 133 00:08:46.120 --> 00:08:49.200 started the walk just after ten, determined to time it 134 00:08:49.279 --> 00:08:53.080 precisely from pine streets or eight cast iron sign I 135 00:08:53.159 --> 00:08:56.240 hit my stopwatch and set out. The city's pace was 136 00:08:56.279 --> 00:08:59.279 its own, but I measured it against my own metronome, 137 00:08:59.639 --> 00:09:05.120 step count frontages. The calculus of sidewalk squares. Eight minutes, 138 00:09:05.159 --> 00:09:07.519 by my estimate, ought to bring me to the weathered 139 00:09:07.559 --> 00:09:11.639 granite stone at lower reed. Even accounting for detours, My 140 00:09:11.759 --> 00:09:15.559 stride is predictably consistent the benefit of years in sight 141 00:09:15.679 --> 00:09:19.720 visits and slow commutes. Yet as I moved time seemed 142 00:09:19.759 --> 00:09:23.480 to decouple from my experience. Bell Street to day was 143 00:09:23.519 --> 00:09:27.360 longer than I recalled. At first, the familiar shops, the 144 00:09:27.440 --> 00:09:30.639 dry cleaner with burned torringe awnings, the bakery with its 145 00:09:30.720 --> 00:09:34.559 chalkboard lamb based in gluten free muffins. Sorry we're traditionalists, 146 00:09:34.879 --> 00:09:38.440 and the beloved Bells and Beans cafe. But half way 147 00:09:38.480 --> 00:09:42.279 down something misaligned. I passed a mural I distinctly didn't 148 00:09:42.320 --> 00:09:46.320 remember an old steam train, every bolt and whirl rendered 149 00:09:46.360 --> 00:09:51.320 in wild scrawled detail. Next, a tiny post office stoop 150 00:09:51.399 --> 00:09:56.279 freshly swept its windows stamped full service air mail. I 151 00:09:56.360 --> 00:09:59.759 glanced at my own hand drawn map. Nothing cataloged at 152 00:09:59.759 --> 00:10:03.159 this spot but blank wall. Yet the post office seemed 153 00:10:03.159 --> 00:10:08.039 as established as any shop. My wrist buzzed. Seventeen minutes 154 00:10:08.080 --> 00:10:10.440 since I'd left Pine and I was still a half 155 00:10:10.480 --> 00:10:14.200 block from the marker stone. The street was neither unusually 156 00:10:14.240 --> 00:10:19.559 congested nor unfamiliar, Yet the walk refused to match my expectations. 157 00:10:20.039 --> 00:10:23.039 Curiosity rising, I paused, made a rough sketch of the 158 00:10:23.080 --> 00:10:26.559 train mural, pennied post office at b l K forty 159 00:10:26.600 --> 00:10:30.679 one in the margins, and checked the address. The building 160 00:10:30.759 --> 00:10:34.360 bore no number, but a yellow mail box proved authentic enough. 161 00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:38.840 I resumed at the marker stone twenty minutes later, too 162 00:10:38.879 --> 00:10:41.840 long by any accounting. I pulled my notes from an 163 00:10:41.840 --> 00:10:46.399 earlier field visit. The previous summer walked Bell eight fifty two. 164 00:10:47.320 --> 00:10:50.559 No mural, no post office, just a florist's van parked 165 00:10:50.559 --> 00:10:54.240 at that stretch. If my scribbles could be trusted out 166 00:10:54.279 --> 00:10:58.960 of habit for calibration, I headed into the Laughing Donkey pub. Matt, 167 00:10:59.159 --> 00:11:02.480 in his usual star dance, greeted me with an arched eyebrow. 168 00:11:03.480 --> 00:11:06.240 You look like you walked here from France, he drawled, 169 00:11:06.480 --> 00:11:11.360 drying a pint glass. I'm clocking Bell Street, actually, I said, 170 00:11:11.600 --> 00:11:15.440 dropping my clipboard onto the sticky bar. That post office. 171 00:11:15.679 --> 00:11:18.879 Can't find it on any city document. Was it always there? 