Using the Street Well

Malai teaches us some lessons, and not just about ice cream.

Sunday, November 9, 2025, 4:11 pm.

This is not a staged photograph. The people in this picture are not actors, and they are not hitting their marks. They are just ordinary people, going about their lives in a livable city.

So what are we looking at here? This is Malai, an ice cream shop on 18th street, half a block from Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. Its grand opening was on May 17, 2025 (I found the press release). Malai Philadelphia is part of a budding chain (still a small chain) of ice cream shops. The flagship shop is, of course, in Brooklyn (268 Smith Street). And there is another outpost in Washington, D.C. (1407 T Street, NW). 

The spark plug for this engine of commerce is a lady named Pooja Bavishi, who decided to mix the spices of her childhood, such as ginger, rose petals, saffron, and cardamom, into a very creamy ice cream base. She bills the result as "a decadent blend of cream and culture." 

I've long been familiar with the word malai from my many visits to Indian restaurants over the years, but I never knew what the word meant. So I looked it up. Malai is the Hindi word for a type of clotted cream that I am informed is a very popular ingredient in the cuisine of the Indian subcontinent. My favorite flavor of Malai ice cream is mango & cream. My wife is partial to cardamom pistachio and tulsi chocolate chip. 

When I first saw this shop in operation, I thought immediately of a stage set. The people on the street strike me as the audience. The people sitting at the outdoor tables are perhaps in the orchestra pit. And up on the stage we can see through the fourth wall (which in this case is made of glass rather than imagination), and we can see the whole stage, right back to the counter where people get their ice cream. 

I must say the lighting, and the balancing of the different lights, is quite amazing. Everything on the stage is clearly visible from the street, and nobody is getting zapped in the eyes by a klieg light. 

Normal American stores don't look like this. I could give you current examples, but just for fun let's go back a bit in time, to a place called Sprott, Alabama.

Walker Evans took this photo, which is famous in certain circles, in 1935 or 1936. I'm going to skip the rich history (he collaborated with James Agee on a book called Let Us Now Praise Famous Men) and concentrate on what the photograph tells us about retailing back in the old days. 

This is a country store at a crossroads in rural Alabama. It sits behind a road that looks like a strip of desert. The store itself is essentially invisible; it lies behind a porch that is engulfed in deep shade. There are people standing on the porch but most of them are hard to see because they are standing in the shade, avoiding the Alabama sunlight. One man, standing to the right, is in the sun and is wearing a hat. There is a gasoline pump mounted at the outer edge of the porch, and there is the inevitable Coca-Cola sign, which also advises us that we are in the presence of a United States post office.

Inside this carapace there is a refuge from the sun, and indeed from the outer world. I'm going to switch stores here, and show you the interior of a store in Moundville, Alabama.

To begin at the beginning, there is light in this store. The light source is on the left, where there is presumably a window that we cannot see. This is a gentle light that models the various objects in the scene without excessive contrast. In the foreground there are bags of flour; the inevitable Coca-Cola sign is in the upper left. There is a calendar open to July 1936. On a shelf next to a dustpan is another calendar, open to January 1936. There are kerosene lamps of various sizes for sale, and other items on shelves. Dishware is available on what appears to be a table covered by a cloth. Under the table there are boxes of O.K. Soap and what appears to be a washtub. On another table in the left foreground there is a clear spot which I believe is the sales counter. The two horizontal rolls next to the open spot would, if I am correct, be wrapping paper. There is also what appears to be a safe, and next to it some minor trash on the floor - the only thing in this photograph that is not perfect.

This is a place where a farm family in the middle of the Great Depression can go and possibly find some things they can afford that will make their life a little bit better. The refuge is capable of fulfilling its promise. 

