Here’s the view from underneath an old railroad bridge.
September, 2009
15
Sep 09
896
This pair of pictures comes to us from frequent commenter and Pittsburgh Daily Photographer, Jess, who sent them along after traveling MD state road 896. The catch about MD 896 is that it travels diagonally through the north-eastern most point in Maryland, leaving Delaware in the bottom picture and entering MD only to leave MD in another 1/5 of a mile later.
Much of the confusion around roads in that area, and part of the reason why they almost haphazardly cross the DE border is because the land in DE that is part of the wedge was in contention for a long time. The borders were formed long after the roads were organized. What is the wedge? Well, isn’t that a good question.
This is a bit of a continuation of the Delaware – MD border discussion we started long ago in this post. The issue is that the original border between the two states in this area was formed by the circumference of a circle with a 12 mile radius centered in Wilmington. You can see the remnants of this circle today in the DE – PA border. It was supposed to continue down to the point at the same latitude as Wilmington. That would make the border between MD and DE shaped more like an arc than the straight line it is today.
In fact there is a space of land called the wedge, between the historical arc border and today’s straight line border that was in contention for quite a while. Today the land battle is over and the space in the wedge belongs to Delaware, but the ambiguous border led to quite a few oddly placed road ways if viewed in the context of today’s maps.
Next time we talk about borders, perhaps we’ll talk about the northern border and how it should have been significantly farther north than it is today.
13
Sep 09
Crab Cakes
Today’s picture is just a good old fashioned jumbo crab cake. Hard to get more Maryland than that. In fact, when you google “crab cake recipe” you get a link to Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski’s recipe, which is actually on her senate page. (She’s down a little farther on the google results page these days. She used to be the number three link.)
9
Sep 09
Colonial
It’s been over a month and almost two months since my last post about the National Park Seminary. It’s like photographic crack and it is difficult not to post a picture of it. If you remember way back when, the seminary was featured in the first week of MDP posts, which happened almost two years ago. Maybe I should join some sort of program to get myself off of the subject.
With the ongoing renovations there, the buildings will soon lose this great state of dilapidation, and that may happen before I finish my recovery program. The time to get pictures is now. I have to apologize for those who may be bored with the subject. (this apology is skipping a few steps in my recovery, I believe)
As for the building in the picture, it was called “Colonial” for somewhat obvious reasons.
8
Sep 09
Byrd
Though the Terrapins suffered a defeat on the road this week, this coming Saturday will be the first home game and will be a good chance for the team to get back on its feet.
Byrd stadium, though 59 years old, has been growing for the last two decades. The majority of the upper deck that you see in front of you was built in the 90′s and this year it is going to show off the completion of construction on new suites and press areas.
4
Sep 09
ICC Again
The ICC project is still underway. I find the construction interesting becasue across the entire path of the roadway they have cleared a significantly larger distance than a stirp of highway could need. I can only presume that this extra clearing is for the purpose of building longer and higher-speed on and off ramps. In this picture, that lonely support structure stands in the middle of one of those wide clearing. I like it becasue if you didn’t know that this was a new construction project, the absence of any workers or any other new materials might suggest that this is a picture of the remnants of an old road or of some other thing.
3
Sep 09
Hilton Sculpture
Even though I hate the new Hilton in Baltimore for blocking the view of the bromo seltzer tower, I found this neat decoration inside of it.
2
Sep 09
Vault Alarm
Here’s a throwback to the past that I found on a Bank in Cumberland. There’s something about this alarm that makes it seem like it was colorized and stripped from the set of an early gangster movie. Of course, those gangsters were never smart enough to realize that the best step to take first might have been to disable the alarm. The bank certainly isn’t hiding its location.