Eulogy for the Alley
by Colleen Vanderlinden • March 25, 2009 • Miscellaneous • 9 Comments
Ask most kids raised in Detroit anytime through the mid-1980′s and they’ll undoubtedly tell you that one of the best places to play was the alley. To the adults, the alley was a necessity; somewhere to place the trash cans or dumpsters for the city to pick up. To the kids, the alley was a wonderland.
The alley was the nearest thing we had to wild, untamed nature. Granted, some alleyways in Detroit in the 80′s rivaled today’s front gardens in terms of beauty, but they were untamed in a way that is hard to understand unless you were part of them. Maybe it was the knowledge that your parents weren’t around watching your every move. Maybe it was the fact that you knew what was going on in all of your neighbors’ yards, just by being a denizen of the alley. But most likely, it was that the alleys were anything we needed them to be.
My alley was always a danger-ridden path to somewhere else. Whatever adventure I was on at the time required that I follow a long and treacherous road to get there. I’d hide among the alley plants (daylilies, holleyhocks, lilacs, in my neighborhood) and creep stealthily along the gravel tracks down the center of the alley. Who knew what danger lurked beyond that overgrown lilac, and what was that cat doing down there, anyway? The crunch of gravel beneath my sneakers was satisfying in its pure noisiness, and the smell of freshly-cut lawns and lilacs still reminds me of my days in the alley.
My husband and I have talked about this. Back in the day, everyone played in the alley. Unless it was garbage day, you were free and clear. Flowers grew there, and, if you were really lucky, a neighbor or two had planted raspberry bushes along the alley fence. Sometimes, I’d just sit there, enjoying the silence. My husband tells of how he and his friends snacked on alley raspberries and pulled the buds off of hollyhocks to throw at one another (boys…) It was ours, and it was whatever we needed it to be.
Then, the city decided that the alleys were a liability. Garbage pick-up went curbside, and the dumpsters of the alleys disappeared. The alleys were a route for criminals, too difficult to patrol. They were unsafe. You could buy your section of the alley, the one behind your house, for a few hundred dollars and fence it in if you wanted, to add to your yard. It just wasn’t the same. Today throughout Detroit, you can still see the places where the city fenced off the alleys. They sit behind chainlink overgrown and abandoned, shadows of the glory they once were.
Why does it matter? What good is an alley, anyway? I’ve been reading Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv, in which he investigates the rising rates of childhood depression and obesity (among other issues) as they correlate to a lack of contact with the natural world. Nature is not just the woods and the streams. If you were a kid around here in the 80′s and earlier, it was the alleys, too. Nature is anywhere that puts you in contact with flowers and fruits, trees and bees, birds and squirrels. It is somewhere you can go and be someone else, or not be anyone at all. It is the place where imagination and instinct take over, and, for just a little while, you are completely free. That is what we have lost.
My kids will never play in the alley. They’ll never know how it is that a simple gravel track between two sets of fences can become a truly magical place. They’ll never feel that faint sense of danger, knowing that the alley wasn’t meant for play, but making it yours anyway. They’ll have to find their own version of the alley, a nearly impossible feat in today’s cities and suburbs, where homeowner’s associations reign supreme and kids “free” time is scheduled down to the minute with sports and other extracurriculars.
As a former denizen of the alley, I’ll do everything in my power to help them find it.
I was very, very fortunate to have grown up in a rural, seaside village where there were woodland paths and mossy springs to explore; trees to climb; fields to dream in; and where the lure of the beach was only a few hundred meters away. My own children grew up in the same, small community. I was always able to touch Nature, and Nature always touched me. I realize what a spectacular gift that was.
Great post…and it sounds like a book to add to my Wish List!
What a beautiful essay you have written, Colleen, and how right you are that children can mesh with the natural world wherever it appears. I can almost see that little girl eating the berries and hiding in the foliage.
My parents’ house was in the suburbs – no sidewalks, no alley – but when we visited grandparents, aunts & uncles and cousins in the city, I sometimes got to visit their alleys, walking on crunchy cinders back where the dads threw horseshoes and the tallest hollyhocks grew.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Our home in Laguna Beach is actually on an alley. There are many in this old town and they are all filled with character, jsut like you said!
I love that book and had the opportunity to see Louv speak. He is amazing and hit a nerve with me as well.
I too remember the days when our playing wasn’t scheduled and the neighborhood was our nursery.
I love your lilac photos. Now that I have a new camera that does wonderful close up’s I am a MACRO JUNKY!!!
Happy Spring
Colleen, my section of the neighborhood has alleys and the almost 3 year old down the way rides her tricycle in ours. I always come out to say hi to her and her dad … it makes me smile just to hear the rumble of her wheels on the concrete. There’s not room enough to really garden in our alleys, although plants reseed themselves in the 3-4 inches of bare soil at the bottom. I have sweet peas planted in one spot where I hung a trellis … we’ll see how they do.
Colleen, we have paved ally behind the houses and all the garages open to the ally. There are few plants visible but still a playground at one time. Basketball nets kept out behind the houses noisy with children until everyone decided a group of kids together means trouble.Now they are outlawed.It is still a good place to play softball since there are no windows nearby, and a few small children with a parent will learn to ride bikes. The most activity is people walking their dogs.
I read ‘Last Child In The Woods’. He makes some good points about how sedentary children are and how little time they spend outdoors.
It seems to me that children and parents should spend more time outside ,reclaiming their communities.
Colleen, I loved this essay! Anywhere that provides a place for children to play in relative safety is a place that should be cultivated.
I fondly remember the places I played as a child…including rural, suburbia and beaches…almost always outdoors, growing up in Australia. It’s the healthiest thing a child can do, I think…a wonderful tool for developing imagination, and promoting good physical health.
Be it alleys, beaches, suburbs or rural, outdoors is where our children need to be. Here here! This sounds like a good book and is definitely a subject that needs to be addressed.
Our alleys were never the kind of secret gardens of your childhood but I spent a lot of time in them. There was one alley with some kind of berry growing in them and we’d eat them all the time. Thinking back on it I’m surprised we didn’t get sick or lead poisoning.