a walking tour of downtown saturday shangri-lowell

you'll have to forgive the formatting on this one, as i really don't know an easy way to arrange these all via blogger. you'll also have to forgive what will appear to my detractor as "bias", as many of these come from the market/palmer nexus that's been our previous sticking point. i honestly tried as hard as i could to walk up and down every street downtown within the perimeter formed by middlesex street to the south, marston street to the west of the jambra section, central and bridge streets to the east, father morisette to the north, and shattuck street and kirk street to the west of the downtown downtown section. so with that as an outline, i made the complete tour, including all the interior streets as well, and just took in what i could see. the goal was to walk around every one of the four bars that the detractor called out, and catch everything in between as well.

the photographs, in order as best i can tell via the blogger composition tool, are:

1. the trash can outside the leo roy garage containing the 22 oz heineken empty that apparently came from someone "pregaming" (as that size isn't sold in any of the bars downtown) that's across the street from the bar that shall not be named but could have come from anyone patronizing anything on market or middle street using that garage as their home base as is frequently the case.

2. the remants of the mixed drink in the plastic cup placed atop the trash container on palmer street outside the bar that shall not be named that i'll suggest is quite likely from the bar that shall not be named because they're one of the only ones i know (the only ones i know, actually), serving in plastic cups downtown these days, but if you have better information on serving containers please improve mine.

3. the coors light empty on the ground on palmer street outside the bar that shall not be named.

4. the bud light and nip bottle on the ground in the alley off of palmer street outside the bar that shall not be named.

5. the broken heineken bottle in the park half a block down middle street from both the old court and the village smokehouse.

6. the half-empty plastic cup containing the remnants of a mixed drink in a doorway on middle street halfway between the old court (who does not to my knowledge serve in plastic cups) and the village smokehouse (which does not to my knowledge serve in plastic cups).

7. the bud light can and vodka bottle in the trash container on middle street outside the side door to the old court.

8. the empty bud light bottle on the ground across the street from savanna palace.

9. the red stripe beer bottle on the ground inside the fence on middlesex street on the other side of the early garage from garcia brogans.

what i did not observe was any alcohol-related trash off the premises of either hookslide kelly's or brians ivy hall, neither on merrimack street, bridge street, lee street, john street, paige street, kirk street, or father morisette boulevard. (an asterisk for the alley besides hookslide kellys that was rife with the detritus of outdoor drinking, which i'm unclear whether is considered on their premises or not--if not, then there are a bunch of photos deserving to be here that are not). this does not mean the crowds at BIH and hookslides didn't get into fights or otherwise cause disturbances with and without a police presence, just that last night there did not seem to be any trash or unfortunate bodily effluents or vandalism in that area of downtown to leave record of it. the majority of the leavings continue to be in the area fanning out from the intersections of palmer and middle street on one end of the block, and palmer and market streets on the other end of the block, and you can call it bias or anything else you like, but that's what i saw this morning. and, like i said, i walked all over lee john paige and kirk streets where some have suggested all the trouble generally is. it also doesn't speak to the ambulance call on middle street pictured in a previous post, the details of which aren't available because rob mills is on vacation and there clearly isn't anyone else like him writing about downtown and elsewhere anywhere in this city. (we miss you rob!)

if you have pictures, stories, or rebuttals, please contribute. this is just random picture-taking intended to provoke discussion, not draw conclusions.