Places
Breakfast at the Bombay Stock Exchange Canteen
On the second floor of the Phiroze Jeejeebhoy Towers, the Modi family has served the same idlis to the same traders since 1957. The market has changed. The breakfast has not.
Section
Places
Sober travel reporting from working ports, mountain villages, river crossings, and neighbourhoods in slow transition.
Places
The Twelve Blocks of Fitzgerald
On the northwest side of Detroit, a community land trust has taken title to one hundred and ninety properties across a twelve-block neighborhood. The residents own the houses. The trust owns the land.
Places
Sunday at the Bac Ha Cattle Market
In a mountain town in northern Vietnam, the Sunday cattle market draws Flower Hmong traders from a dozen villages. The price of a water buffalo is settled with a handshake and a small cup of rice wine.
Places
The Library Boat at Kemijoki
A retrofitted river ferry carries seven thousand books to nine villages along the Kemijoki river in northern Finland. Its librarian, Aino Saari, knows every reader by name.
Places
The Hammers of Medzev
In a small town in southern Slovakia, a guild of blacksmiths that traces its founding to 1376 still meets on Wednesday evenings. There are eleven members.
Places
The 27-Hour Train to Bariloche
From Constitucion station to the lake district of Patagonia, on a train that crosses two-thirds of Argentina at the speed of a country fair.
Places
What Is Left at Loutro
On the south coast of Crete, in a village reachable only by boat or by foot, three commercial fishermen still work the dawn waters. Their sons will not.
Places
The Weekday Crowd at Vestaravag
At the Torshavn fish market on a Tuesday in April, the catch is small, the talk is smaller, and a woman named Hanna sorts cod by feel.