Finally we were in the downtown St. Catharines after few wrong turns and little driving around. Obvious first psychograph was this band shell in the beautiful park [ psychographs guide lines if you are curious]. It reminded us to several band stands we saw in little towns all over Costa Rice that we visited recently. This one in Montebello park, was built 1888 and I am quite positive that its special concave form, made with acoustic properties in mind, was influenced by Latin tradition which Costaricans are naturally following.

Whole town including this park was almost completely deserted. Even this beautiful September day was not tempting enough to pull out more people. This historic city, first settled by loyalist in 1780s, is with remarkable number of well preserved structures from XIX century. We observed at least 20 heritage houses in this little portion of the city, all of them used by various businesses, but none of them were open. Restaurants, stores, large or small all closed. No people anywhere. Group of youth dressed in black [even the dog accompanying them was black] was a rare exception. We walked around for half an hour and then we figured out what is actually strange here. IT WAS SUNDAY!

This was extremely unusual for us coming from Toronto downtown, never sleeping, vibrant part of the city, quite similar to any European city or even New York, where nobody has time for rest, nobody ever stop needing something, nobody has respect for "old fashioned" slow pace, respect for a human need to have a day when we are all doing something else. As David Albahari recently said "...day between reality and dreams, day when everything can be started but nothing has to be finished". In St. Chatarines citizens still respect simple rule "work six days and enjoy the seventh".

Little indication, but very psychographicaly obvious , that change is "creeping" even here is this old in this case very decorative signboard, used here for prevention of entrance to this store while going true renovation.

a.j. [psychographs@urbansquares.com]

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