Scruffy: Altoona

There was going to be more about Altoona, Pennsylvania, my first landing spot in the summer's renewed Sparrow Hunt, but a brief stay, some very busy weeks, and a chunk of time without proper internet access drove that idea out. Instead, I'll make a sketch of what stands out in my memory, and leave the rest of the talking to the pictures.

Very blue-collar in it's history and appearance, Altoona is, or was, a new kind of town for me. In it's day, it was a prosperous rail city, as evidenced by the still active railyards dominating the length of the center of town, effectively dividing it in to separate sections accessible to each other only by leaving the city limits to circumnavigate the rails. Narrow, careworn houses line the very hilly streets in tightly packed rows, with barely enough space for a walkway between. Single lane “alleys” running perpendicular to the slope access off street parking and shady back yards often surprisingly spacious and welcoming compared to the drab, unadorned edifices fronting the main streets. Sometimes still in good shape, sometimes in utter disrepair, the houses, their yards, and their alleys march uphill from the railyards, becoming more well groomed and widely spaced as the upward climb continues, but remaining distinctly modest by any standard I'm familiar with. I had little time to research or explore Altoona before moving on, but what I did find suggests a town gone into decline like many others as rail and industry faded, now hoping to build itself again.