... in Kansas City Missouri, where I lived 1950-1959.  It is Greenway Terrace,
a 3 block long street reaching from fancy Ward Parkway to Brookside Plaza, the
streetcar stop/shopping area.  On the first block (next to the shops) were the
starter houses (high blue collar); on the middle block (where I lived and
learned to light firecrackers) were the professional grade houses; on the last
block (at Ward Parkway) were the big, custom-designed houses - my grandparents
built a big Tudobethan there.

Architecturally, it was highly legible and pleasing.

When my mother moved us to New York City, I had to slice crosstown in the East
50's from the East River to school near Madison.  This was like an archeology
dig done with explosives - Victorian red brick /  1960s white brick /
brownstone / Park Avenue limestone / 1910s storefronts - all jumbled together.
The antithesis of order and layering.  I hated it.

No one seemed to be interested in deciphering the jumble, and that caught my
attention, even as a grade schooler.  When I left college, with encouragement
from Adolf Placzek and a few others, I set out on my own to establish a
research firm (not a preservation firm) devoted to that task.

Chriftopher Gray
Office for Metropolitan Hiftory
New York City