Downtown Tucsonan - May 2008 - (Page 9)

Vital Signs 3:45am we turn north on 6th avenue and find a broken captain Morgan’s bottle on the sidewalk at the entrance of the Ronstadt transit center. I get nervous about the potential for the broken glass to slice through the garbage bag that is next to my leg, and subsequently slice through my flesh…which it thankfully doesn’t. on Pennington street, west of 6th avenue, are a few plastic soda bottles and the ever present cig butts. “You’re lucky today,” Harry tells me. “these guys are pigs,” he says of the people who hang at the band practice spaces across from the garage. “they used to leave milk jugs of pee outside.” the path of pick-up is in concentric circles, stemming from the Pennington street Garage. downtown is divided into two sections, north of Broadway and south of Broadway. normally, Harry takes the “Mad Vac” and vacuums up leaves and cigarette butts that collect along street curbs while colleen and september collect trash via the golf cart. on this Monday, september – the assistant supervisor - has been given time off to study for her college algebra exam at Pima community college. colleen is working south of Broadway, Harry and I work north of Broadway and all of us are keeping track of the graffiti that needs to be painted over or scrubbed off. “the graffiti is just terrible. one or two days you might have a whole lot. there is tagging down here every single day.” as we clean up scott avenue, we run across crashed-out homeless people. “we usually work around the sleepers. Most of them are pretty nice and respectful. though, some of them are pain-in-the-ass pigs.” with taginator in tow, we clean up graffiti from windows of businesses on the congress street block between 6th avenue and scott. Harry warns me to avoid skin contact with the harsh chemicals. of course I get taginator on my wrist almost immediately. It burned, but applying water works instantly. I make a mental note to start researching biodegradable graffiti abatement products. I take a break while Harry and colleen move their cars from the loading zone on scott avenue to free parking in the armory Park area. security supervisor andre cunningham and I shoot the breeze about the day’s news articles while I munch on a granola bar. Back in the supply area, Harry gathers paint buckets together to negate the daily tagging. I can’t help but think of the animalistic nature of territorial markings. I love how the maintenance crew has named the paint colors specifically “dumpster Brown,” “Pepsi Blue,” and “shady Gray.” Painting graffiti takes the rest of the day. we negate tags on the north side of Broadway; including the city court, La Frontera, in alleys, in the underpasses. I really take issue with “sly,” who tags with a swooping, feminine style in neon-pink that bleeds through shady gray. ugh. My day ends outside of wig-o-Rama with my favorite paint-over job. the editor in me delighted at erasing a tag that said “ureka.” My Dad thought it was courageous of me to wake up at 2am and work as a maintenance person. I don’t think I’m anywhere near courageous, it was only one day of work for me. What is awesome is the Downtown Tucson Partnership’s maintenance personnel who do this day in and day out. Hats off to Harry, September, AJ, Cindy, Colleen, Fernando, Shonna and Jay for all that they do. I can’t imagine what downtown would look like without their efforts. 4:00am 4:15am-5:00am 5:15am-5:45am 6:00am-6:45am 7:00am 7:30am 7:45am-10:45am may.08. downtown tucsonan 9 http://www.ethertongallery.com http://www.ethertongallery.com http://bohemiatucson.com http://bohemiatucson.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Downtown Tucsonan - May 2008

Downtown Tucsonan - May 2008 Contents From the Editor Downtown Lowdown Vital Signs Downtown Live Arts Galleries Performances Vital Signs Continued Events Film Museums Billboard Classifieds

Downtown Tucsonan - May 2008

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