172 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:25.000 Matt's eyebrows clambered higher. Of course, the postage machines older 173 00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:27.559 than I am used to sneak in to buy penny 174 00:11:27.600 --> 00:11:31.360 stamps for my comic books. Can't imagine Bell Street without it. 175 00:11:32.480 --> 00:11:35.399 A pause, then missus Leao, setting her knitting on the bar, 176 00:11:35.600 --> 00:11:39.480 shook her head gently. Post office. There was a flower cart, 177 00:11:39.679 --> 00:11:43.240 always peonies and tulips, next to the mural. Sweet old 178 00:11:43.320 --> 00:11:46.519 man named Darius, you know, with the hat he'd sing 179 00:11:46.559 --> 00:11:51.759 on Tuesdays. Matt laughed. No flower cart that was on Birch, 180 00:11:51.879 --> 00:11:55.480 not Bell From the booth in back, Ken and Kelly 181 00:11:55.559 --> 00:11:59.360 ever in dispute, called over, it's a bakery. Jesse always 182 00:11:59.360 --> 00:12:02.039 has been the one with the tangled string in the window. 183 00:12:02.279 --> 00:12:06.399 Kelly insisted, mouth full of Peter. Ken counted, now that's 184 00:12:06.480 --> 00:12:11.039 down nearer, reed number one hundred seventeen. You delivered there too, Remember, 185 00:12:11.639 --> 00:12:15.919 of course, they said together forever. The matter of fact 186 00:12:15.960 --> 00:12:19.080 tone in their voices only deepened the fog. Here were 187 00:12:19.120 --> 00:12:22.679 three stories of that single block, each as unwavering as 188 00:12:22.720 --> 00:12:27.159 October sunrise. The mural, the post office, the bakery, the 189 00:12:27.159 --> 00:12:31.039 flower cart, places that existed differently in each mind, but 190 00:12:31.159 --> 00:12:37.960 always belonged. Small discrepancies, I thought can be explained old businesses, renovations, 191 00:12:38.080 --> 00:12:41.840 failed memory. But the confidence with which each person delivered 192 00:12:41.840 --> 00:12:45.799 a mutually exclusive history left me hanging. If Bell Street's 193 00:12:45.840 --> 00:12:50.039 basic loud, its businesses, even its timings shifted between my 194 00:12:50.120 --> 00:12:54.320 observations and residents memories, what precisely had I been measuring? 195 00:12:54.759 --> 00:12:58.360 This was no longer mere confusion. This was the quicksand 196 00:12:58.399 --> 00:13:02.159 of certainty. On the walk back to the satellite office, 197 00:13:02.320 --> 00:13:04.480 I watched the street with a new kind of attention. 198 00:13:05.279 --> 00:13:09.279 Doors seemed less certain of their addresses, alleyways once crisp 199 00:13:09.320 --> 00:13:12.720 in their dead ended practicalities now appeared as hints of 200 00:13:12.759 --> 00:13:18.200 something ungraspable. I felt both disoriented and deeply interested, attention 201 00:13:18.440 --> 00:13:22.120 not of fear, but of possibility. By the middle of 202 00:13:22.159 --> 00:13:24.559 the week, my note book had become a palimpsest of 203 00:13:24.600 --> 00:13:29.080 scratched out measures, looping arrows, question marks, and dog eared pages. 204 00:13:29.120 --> 00:13:32.799 Stuffed with fliers and business cards. Every entry raised more 205 00:13:32.879 --> 00:13:36.600 questions than it settled. I found myself regarding Bell Street 206 00:13:36.639 --> 00:13:39.600 as if seeing it for the first time. Fresh flowers 207 00:13:39.600 --> 00:13:43.080 on a different stoop, a brick wall patched with new graffiti, 208 00:13:43.519 --> 00:13:47.399 you are here, written in looping yellow. So I began 209 00:13:47.440 --> 00:13:51.720 to return at different hours, intent on cataloging every possible dyscrepcy. 