The refuge model - a hint of satisfaction awaiting in a safe place, hidden away from the unpredictable life of the street - is still the primary model for retailing today. It looks different, of course. But, until recently, grocery stores and pharmacies in my neighborhood have continued to cover their front windows with large paper sheets announcing the best prices on their goods, sometimes interspersed with large piles of canned goods and other nonperishable items that also block the view to the interior. Recently, I must say, I've noticed one pharmacy and one grocery store that have become more willing to show the interior of their stores to passersby. So perhaps Malai is not alone. But it is definitely in a class by itself. 

I understand the retailer's desire to create an enclosed space, where the retailer controls the entire environment and can seek to induce a trance-like state in the shopper, controlling the available cues and through them influencing the shopper's purchasing behavior.

I do think that Malai has found a better way. The key concept is that shopping and dining are forms of entertainment. Entertainers, like everybody who's selling something, do manipulate their audience. But entertainment is a situation where the audience cooperates voluntarily, usually knows what's going on, and can actually have some influence on the outcome.

I believe that Malai is definitely following the entertainment model. But I think it takes the concept one step further, and this is a step that I have not seen before. Malai has physically and visually integrated the indoors and the outdoors at its shop. I have long thought that such a melding of inside and outside in our cities could yield huge benefits. And now, with Malai, I think I have my proof of concept. 

Saturday, April 4, 2026, 7:30 pm.

See also A Cathedral of Memories, I Think We Need a Mural Here, Fourth Street Surges Forward, Umbrellaville, Lighting Rittenhouse, Night Lights at Coney Island, Paul P. Cret and Rittenhouse Square.

"A Pitiful, Helpless Giant"

Nixon as prophet

Last hurrah for Tricky Dick, August 9, 1974.

On April 30, 1970, President Richard Nixon addressed the American people, telling them that he had decided to invade Cambodia, and that he had to do that because the alternative would be America's losing its position as leader of the free world. Today, as we are currently in the process of actually losing our position of world leadership, I decided to go back to Nixon's speech and see if it had anything to tell us. I think the answer is yes. 

Our basic dilemma is the same now as it was then. Are we an empire or are we a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Here's a useful extract from the speech:

"My fellow Americans, we live in an age of anarchy, both abroad and at home. We see mindless attacks on all the great institutions which have been created by free civilizations in the last 500 years. Even here in the United States, great universities are being systematically destroyed. Small nations all over the world find themselves under attack from within and from without.

"If, when the chips are down, the world's most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world.

"It is not our power but our will and character that is being tested tonight. The question all Americans must ask and answer tonight is this: Does the richest and strongest nation in the history of the world have the character to meet a direct challenge by a group which rejects every effort to win a just peace, ignores our warning, tramples on solemn agreements, violates the neutrality of an unarmed people, and uses our prisoners as hostages?

"If we fail to meet this challenge, all other nations will be on notice that despite its overwhelming power the United States, when a real crisis comes, will be found wanting." 

And so we did it Nixon's way. After a while he lost his job, but the war went on until 1975. And we lost.

Nixon seemed particularly annoyed that large parts of the American people were not willing to toe the line. In particular he didn't like what today's fascists call "the enemy within." And he just hated "anarchy," which was one of George Wallace's favorite words. What Wallace and Nixon called anarchy, others might call democracy.

The Students Revolt

The students were a particular target for his dissatisfaction, but the unrest on campuses across the country went to a new level the day after the speech, when a nationwide student anti-war strike erupted, eventually involving an estimated four million protesters. 

Some of these protesters were at Kent State on May 4, where the national guard, in its wisdom, decided to open fire on the students, killing four and wounding nine, one of whom was permanently paralyzed. The dead were all 19 and 20 years old. The fusillade from the defenders of law and order lasted approximately 13 seconds. So, two decades to make a few college students, 13 seconds to snuff them.

Time for an Attitude Adjustment

The thing about the speech that most strikes me is Nixon's absolute certainty that the United States was destined to rule the world, and had an obligation to rise to that challenge.

Now of course, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy have names like Donald Trump and Elon Musk, so our world is a bit different from the world of 1970. And Trump and Musk and the others have turned the United States into "a pitiful, helpless giant."

