As much as I hate to admit it, I grew up in the suburbs. Specifically, the suburbs of Philadelphia.
If you aren’t familiar with Pennsylvania’s largest city, I will fill you in on an important aspect of it: most of its residents are about as well-traveled as a stillborn baby. Generations of people live their entire LIVES in single neighborhoods, considering a trek to a neighborhood ten miles away a “day trip.” They only familiarize themselves with roads leading to/from the supermarket, work, and the New Jersey coastline. Roadways and cities that make up the greater Philadelphia area (which encompasses southeastern Pennsylvania, most of southern New Jersey, and northern Delaware) are foreign not only to out-of-towners, but also to many who share the same area (and even zip) codes.
The suburbs are even worse.
Despite telling others that they’re “from Philadelphia” and rooting for its sports teams, a good percentage of those living in those cul-de-sac- and strip-mall-infested communities outside of the city’s boundary lines rarely, if ever, trek downtown. They grow up accustomed to a lifestyle where everything can only be accessible via personal automobile and in “communities” sans town centers and interpersonal relationships with folks living more than one address away.
Since I learned early on that it would be most beneficial to trade my suburban Catholic upbringing for a functioning brain, I spent the majority of my adolescence and adulthood (thus far) seeing the suburbs for the barren, bland asphalt shrines that they are. I ultimately wound up relocating to the city in 2008; even though it is no New York or Washington, DC (which I refer to as “actual cities”), it was nevertheless a thousand times better than my home region of southern Delaware County, Pennsylvania.
Despite my overly wordy thoughts on those communities existing outside of major metropolitan areas, I would be lying if I said that the suburbs didn’t fascinate me a little bit. So embedded in the 9-5, weekends-off lifestyle enjoyed by the many middle-class residents therein, the suburbs become an eerily beautiful place after hours. In the daytime, major roads are bumper-to-bumper for miles with gas-guzzling SUVs and minivans piloted by blue collar Republicans, overweight soccer moms, and the semi-spoiled offspring of such. The cookie-cutter McMansions dotting the towns’ developments, sub-developments, and non-major thoroughfares are (in a very loose sense of the word) alive with such activity as grass mowing, garden tending, etc. The bland, square buildings housing paper-pushing 9-5 jobs and chain retailers are abuzz with commerce.
But at night?
Eerie silence abounds. The aforementioned housing developments are shrouded in darkness, as life ceases to be after 9-10PM (even on weekends). If one is lucky, he or she may spot a lit window or two, proof of some extremely bored homeowner or any given member of his/her nuclear family unit partaking in their domicile’s extremely limited indoor activities. The stores, restaurants, and businesses lining the major roadways are just as silent/dark, claiming full responsibility for the creepy lack of traffic on a stretch of asphalt that, a mere eight hours prior, was busier than Times Square at rush hour. Bars and certain restaurants are of course open past the near-universal 9:30PM close of business, but even their lives for the day expire in the first one or two wee hours of the morning in most states. Only the occasional gas station, pharmacy, or all-night diner breaks up the monotony.
Suburbia at night is what I’m interested in.
I grant partial credit of this sudden interest to the 1996 film “subUrbia,” which I watched recently on VHS (yup, seriously VHS; the flick has yet to be released on DVD). Starring then-unknown talents like Giovanni Ribisi, Steve Zahn, Parker Posey, and Ajay Naidu, the Richard-Linklater-directed feature was written by Eric Bogosian, who had also written, produced, and directed the play of the same name off of which the film was based. If you haven’t seen the play or the movie, I strongly suggest checking it out, as it successfully illustrates the life of young, aimless, directionless people in modern-day suburbia, a land their parents and grandparents were drawn to and thought nothing of in the middle of the 20th century. The film takes place almost entirely at night and almost exclusively in the parking lot of a typical convenience store.
I grant the rest of the credit to my own past, during which I had slight bouts of exposure to suburbia after dark. My friends and I spent our early (and even mid) twenties working retail/food jobs to supplement our respective educations and thus failed to see our free time begin until after 8PM. Movie theaters and all-night (or at least late-night) restaurants were our saviors; occasionally, we’d act like “normal” twenty-somethings and even hit up a bar or nightclub. I clearly recall being fascinated, and even somewhat drawn to, the desolate parking lots and near-empty streets under the post-midnight skies overlooking our dull area.
Tomorrow (July 1, 2011), I invite everyone over to my Twitter feed and, more importantly, Tumblr account, for a little “live blogging.” I will be spending the last few hours of fumor.net’s two-and-a-half-year anniversary date, as well as the wee morning hours of July 2, walking around the abandoned roads of suburban towns I frequented in my past. I will tweet when I feel necessary but will update Fumblr more frequently with photographs and descriptions/memories of the images contained therein. I’m not exactly sure what I hope to accomplish with this project, nor am I sure I even really WANT to accomplish anything, aside from quenching some years-long desire to wander around suburban Philadelphia after dark.
Hmm, aimless, directionless…
I feel like a suburbanite again.
Just keep me away from the SUV dealership.
Fumor.net Presents 