210 00:13:52.279 --> 00:13:55.600 Tuesday dawn, I left my apartment wearing boots and resolve. 211 00:13:56.080 --> 00:13:58.200 I walked the street not as a commuter, but as 212 00:13:58.240 --> 00:14:02.240 a detective, stopwatch ready, clipboard in hand, I repeated the 213 00:14:02.279 --> 00:14:05.759 north to south traversal thirteen minutes, door to marker with 214 00:14:05.840 --> 00:14:09.399 a cafe midway. I did not remember a dress eighty 215 00:14:09.440 --> 00:14:14.480 five b blue awning tricycle cafe and repair. I snapped 216 00:14:14.519 --> 00:14:18.440 a picture, annotated my map, then asked a passing dog 217 00:14:18.480 --> 00:14:22.600 walker if he remembered it. Shaw opened five years back. 218 00:14:22.679 --> 00:14:26.320 I think he said, nonplussed, they brew the cinnamon coffee. 219 00:14:26.440 --> 00:14:31.519 Right Wednesday, a new variable gray drizzle, umbrellas bobbing like 220 00:14:31.639 --> 00:14:35.960 urban mushrooms. I walked the east side, exclusively, counting windows, 221 00:14:36.039 --> 00:14:39.759 noting doorways. The post office had vanished, replaced by a 222 00:14:39.879 --> 00:14:43.840 dark frontage with an inky shuttered bookshop labeled Sunlight Books, 223 00:14:44.080 --> 00:14:48.519 second floor. I backtracked. The mural persisted, but now it 224 00:14:48.600 --> 00:14:52.600 depicted a tall ship. My phone's camera roll became a 225 00:14:52.639 --> 00:14:57.679 catalog of contradictions. A photo from Monday afternoon tricycle cafes 226 00:14:57.679 --> 00:15:02.519 blue awning, prominent sandwich bor touting iced lavender tea, same 227 00:15:02.600 --> 00:15:06.960 corner Wednesday, photo time stamped two zero eight p m 228 00:15:07.320 --> 00:15:11.120 now absent, replaced by a bike rental's folding sign no 229 00:15:11.279 --> 00:15:16.120 cafe in sight. Baffled, I printed both images, placing them 230 00:15:16.159 --> 00:15:20.120 side by side. I checked GPS tags both at Bell 231 00:15:20.240 --> 00:15:24.519 and Maple, a difference impossible to overlook. I wondered, in 232 00:15:24.559 --> 00:15:28.720 a moment of sheepishness, if the city's notorious renumbering might 233 00:15:28.759 --> 00:15:31.960 have extended to store fronts, though no ordinance i'd read 234 00:15:31.960 --> 00:15:35.919 accounted for entire businesses flickering in and out of mapped reality. 235 00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:40.320 My third attempt took a different tack. Instead of walking 236 00:15:40.360 --> 00:15:44.159 straight through, I stopped outside Wools and Wonders and struck 237 00:15:44.240 --> 00:15:47.639 up a conversation with missus Leao, who was stringing banners 238 00:15:47.679 --> 00:15:52.600 of tiny multicolored sheep between her front windows. I'm trying 239 00:15:52.600 --> 00:15:55.480 to pin down a dresses and shops, I said, But 240 00:15:55.600 --> 00:15:59.279 things keep changing. I walked past a mural the other day. 241 00:16:00.360 --> 00:16:04.559 Missus Leo's face creased in delight. Oh that mural. I 242 00:16:04.639 --> 00:16:08.519 remember summer evenings knitting under those purple vine flowers just 243 00:16:08.600 --> 00:16:11.639 by the mural with my daughter and her friends. We 244 00:16:11.759 --> 00:16:14.720 used to listen to the gardener's sing. Haven't seen those 245 00:16:14.799 --> 00:16:19.279 vines in years, have you, Jesse? I hesitated, I'm not 246 00:16:19.399 --> 00:16:22.600 sure I've ever seen purple vines on Bell Street? Where 247 00:16:22.639 --> 00:16:26.879 were they exactly? Oh, right near the old sandwich place 