Saturday, March 29, 2003

People are strange

Glenn H. Austin has put an extensive photoessay online about the street people of Madison's State Street.

State Street Mall is Madison's showplace of fun shopping and politically correct activities like art sales and farmer's markets. State Street's heavy population of homeless, poor, and rejected people are quite visible. They panhandle. They play drums and guitars on the street. They lounge in the parks and take up all of the wooden benches placed there.

Madison has a veneer of liberality, but the establishment community would rather that the State Street people didn't exist.

I worked with Glenn H. Austin's sons Glenn and Preston for a number of years; when we got a new manager (my friend Byron), the word I used in describing them to him was "principled." I've only met Glenn H. in passing, but I'm impressed with his work:

We live in denial. Here they are folks; poor and homeless people in Madison, Wisconsin, number one place to live in the United States.

His photoessay feels like a good companion piece to Streets Without Cars, a documentary about the evolution of State Street as a pedestrian mall that also features some of Madison's street people, as well as the developers, politicians, police officers, sports fans and sorority girls that help make State Street what it is. If you're a Madison expatriate, you can still buy a copy of the movie; they've currently got a sale on for UW alumni. Disclaimer: I have no financial interest in this; I just enjoyed the film (we went to its premiere at the Orpheum).