Old Downtown (Okmulgee, Oklahoma)

Eagle & Bear (Muscogee Creek Nation, Okmulgee, Oklahoma)

I'm spending the week in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. My focus has been making a video for Tribal Access to Justice Innovation about the Muscogee (Creek) Reintegration Program, which is doing wonderful work helping ex-prisoners transition from incarceration to lives in the community.

The U.S. government forcibly removed the Muscogee Nation (as part of the horrific Trail of Tears) from their ancestral lands (what today is Alabama, Georgia, Florida and South Carolina). The Muscogee (who were called Creek by the European invaders) built their Council House in 1878 in Okmulgee, Oklahoma where it still stands today.

Man on Sidewalk, Facedown (Upper West Side)

I'm seeing more and more of this lately.

Ramps without Rhizomes (Union Square, Manhattan)

The folks from Northshire Farm leave the rhizomes in the ground when harvesting ramps. They say that this allows the plant to grow back next year, and is an antidote to over-harvesting. However, an even better idea might be to just snip a few leaves from each plant. In 2011, The New York Times wrote: "How to harvest ramps sustainably is a controversial subject. Seeds take 6 to 18 months to germinate, and the plants take 5 to 7 years to produce seeds."

Getting a Lift with Electro-Data (Los Angeles)

It wasn't just the old-timey fonts that caught my attention (although that was part of it) but the name of the company, Oliver and Williams, which I'd never heard of. These days, Otis is the only company that comes to my mind when I think of elevators. It's delightful to think that there might have been a time when multiple companies competed for business. When I Google the name, I find a YouTube video that claims Oliver and Williams elevators are "EXTREMELY RARE," and an elevator wiki (!) that doesn't even mention it. Nice to see that the Electro-Data Elevator Systems lives on at the Beverly Laurel Hotel in Los Angeles.