248 00:16:27.120 --> 00:16:30.639 where the bakery is now? Or was I think? She pursed, 249 00:16:30.639 --> 00:16:34.039 her lips puzzled for a split second, then smiled and 250 00:16:34.120 --> 00:16:38.399 resumed her knitting. Next stop, the pub, mat chalk in 251 00:16:38.480 --> 00:16:41.679 hand was sketching that day's specials. I handed him a 252 00:16:41.720 --> 00:16:45.159 page of my sketch map mat. Where does Bell Street 253 00:16:45.240 --> 00:16:49.480 actually run? He grinned, seizing a pen and drawing a 254 00:16:49.519 --> 00:16:52.759 tidy fork in the middle of my straight line. Here's 255 00:16:52.840 --> 00:16:55.840 the secret. The north ends always curved off toward the 256 00:16:55.919 --> 00:16:59.559 river side. Most people walk straight through, but locals know 257 00:16:59.679 --> 00:17:02.720 the For had friends who lived out on Bell North 258 00:17:03.039 --> 00:17:06.720 back when the tram ran up the center. A tram 259 00:17:07.079 --> 00:17:10.400 i flipped through every record. I had no mention. But 260 00:17:10.559 --> 00:17:13.559 surely the city couldn't erase an entire street car line, 261 00:17:13.640 --> 00:17:17.920 could it. Matt shrugged. Trust me, the old tracks are 262 00:17:17.960 --> 00:17:21.759 still under the bricks somewhere. Just then, Ken and Kelly 263 00:17:21.839 --> 00:17:26.119 rolled through the door, helmets askew. You're both wrong, Ken declared, 264 00:17:26.240 --> 00:17:29.799 waving a brown bag. Number one hundred seventeen has always 265 00:17:29.839 --> 00:17:34.599 been just around the fork left side. Kelly interrupted, No, no, 266 00:17:34.680 --> 00:17:38.039 it's past the mural, same side as the dentist. We've 267 00:17:38.039 --> 00:17:42.039 delivered there for years. I asked, But there's no one 268 00:17:42.079 --> 00:17:47.640 hundred seventeen in last year's directory. Jesse, These directories are 269 00:17:47.680 --> 00:17:51.920 never right, ask anyone, They intoned, as if the city's 270 00:17:51.920 --> 00:17:56.200 efforts at order were a long standing joke. Each conversation 271 00:17:56.359 --> 00:17:59.559 left me with a map more distorted than before. No 272 00:17:59.640 --> 00:18:02.839 two residents could fully agree on the shape length or 273 00:18:02.920 --> 00:18:06.279 landmarks of Bell Street. Yet each spoke with the absolute 274 00:18:06.279 --> 00:18:11.039 confidence of memory, worn smooth by habit. Most unsettling and 275 00:18:11.119 --> 00:18:13.960 most fascinating was that no one seemed to find the 276 00:18:13.960 --> 00:18:18.400 situation strange at all. The patterns only grew more elaborate 277 00:18:18.400 --> 00:18:21.720 as I dug further. I retreated to my desk, crowding 278 00:18:21.720 --> 00:18:26.240 my laptop with city records, property tax rolls, redevelopment plans, 279 00:18:26.400 --> 00:18:30.599 photo archives, old city promotional reels. I even unearthed a 280 00:18:30.640 --> 00:18:34.039 black and white v h S tape Bell Street, Heart 281 00:18:34.079 --> 00:18:37.640 of the City nineteen seventy four. I watched its fuzzed 282 00:18:37.640 --> 00:18:41.279 footage on our dusty office TV after midnight, dogged with 283 00:18:41.319 --> 00:18:45.640 fatigue and anticipation. On the tape, the camera panned down 284 00:18:45.680 --> 00:18:49.440 a lively Bell Street, carnival tents and balloons, a stilt 285 00:18:49.519 --> 00:18:52.960 walker juggling apples in front of a bakery with striped awnings. 