recreation Archives - American Dirt.

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31 articles

Jones Point Virginia: where two states diverge in a wood. Take the retrocession less traveled.

February 9, 2023 No Comments

Many years ago, I met up with a friend in Belgium who took me to the nearby Dreiländerpunkt, where Belgium, Netherlands, and Germany converge, with boundaries lines vaguely resembling the logo for Mercedes-Benz. How appropriately German. The glories of the Schengen Agreement have, since 1995, eliminated the fortified boundaries that straitjacketed these small countries for

RFK Stadium is coming down. But not before it can serve as lucrative ad space!

January 31, 2023 6 Comments

It’s surprisingly difficult to see along the nearby Anacostia Freeway (District Highway 295); the trees block it, and even in the winter, there’s just not a good angle. But if you’re a pedestrian jogging along either side the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail in Washington DC, it’s impossible to miss. The monstrosity really presents itself well on

Adopt-a-Park: stitching up a loose pocket park to keep public money from falling through.

October 28, 2022 2 Comments

Coming a few weeks on the heels of my article about the well-known Adopt-a-Highway program, I encountered a slightly less familiar (but none too surprising) example of another exercise in civics: the Adopt-a-Park. In this case, the sign reveals a tribute to Bean, Kenney, & Korman, a law firm that has adopted a pocket park

Flagging the falls, geotagging the jokes: another meme for the First State.

August 31, 2022 No Comments

It’s not nice. But it probably was inevitable. Earlier this summer, during a photo shoot on a weekend getaway to his beachside vacation home, a certain head of state stopped his bike but was unable to disengage his feet from the toe clamps in time. Having nothing to stabilize himself, he fell over. No serious

Whitestone apartments: when low-lying land is for the dogs…and that’s a good thing.

August 13, 2022 No Comments

As evidence mounts that the prime child-raising generations at the moment seem to prefer raising pets over children, it should come as no surprise that a growing number of residential developments host dog parks as a predictable amenity. I’ve covered the topic numerous times before: from a forest clearing in a tucked away corner of

Directional arrows in excess: the squires’ turf wars cause serfs’ confusion.

July 29, 2022 4 Comments

“Too many cooks…” It was an aphorism decades before it became a cult short film–maybe even centuries. We all know how it ends. And we can all think of examples. After thirteen years at the helm of this blog (American Dirt is finally a teenager!), I had to use my website’s own search function to

Sam Peden Community Park: proof that quality parkland can thrive under utility wires.

July 15, 2022 2 Comments

It’s rare that I create a follow-up post so quickly on the heels of the original, since both articles deal with more or less the same topic. But my post at Pickwick Commons back in late May investigated the possibility of taking an existing utility easement and doubling it with a pedestrian easement. That is,

Francis Scott Key Mall, home to one of the 20 last Sears locations: a montage before extinction.

July 11, 2022 12 Comments

If First Lutheran Church, the subject of my previous blog post, seemed like familiar territory, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Here the once-mighty retailer Sears Roebuck and Company—AKA Sears—for at least the tenth time. I first started featuring this retailer over a decade ago, back when Sears was a staple in most middle-tier malls. Even

Hostile design: a misguided movement to make civic space friendlier to the friendless.

June 24, 2022 10 Comments

It’s rare that an article assumes an urban activist position that gets my dander up at all, let alone one that prompts me to comment directly on the article. But that’s what I had to do a few weeks ago when Planetizen used the neologism (at least to me) “defensive urbanism” to impugn the modern

Yes, we still have no bananas: worm’s-eye assessments of corona after two years.

March 12, 2022 No Comments

We have now reached, almost to the day, the point when the majority of US states, taking the lead from a national disaster declaration, began issuing safety precautions in an attempt to prevent the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), better known as COVID-19, the number attributing the year in which epidemiologists

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