Is it possible that they have actually done us a favor? It's certainly going to take a lot of work to get past all the damage they have done, but perhaps we can stumble onto a better plan. One where the United States is centered on the welfare of its people, and answers to them, and where instead of trying to control events that have so often proved themselves to be well beyond our control, we instead approach the problems of the world with a bit of humility, and approach our fellow nations seeking genuine partnership among equals. 

Call me a dreamer.

Photo: David Hume Kennerly. 

See also Fixing the Constitution, There's Got to Be a Better Way, Giacomo Matteotti (1885-1924).

Return of the Throwaway Society

I know - it never left, but read this.

My wife and I have been living through another one of those little collapse-of-civilization kerfuffles that seem so common today. This one involves misdirected Amazon packages, and what to do with them. Lois wrote a simply dandy story about this on her Substack, and I suggest you read it right now. Click here. Right now.

Then come back here, because I have a few additional comments.

Okay. 

When I was quite a lot younger, there was something called Earth Day. Actually, it's still around, but there was a time when there was no Earth Day - the first one was in 1970.

Until then, the United States was officially a throwaway society. Over the years, the idea of caring about our trash has made considerable progress. For instance, used hypodermic needles and other medical waste no longer wash up on New Jersey beaches. Wait - that's a categorical statement. Let me rephrase: I haven't seen a used hypodermic needle wash up on a New Jersey beach in years.

Today, everybody seems to pay at least lip service to the idea of preserving the planet. What they actually do is often something else. Many companies still seem to quietly view trash as an "externality" - an economist's polite way of saying "I don't care."

Mr. Bezos and his Amazonians seem to think it's okay to leave packages on your doorstep - this is called "delivery," and they even take pictures with their phones to prove they've "delivered." Then the porch pirates come. And nobody in a position to do anything about this mess cares. 

And then it turns out that misdirected packages are also just another part of the trash stream. 

We are headed in the wrong direction. 

See also Scavengers and Scow Trimmers; In Defense of Disgusting Alleys; Art Meets Sewage; Somotomo; The Gowanus Transforms, Again; What Does a Clean Street Look Like?

Hollow Man Still Standing

I think there is a level on which Donald Trump knows he is falling apart. But what would that look like?What would he be thinking? I've been wondering about this for a while, and then recently I was reading a remarkable new novel about a wealthy, aristocratic Hungarian family in the first half of the twentieth century, a time, shall we say, of considerable stress and uncertainty - or shall we just say chaos. At any rate, the baron who heads the family, a fairly young man with teenage children, starts to feel he's simply falling apart under the pressure. Here's what the author thinks that looks like: 

"The baron was like a madman who realises his mind is slipping away but can do nothing about it. He sensed himself falling to pieces inside and checked his most routine actions for signs of neglect. 

"If, for example, he realised that he had uttered a word with insufficient clarity because his tongue was too lethargic, the next time he took particular care to articulate this word cleanly, only to stumble over another. If he was lost in thought, he often forgot things, such as replacing the cap on the fountain pen. The more he resisted his decline, the faster it appeared to proceed. For this reason the ignorance of others was the only thing still keeping him together. While this continued, his decline remained something that could be hidden and hushed up." 

- Nelio Biedermann, Lazar p. 166. This book was published in German in 2025, and the English translation came out in early 2026. 

As an aside, some time ago I read Joseph Roth's The Radetzky March, and just recently I read Antal Szerb's Journey by Moonlight. Both of these books are literary landmarks, and each of them deepened, in its own way, my understanding of the former Austro-Hungarian empire. But if I had time to read only one book, it would be Biedermann's Lazar.

See also The Man Who Would Be King, The Democrats Need to Fight the War, Deja Vu All Over Again, The 800-Pound Gorilla in the Oval Office, What Can Pierre Laval Tell Us About Donald Trump? 

