No. 9 Duane Street update!

[ldhenson]

I've updated No. 9 Duane Street at last! There are now two new lodging houses, bringing the total number of LHs profiled on the site to six.

Ultimately I'll add at least three more. Research has been inexcusably slow, especially since I was generously given a virtual cornucopia of period articles and assorted info all in one go, and simply haven't gotten around to sitting down and sorting through all of them properly yet.

(I've been feeling rather guilty about letting this site sit untouched since early May. Yes, I've done some updates, but my last bit of correspondence concerning No. 9? Was, I found, dated April 20. Not so coincidentally, the following day was the day I saw Hot Fuzz. While No. 9 is no longer strictly a fannish interest, there are still only so many hours in a day, and I've been goofing off.)

Comments

[cymbalism219.livejournal.com]

Hi there, ld. Hopefully you recognize me from my reviews of TDD on FFnet. I just wanted to pop in and say that I appreciate all the time and work you have put into No. 9 Duane Street. Thanks for creating such an excellent resource.

Oh, and on a very fannish note, I saw Hot Fuzz for the first time yesterday, and it is *wonderful*. Nicholas Angel might be my new David Jacobs.

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Hi back, good to hear from you. I'm glad you're enjoying TDD and No. 9 despite the glacial pace at which they're being updated. Especially No. 9: newsboys, street children and lodging houses are such a remarkable bit of history, yet it's not something that one often hears about.

HF is awesome. I knew going in that it would be good, but just how good blew me away, so much so that I came back and promptly wrote five fics for it (effectively derailing my Newsies train for several months; I can't write in more than one fandom simultaneously).

Oh, and I share your David love.

[cymbalism219.livejournal.com]

It's likely that you've already encountered it (I imagine it's a relatively well-known source), but if not, I highly recommend David Nasaw's book Children of the City: At Work and at Play. It's quite a comprehensive look at what it was like to be a child at the turn of the last century. Much of the information I incorporated into my first Newsie fanfic (a shameless Mary Sue now almost a decade old that will never see the light of day) was from that book, and I still draw on what I learned from it from time to time for purposes outside of fandom.

[cymbalism219.livejournal.com]

That comment was meant to be prefaced by a "hey, I like what you like!" statement, but somehow managed to come off sounding like stuffy academic advice telling you to do more research, which was absolutely not my intent. You're research efforts are far and away the best I've seen and your prose (both for Newsies and HF, because yes I've read those stories, too) dazzles me. Please accept the rec in the spirit it was intended!

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the late reply, I've been pursuing job leads like mad this week.

I've heard about Nasaw's book and recall trying to track it down last year but had no luck. I'm glad you brought it up though, I ought to try again. (I mean, I suppose I could just order it, but I wanted to actually look at it first...no budget, you see.) I take it the book covers children all across the US?

Thanks for the kind words about my fic. HF is the first slash I've written in two or three years--heck, probably the first slash I've read in almost that long. Fun to get back into the swing of it, so to speak.