Assorted thoughts and ramblings
Nostalgia — ‘On datedness’
Every so often I like to catch up on the excellent blog McMansion Hell, whose typical fare makes fun of the American phenomenon of McMansions by way of amusingly-labeled Zillow photos. Between these posts, the editor sometimes publishes more serious essays about architecture and the built environment.
One such article, which I found catching up after a hiatus in following the blog, resonated with me deeply. The motel room, or: on datedness puts into words, better than I could ever hope to, the peculiar nostalgia “for things that haven't disappeared yet,” a feeling I find myself succumbing to.
Besides interiors of buildings, which she focuses on, I find myself expressing this feeling when I take a train somewhere; that is, when I take the Metra or the Brown Line somewhere I always choose the oldest car to sit in. The old ‘2600’ cars on the brown and blue lines — which, built in the 1980s, are slated for retirement — give an experience so unlike the newer ‘5000’ cars which ply the Red Line. Those cars are built like dog kennels: harsh white lighting, every surface cold and hostile in color and design; the old 2600 cars are appointed with warm lighting, large inoperable windows, faux wood-grain panelling, brown rubber flooring, and a tan fiberglass interior1. Even the unfluted exterior is more elegant. In a word, these outdated dinosaurs offer a level of coziness that I fear may never again grace the CTA system and which I have an urge to indulge in before its time expires.
As I walk down the Metra platform to board my train2, I always look for the car with the narrowest windows or, better yet, a 1950s or 60s steel car painted red, blue, and silver. Despite the mundanity of a train car, there's something magical about experiencing a space that has been occupied by so many for so long; it's a small taste of a time gone by, a space which has outlived both the company that built it and the one that first bought it but whose utility has stayed. Seeing Metra order its fancy new cars is bittersweet because while modernization is needed, it's a bit of a shame seeing these venerable workhorses unceremoniously abandoned. I see them as living museum pieces, monuments to the history of the everyday.
Anyway, enough rambling about old train cars. Just read the McMansion Hell essay. It's so good.
1Don't get me wrong, the old cars' ride is rough and bumpy and the A/C is anemic. Part of the charm???
2The newer Nippon Sharyo cars, built to an updated spec of the classic metra gallery design, somehow suffer from a maddening amount of squeaks and rattles. You'd think that cars with 40 extra years of technology and design improvement, built in Japan, would be in better shape than cars that're three times their age. Who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