Wrapping the Art Alliance

Christo and Jeanne-Claude would be very proud of us. 

On July 4, 2025, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, a beloved building that stands next to Rittenhouse Square, suffered a devastating fire that required the attentions of 120 Philadelphia fire fighters and a simply enormous amount of water, which continued to flow gently down the building's front steps for an amazingly long period of time. 

Just walking around the site, I got the sense that the fire may have started at the back of the ground floor, where I believe there was a kitchen. But to this day the general public has no good idea of what happened in this fire. (For what we do know, click here and here and here and here.) 

Garden area at the back of the building.

The fire certainly had a lovely time raging through this old building, which had quite a lot of wood in it. I vividly remember, as a sometime visitor to the upper floors, years ago, the interesting sensation of walking up the squeaky, beautiful wooden stairs.  

We also know that the fire destroyed the roof. Here's a picture of the top story, directly under the roof, with a view of the sky through one of the glassless windows.

After the suppression of the fire, attention naturally turned to stabilizing the structure and securing the premises. And here is where I got a lovely surprise. As I was walking down 18th street one day, I noticed that the Art Alliance building had been largely wrapped in protective plastic sheeting.

I had never seen a building wrapped before. I knew that it was common to wrap smaller things, like boats being stored for the winter. 

And then I immediately thought of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the dynamic duo who wrapped a whole Australian cliff in plastic sheeting in 1969. (For a lot more, click here.)

The only Christo and Jeanne-Claude installation that I got to see with my own eyes was The Gates, which showed up in Manhattan's Central Park in 2005. I actually walked through some of the gates; there were a lot of them. According to the Whitney Museum of American Art, they were inspired by Japanese torii gates. 

And here I was in the present day, staring at an installation of white plastic. I found myself wondering if Christo and Jeanne-Claude had inspired this concept of wrapping buildings. In other words, was it yet another example of life imitating art?

As I was looking at the wrapped Art Institute, I noticed a little sign on the wrapping. You can see it in the picture above. Actually there are several of these signs. Here's a closeup.

The sign says the company's name is Global Wrap, and helpfully adds, "We are the original shrink wrap company since 1980." 

Well, Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped an Australian cliff in 1969, so who has priority here?

Then I remembered about the shrink-wrapped boats. I went online and found a Gregg Mansfield on a site called Boatmart, and he told me the shrink-wrap process for boats was patented in 1980.  

It turns out that Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped a Volkswagen Beetle in 1963. 

I thought I was on a roll, but then I hit a bump. I got the funny feeling that there were people who were using plastic to wrap big objects well before the dynamic duo came on the scene. And that's probably true; I just can't prove it. The internet does not appear to be interested in this subject. 

We do know that wrapping small objects with plastic became very popular after World War II, with the introduction of Saran Wrap, aka cling wrap, which can be found in a drawer of the typical American kitchen, along with aluminum foil and wax paper. 

The only other lead I had was the wrapping of pallet loads with plastic sheeting. Before the plastic wrapping, the boxes sitting on a pallet were secured with metal straps. So when did the changeover happen? It turns out the answer is 1972. That was when a company named Lantech introduced something called the "stretch wrapper," a machine which made wrapping pallet loads with plastic pretty easy. 

It was around this time that I became aware that shrink wrapping and stretch wrapping are two different things. I'm still a bit hazy on how they differ. 

And then something else struck me: The wrap on the Volkswagen was not shrink wrap. Ditto for the Australian cliff. The dynamic duo was wrapping, but not with shrink wrap. So maybe Christo and Jeanne-Claude were leaders in wrapping but not in shrink wrapping. 

I think I can live with that. I'll let you in on a secret. Every time I walk by the Art Alliance, which can easily happen several times a day, I find myself thinking of Christo and Jeanne-Claude and the Australian cliff. And it makes me happy.

See also Putting Some Park into Old Parking Lots, Paul P. Cret and Rittenhouse Square, Lighting Rittenhouse, What Came Before the Laurel.

