Sunday I took a long walk from Purchase Street to the Blackhawk Terminal and back through the streets of the seaport dist. It was a lonely, bleak, tedious walk. The setback of the courthouse is a waste of lawn. Louis' is just a dumb-looking building. The ICA for all its innovation is empty around its base. All the streets are too wide for safe pedestrian crossings (though the dearth of traffic on Sunday made it easier.) Worse was the fact that nearly every building had nothing going on on the ground floor. It reminded me of parts of Chicago where 15 stories from the ground up are sometimes taken up by blank garage walls. Except for a few bars and restaurants....nothing, and more nothing. Even the parks were bleak and lifeless despite the out-of-scale lawns. I know that the area is not finished, but Waterside Place is shocking in its placement along...nothing. It only adds to the feeling that I'm in 1955 East Germany. They're reaching a kind of critical mass in developing this district whereby the scale is irreversibly tipped in favor of the auto and tarmac. I pity anyone having to live here. It's all actually a sad extension of the Blackhawk Terminal area, which is basically an industrial zone meant for trucks and taxis. Sad.