286 00:18:53.519 --> 00:18:55.920 Kids chased each other around a corner where to day 287 00:18:56.240 --> 00:19:00.279 nothing stands but a hardware store. The narrator gushed from 288 00:19:00.279 --> 00:19:04.039 Pender's Market to the sun bright cafe. Bell Street welcomes all. 289 00:19:04.720 --> 00:19:07.759 Yet my tax rolls showed no trace of either business. 290 00:19:08.039 --> 00:19:12.039 Not in nineteen seventy four. Not ever in the paper records, 291 00:19:12.319 --> 00:19:16.119 I found tax entries for a photography studio studio or releio, 292 00:19:16.519 --> 00:19:21.599 supposedly operational for thirty years, but owners records missing. No 293 00:19:21.720 --> 00:19:24.720 one in the business registrations remembered a studio or releio. 294 00:19:25.200 --> 00:19:30.000 I called the city's property records Hotland, expecting the usual script. Instead, 295 00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:33.920 a clerk named Judy paused longer than usual, then said 296 00:19:34.119 --> 00:19:37.119 that name rings a bell, but maybe that's just Bell 297 00:19:37.200 --> 00:19:41.359 Street working its magic. They always do things a little 298 00:19:41.400 --> 00:19:45.200 differently down there. It was at this point, hunched over 299 00:19:45.319 --> 00:19:49.440 layers of incongruent data, myself assurance faltered. I could no 300 00:19:49.480 --> 00:19:54.000 longer fall back on explanations of incomplete documentation, lost street signs, 301 00:19:54.119 --> 00:19:57.960 or redevelopment cycles. Each data set conjured a different Bell Street, 302 00:19:58.240 --> 00:20:03.480 and every artifact, photograph, tax record, video, personal memory seemed 303 00:20:03.519 --> 00:20:07.599 stubbornly unwilling to reconcile with the others. Far from clarifying, 304 00:20:07.920 --> 00:20:11.680 each new piece multiplied the possibilities. A mandal brought set 305 00:20:11.680 --> 00:20:15.640 of civic certainty. By now, my clipboard was a thicket 306 00:20:16.160 --> 00:20:20.079 tally marks for distance, exes for doorways, notes for every 307 00:20:20.119 --> 00:20:23.960 irregular window, But each new pass along bell Street redrew 308 00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:27.519 the map. Meanwhile, the people who lived and worked their 309 00:20:27.599 --> 00:20:32.279 gestured comfortably through the sea of contradictions, unruffled, almost amused. 310 00:20:33.359 --> 00:20:37.319 If it all sounds slippery, it was. That's the word slippery. 311 00:20:37.799 --> 00:20:40.000 The harder I tried to press Bell Street into a 312 00:20:40.039 --> 00:20:42.920 single version, the more it became evident that it would not, 313 00:20:43.079 --> 00:20:46.440 perhaps could not be pinned. It was less a fixed path, 314 00:20:46.799 --> 00:20:50.599 more a field of possibilities, broadening and contracting depending on 315 00:20:50.640 --> 00:20:54.720 who walked it and when. Late Friday, the sky moving 316 00:20:54.759 --> 00:20:57.839 from gold to ink, I abandoned my desk and returned 317 00:20:57.839 --> 00:21:00.319 to Bell Street with a box of sidewalk chalk. My 318 00:21:00.440 --> 00:21:04.440 last practical trick, I left marks, an airy yellow line 319 00:21:04.480 --> 00:21:07.119 at what, by every source should be the exact corner 320 00:21:07.160 --> 00:21:10.799 of Bells and beans, A blue star beside missus Leo's entryway, 321 00:21:11.119 --> 00:21:14.680 a slowly fading arrow tracing the edge of the disappearing mural. 