"I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." - Ulysses S. Grant, 1864

Grant at Cold Harbor, June 1864 (Library of Congress).

With a father from southern Alabama and a mother from northern New York State, I think I naturally took an interest in the centennial of the Civil War, which occurred when I was in my mid-teens. After all, who was I?

I read quite a lot, and took a particular interest in General Stonewall Jackson. I got a full dose of "There is Jackson standing like a stone wall!" And Jackson's final sentence, "Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees." 

I won't bore you with my odyssey. I eventually came out on the Union side. But I had a lingering disdain for U.S. Grant, who was willing to tolerate some pretty amazing casualty numbers.

Frankly, I still don't like Grant. And I don't think he was a great president, either.

But, on May 11, 1864, during the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, he sent a message back to Washington that resonates with me today: 

"I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." 

Grant's casualty numbers at Spotsylvania Courthouse, and before that in the Wilderness, were truly eye-popping. And yet he, and the army, and the Union, fought on. And not just to the turning of the leaves in the fall of 1864. 

Robert E. Lee didn't surrender at Appomattox Courthouse until April 1865. 

Which brings me to our present situation. If you're feeling tired, if you're dismayed by all the things that are going wrong, if you think the Democratic party needs to dump its consultants, if you don't like the fact that ICE troopers are shooting people whenever they feel like it, I'm with you.

This slug fest is no fun, and we're still just holding the line. Our victories are defensive. We'll continue to win a lot in the courts, and we'll also see more slaughter in the streets by government agents who belong in prison. The real counter-offensive is still in the future.

You need to decide whether you're in this for the duration of hostilities. And one place to start is to ask yourself, can you say, "I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer."

And then don't think the war will be over right after Labor Day. 

See also Politics on a Very Hot Day, Unleashing the Oligarchs.

Baptizing the Bike Lane

Dr. Barbara Friedes died two years ago.

Two years and still no effective protection on the Pine-Spruce bike lanes. The memorial was at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, July 19, at the spot where Barbara was killed, at 18th and Spruce, in front of the Beth Zion Beth Israel synagogue. And there was a special guest, a miniature plastic jersey barrier. These plastic jersey barriers (normally much bigger) are very popular around construction sites. They are light and easy to move around, until you fill them with water. And then when you're done with them, there's a valve that lets you empty the water out.

Anyway, everybody was asked to bring a full water bottle and, after the speeches, empty their water bottles into the little jersey barrier. 

Just so everyone understands, the plan to protect the Pine and Spruce bike lanes does not involve jersey barriers. It involves low pieces of concrete that remind me of throat lozenges. These are installed not head to toe, but with gaps between them. At least that's my understanding.

Before we got to this little piece of theater - I must say, I did it and I felt good afterward - we had a number of very good speeches, including one from City Council President Kenyatta Johnson, who, at the appropriate time, also poured water into the little jersey barrier.

City Council President Kenyatta Johnson

Philly Bike Action was the main sponsor of this event, and a PBA member offered a very good summary of the history and our present situation. We also heard from Barbara's husband, mother, and sister, and a colleague from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, locally known as CHOP. 

We can, at another time, discuss the insanity of not protecting these bike lanes, and also what we can do about that. There is a lawsuit, and I think the plaintiffs think they have us pinned. But I'm not so sure. 

All that, though, is for another day. This day was for Barbara, and her family, and her friends and colleagues. And, frankly, all of us. A bad thing happened that should not have happened. And those of us who are alive have to deal with that. And I felt there was some healing on this day, along with a firm resolve to make things better.

Barbara Friedes died on July 17, 2024, at the age of 30. It turns out her favorite flower was the sunflower. 

See also The Vigil for Dr. Friedes, Loading Zones Are the Key, Mayor Parker Signs No Stopping Bill, A Scheme of Chaos, On the Art Museum Steps, Somotomo.