Monroe Park on a Rainy Day (cont.)

These are some more pictures I took while wandering around Monroe Park on that cold day. There were a couple of imperfections in the walkways which were very interesting. After searching these paths for things to shoot, I stumbled across a patch of grass surrounded by asphalt. It sort of resembled an island, the green of the grass was surrounded by the wet darker hue of the asphalt, obviously analogous to a a body of land surrounded by water. According to Wikipedia (a.k.a. the best website ever created), Monroe Park was purchased in the 1850s, and began development as a recreation area in the 1870s (the walkways were probably also made soon afterwards). Thus, it is very interesting to see its modern state, nearly 130-140 years after its conception. Years of erosion, weathering, and maybe even blunt force to such a random parcel of the sidewalk is quite peculiar. The story of its creation is one that noone probably ever documented, yet its existence cannot be denied. It all falls into the genre of earth art that describes of the reclamation of manmade structures by the Earth. This subtle decay is rather beautiful, especially as its form alludes to other landforms (i.e. islands), furthering its ties to the Earth.

Some other pictures I took focused on imperfections on the curbs. These also fall into that nearly infinite category of Earth reclamation. In many of these pictures it seems as if the Earth is "attacking" the manmade asphalt on multiple fronts, invading its territory and conquering the underlying ground.