322 00:21:15.200 --> 00:21:19.119 My plan was simple, create fixed points, check them each day, 323 00:21:19.319 --> 00:21:24.799 document deviations. Next morning, the sun rose crisp airwashed clean 324 00:21:24.880 --> 00:21:28.519 by spring rain, I hurried down Bell Street. Some marks 325 00:21:28.559 --> 00:21:32.440 were gone, washed away, I assumed, but the yellow line remained, 326 00:21:32.680 --> 00:21:35.519 now meeting the edge of a shuttered bakery and bells 327 00:21:35.519 --> 00:21:38.480 and beans had apparently nudged a few feet closer to pine. 328 00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:42.880 The blue Star, undisturbed, hovered not beside Missus Leoo's, but 329 00:21:43.000 --> 00:21:45.839 outside a fish market I'd seen only on the nineteen 330 00:21:45.880 --> 00:21:51.119 seventy six promo tape. I photographed each time, stamped the evidence, 331 00:21:51.359 --> 00:21:55.920 and overlaid them with yesterday's foone photos. The alignment refused 332 00:21:55.960 --> 00:21:59.680 to hold. The buildings themselves, now stuttered in their positions, 333 00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:04.319 some shifted centimeters, some transformed in the background of my 334 00:22:04.400 --> 00:22:08.920 own snapshots. I ran a repeat test in the afternoon. 335 00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:12.079 I marked the edges of the hardware store with green lines. 336 00:22:12.599 --> 00:22:16.039 Evening came. The lines smudged, but the building seemed taller. 337 00:22:16.599 --> 00:22:21.000 I blinked, checked my notepad, scrolled back through photos last week. 338 00:22:21.039 --> 00:22:25.920 It was three windows across, now four, confusing, perhaps even infuriating, 339 00:22:26.200 --> 00:22:30.680 but exhilarating in its audacity. At the satellite office, under 340 00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:33.880 the stuck hum of a tired fluorescent bulb, I layered 341 00:22:33.920 --> 00:22:37.359 my own maps made just days apart, on the light table. 342 00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:44.000 The overlays refused to line up features I'd plotted before. Doorways, driveways, bends, 343 00:22:44.480 --> 00:22:48.039 met empty space, or overlapped with fixtures that should not exist, 344 00:22:48.359 --> 00:22:52.680 according to my own careful documentation. I phoned a mire, 345 00:22:52.960 --> 00:22:55.680 hoping for at least a routing in the past. Hey 346 00:22:55.880 --> 00:23:00.000 you're the expert, right you grew up near Bell he hummed, 347 00:23:00.400 --> 00:23:03.599 Sure did. In the nineties, Bell Street was our short 348 00:23:03.640 --> 00:23:06.599 cut to downtown. You could kick a soccer ball from 349 00:23:06.599 --> 00:23:09.440 the tram stop to the corner shop. It was wider. 350 00:23:09.480 --> 00:23:13.440 Then they put in the bike lane, didn't they tram? 351 00:23:13.680 --> 00:23:17.039 I asked again, there's nothing on the record. The tram 352 00:23:17.119 --> 00:23:21.680 line was voted down, canceled in sixty two. He laughed, 353 00:23:22.039 --> 00:23:25.000 couldn't be. We used to see the red cars every morning. 354 00:23:25.480 --> 00:23:27.720 My mother swears we once caught a tram in from 355 00:23:27.759 --> 00:23:31.240 Bell North late for school, whole row of us back 356 00:23:31.319 --> 00:23:35.400 packs and snow in our hair. I relayed my confusion. 357 00:23:35.759 --> 00:23:38.640 Tram lines called off in sixty two, before your time, 358 00:23:38.960 --> 00:23:43.400 the changing cafes and shifted shops, streets refusing to match themselves. 