assignment 3-- The 90.

The spot I chose was a spot popularly known around campus as the “90”. Its know for this name because of the angle the street forms as you follow the road up woodland avenue until you are forced to take a sharp right onto Hilltop avenue. This place is know by almost everyone who attends school at the University of Kentucky, and I’m not sure exactly why. My lack of knowledge on the subject is what made me want to understand a little more about it.
As a student at UK I am aware of the area which the 90 is located, I’m just not exactly sure why it’s used so much in reference to so many people that it is surrounded by. As a freshman, having friends always come and pick me up from the dorms, the 90 seemed very convenient in the sense that it was both is to be found and easy to get away from. In a way I kind of think of it as a friendly drive through allowing people to pick up/drop off both friends and items without having to pull into a parking lot or find a parking space.
As I observed this area walking home from class each day I spend around 5-10 mins trying to figure out what it actually was that made the 90 such a special, well-known and noticed landmark. Each day observing from the same exact position, acting as though I were a student waiting on a ride I would stand directly in the corner of the 90 degree angle formed by the two streets and observed everyone and everything I saw, smelled, heard and felt. While standing there, the first sense I used was my nose. I smelled around, and after reading the example, i thought that the smell of cigarettes would linger in the air, but it didn’t. As I stood there with my GF we actually shared a breath of fresh air and were able to chill out under the shade being provided by the extremely tall and fully leaved trees leading to the University’s dorms housing buildings.
As I began trying to observe the area using my visual senses I noticed that the 90 wasn’t much but just a busy street. Cars sped past one after another for an almost continuous 10 mins. There were little gaps of silence when no cars where passing but they didn’t last very much longer than a few seconds. One other things I saw a repetition of was the number of people jogging by. Each day I would count at least 5 people running past within my ten minutes of observation. Male and female genders both able to be found using it as a shortcut of some sort. I would stand there and out of nowhere someone would just cut through the 90 coming from places I never even knew led anywhere. As I continued to see this happening I began to wonder and think about jogging there myself. i started to ask myself, how long would it take to get from there to my house, and then I realized what was going on, I caught myself falling into the “90” fad that I had so curiously been trying to crank and figure out. The only reason I had the thoughts and Ideas I was having was because I had stood there watching people analyzing and putting myself into their shoes. While in reality I didn’t care much about the jog around commonly overlook street corner.
During my last visit at the 90 I felt that I understood a little more about the location and why it was often over looked and popularly noticed. People use the 90 for all sorts of things, short-cuts, both driving and while on foot. It’s often used a reference for people to be found or to guild someone to you. After completing this assignment I look at the 90 with open eyes, noticing many aspects of its use and how different people use it for wide variety of different things. I don’t think the 90 has the same meaning to everyone, as I did beginning the assignment. I enjoyed this being involved in this activity and hope there are more like it down the road.