One of my favorite songs from My Fair Lady extols the virtue of the “street where you live.” While I don’t have Freddie outside serenading Eliza, I do live on a street that I love. I thought I would post a picture of the three houses to our east with our white house in the foreground. Here you can see the sidewalks I insisted on having when we bought our house. You can see many more salvaged bricks between our lawn(carefully hand weeded by my husband to protect the birds) and the sidewalk. On the left is the street that connects us to the main road at the far end of the picture. Because of its location, our street is plowed every 30 minutes or so during winter. Our wires are all overhead, including electric, cable and phone. The lopsided tree in the distance was pruned to avoid the power lines in case of a limb toppling storm.
We know all the people in these houses, despite dire warnings that Americans don’t know their neighbors. One is an electrician, another a motor vehicle department worker, another a widow of a projectionist. We look out for one another, especially making sure that the widow is safe, taking turns plowing her walk and driveway in the winter. My husband knows many more of our more distant neighbors from the time he spends hand weeding the front yard.(“Why don’t you just use weed killer?” a frequent question.)
At the end of the street to the top of photo there is an intersection with a small group of shops: a convenience store, a barber shop, a liquor store and a Chinese take out. Just a few more minutes away one can walk to a dollar store, a bakery, a nail salon, and a pizza parlor. And with a few more minutes walk(maybe 10 minutes in all) you arrive at a large grocery store, a drug store, a Home Depot, a pet store, a craft store, a party store, a clothing store and several fast food restaurants. I wanted to live in a house that was walking distance to whatever we might need, and ours suits my demand. The location also works for many of our neighbors without cars who frequently walk by our home on the way to the shops.
Upscale? Not at all. Exciting? Rarely. A perfect place to live.
Saved By Words 
Sounds like a great place to live, Elizabeth! Community and amenities nearby….I have similar!
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That is fun to learn. I try to imagine how various bloggers live when I read their posts.
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😊😊
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“Exciting” is overrated when it comes to places to live. The Chinese curse “May you live in exciting times” reminds us that peace, tranquillity and community are much more life enhancing.
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Connecticut is called “the land of steady habits.” Works for me.
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Other than the proximity to the shops, and evidence of wood in the buildings, we do not live in such dissimilar circumstances.
I know lots of neigbours, though we do not need snow ploughs, or ever weed by hand. Your local shops are a real bonus, and one which I wish we had. But we chose peace and quiet over convenience.
If I live long enough I am sure to regret that. 🙂
https://beetleypete.com/2018/11/11/our-home-in-beetley/
Best wishes, Pete.
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I hadn’t thought about our houses being made of wood. That is nearly the only kind here.
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It looks friendly. And those connections are much more important than excitement😊
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That is my viewpoint exactly.
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ON THE STREET WHERE YOU LIVE is also one of my favorite songs; here’s another song that seems to fit:
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Exactly.
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Looks like a good place. I too value stores within walking distance–you never know when the car will have issues.
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It’s funny. They are starting to put sidewalks into near by suburbs. I guess people are wanting to walk after all.
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What a lovely street! When we lived in Queens, I walked everywhere and had access to many shops. We live ten miles out of town now, but we have wonderful neighbors. Thanks for showing us your street and writing about it.
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Thanks. I got lost in Queens once!
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Just once? I was lost many times, but I survived.
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One of the most underappreciated aspects of homeownership is to live in a nice neighborhood. One gets an excellent feeling of that from your photo.
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I am glad that came across. I think there are a lot of ordinary nice neighborhoods all across the U.S.
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I love that song too! And your neighborhood is quite loverly! How do keep the grass so nice and green? You may remember what a challenge that can be in the summer here in the Pacific Northwest. 🙂
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It rains here throughout the summer, a real contrast with Portland. That keeps the grass green.
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That does sound perfect. I love how level the ground is! Around here you need crampons to get to the back yard.
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We were surprised by how flat everything is here. The river plain is very wide on both sides, unlike some other river sides. In Portland we lived on a hill with a steep slope to our west and much less sunshine.
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It looks an ideal place to live for all the reasons you give. We are much more rural with only a very small and widely spaced community around us. I relish the peace and quiet and living close to nature but there are drawbacks of course, in the lack of nearby amenities. It works well for us – for the present. Perhaps, as we get older the time will come to move again.
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I was quite conscious of wanting to be able to walk places when we bought this home, figuring that eventually we would not be able to drive.
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What a lovely post Elizabeth! Such a neat & tidy Street & neighborhood. 😀
We have a few newer neighbors now as older ones have moved on. But we do know their names & say hi when we see them.
Hubby used to help the older ones often but the newer ones seem to want to keep to themselves which we respect.
Bless you,
Jennifer
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How interesting about the younger neighbors. A different culture almost.
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Yes, a very different culture indeed!
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My daughter is like that. She doesn’t want to connect with the neighbors since her work is so people intensive.
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Yes, I can understand that as you can get ‘peopled out’ another term for tired out 😉
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I like that phrase and it is new to me.
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😀
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Nice to see the American flag out front. Looks like a peaceful neighborhood and a great place to live, Elizabeth.
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Most of us fly the flag.
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It’s nice being in walking distance of certain stores and restaurants. Is your public library very far away?
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Sadly the branch two blocks away closed, so I have to drive to get to the library.
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