359 00:23:43.920 --> 00:23:48.160 Ameir just chuckled. Bell's a funny street, always has been. 360 00:23:48.640 --> 00:23:50.880 Maybe it's not about what's there, but about what you 361 00:23:50.960 --> 00:23:54.559 need when you walk it. I realized then that even 362 00:23:54.599 --> 00:23:59.000 my own hands measuring, drawing, recording could not hold Bell 363 00:23:59.079 --> 00:24:03.359 Street still. The facts themselves flexed. The harder I tried 364 00:24:03.400 --> 00:24:06.599 to resolve the puzzle through documentation, the more it grew 365 00:24:06.640 --> 00:24:09.640 apparent this wasn't a bug to fix, but a feature 366 00:24:09.680 --> 00:24:15.319 to examine. I'd started this with a clear assignment, confirmed dimensions, 367 00:24:15.519 --> 00:24:19.880 document boundaries, finalize a plaza plan. But Bell Street would 368 00:24:19.880 --> 00:24:23.400 not resolve itself into a single narrative, a fixed length, 369 00:24:23.680 --> 00:24:26.720 or one true layout. Its shifting form was not an 370 00:24:26.720 --> 00:24:29.799 anomaly to be corrected, but a truth to be considered. 371 00:24:30.839 --> 00:24:33.960 So I changed my strategy. I set aside the ambition 372 00:24:34.079 --> 00:24:37.720 of producing the definitive map. Instead, I began keeping a 373 00:24:37.799 --> 00:24:42.039 running color coded log of each walk, each story, each photograph, 374 00:24:42.480 --> 00:24:45.319 a living index of Bell Street in all its pluralities, 375 00:24:45.960 --> 00:24:48.799 square by square, day by day, I made peace with 376 00:24:48.839 --> 00:24:52.240 the possibility that geography here was not just soil and stone, 377 00:24:52.599 --> 00:24:56.759 but something like collective memory, moving through space, never settled, 378 00:24:57.079 --> 00:25:01.359 always in the process of being made Belle Street. I realized, 379 00:25:01.680 --> 00:25:05.519 sitting alone, my desk, now papered with diagrams that danced 380 00:25:05.559 --> 00:25:08.400 and flickered and tangled, did not want to be measured, 381 00:25:08.599 --> 00:25:13.400 but noticed. By Monday, even my colour coded, cross referenced 382 00:25:13.440 --> 00:25:16.480 log had begun to resemble more an art project than 383 00:25:16.519 --> 00:25:20.359 a proper city planner's record. Rows of sticky notes curling 384 00:25:20.440 --> 00:25:24.440 upward on the wall behind my desk, columns of taped photographs, 385 00:25:24.759 --> 00:25:28.920 and every whiteboard I could swipe, bearing lines that fanned, forked, 386 00:25:29.279 --> 00:25:32.480 and overlapped in ways. I no longer even tried to 387 00:25:32.480 --> 00:25:37.160 make neat. My colleagues paused during coffee runs and squinted 388 00:25:37.160 --> 00:25:40.640 at my madness. A mere in particular took to hanging 389 00:25:40.680 --> 00:25:44.680 in the doorway and muttering arcane encouragements. Every street is 390 00:25:44.720 --> 00:25:47.519 a kind of language, Jesse. You just need to hear 391 00:25:47.599 --> 00:25:51.559 the accents. But language or not, I needed some way 392 00:25:51.559 --> 00:25:54.079 to get my hands around the thing. So I gathered 393 00:25:54.160 --> 00:25:57.559 up every record, artifact and bit of evidence i could. 394 00:25:58.079 --> 00:26:01.519 Two vintage postcards of Bell Street, one showed an opera 395 00:26:01.519 --> 00:26:03.759 house that had never come up in any other document, 396 00:26:04.240 --> 00:26:09.039 Three architectural plans, all with different block lengths, photocopied blueprints 397 00:26:09.039 --> 00:26:12.200 from the archives, and a jumbled stack of oral history 398 00:26:12.200 --> 00:26:15.759 interviews Emir had persuaded older residents to give at the 399 00:26:15.759 --> 00:26:19.559 community center. I even cared for a box of lost 400 00:26:19.599 --> 00:26:22.839 and found items plucked from the very edges of the sidewalk. 401 00:26:23.400 --> 00:26:27.400