Urban Decay

I was away from Sunday afternoon until last night on an unexpected, but enjoyable trip to Toledo.  My wife and I went on the spur of moment and two of our kids accompanied us as well.  We saw a wonderful museum show of the Toledo Studio Glass Movement.   At the showing, we also were able to watch a demonstration of glass blowing by one of the artists at the museum.  It was amazing and beautiful.  Going to this particular exhibit renewed my great appreciation for art and artists.  In many ways, I think if I had not choosen a career in biology, I might have really enjoyed a career being an academic artist, perhaps in metal working, or glass, or something else.  It is something I have often thought of pursuing in a hobby sort of way.

We ate wonderful Indian food at the Tandoor where in addition to our various favorite Indian dishes, we had one new, especially delicious bread called Peshawari Naan which has coconut and raisins infused in the bread dough.  We also ate at a wonderful Lebanese resturaunt called Byblos which had wonderful Babaganoush.  Finally, we also ate at the famous Tony Packo's.  Their Hungarian Hot Dogs, their Karut and their Barley Chili are wonderful. 

One thing that was especially sad, however, was how extensive the urban decay is in the city of Toledo.  It's downtown is filled with so very many absolutely beautiful new and very old urban architecture, but a near majority of it is abandoned.  Unfortunately, due to much of the same ruthless business practices industry (steel, automobile, etc) engaged in during the late 1970s through to the present, Toledo is in many ways a veritable ghost town of its former self, much like Detroit, Buffalo, etc.  Since 1970, Toledo lost over 1/3 of its population.

Still for all of its hardships and for all its urban decay, Toledo is a great town, and we all had a very happy experience there.

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