Where Im writting from by Dereck Owens - Assignment Example

After reading Derek Owens work ‘Where I’m writing from’, it is obvious that the two figures of most prominence in his work are those of the Long Island Expressway and the Lake Ronkonkoma. He describes each figure in great detail and they depict the core essence of his writing style and the sentiment value and connection they hold to his home. Owens description of Lake Ronkonkoma initiates from the detail he goes into regarding the formulation of the lake, which was mainly from a mile high glacier called the Wisconsinan that bulldozed its way and reached Brookhaven after passing through Canada and New England.

Warmer climates caused glaciers such as these to melt and retreat leaving behind detritus that geologists now call Ronkonkoma Terminal Moraine. This was how Lake Ronkonkoma, the freshwater lake came into being. Furthermore Owen describes Lake Ronkonkoma today as a working and middle class suburb, indistinguishable from a hundred other suburbs on the island; most of which spill into each other so that their boundaries seem visually intertwined due to no prominent sense of ‘village limits’.

Therefore ones sense of boundaries comes not from any visual sense but from proximity to highways and strip malls. The Long Island Expressway that is located five blocks away from Owens house and he describes it as comprising of a service road that incorporates 24/7 traffic with its extended HOV lanes so as to accommodate the rapidly growing and close to overflowing ‘high occupancy vehicles’. The detail with which Owen describes the Long Island Expressway is by looking at the HOV Lanes from the Ronkonkoma Avenue overpass located about 45 miles from Manhattan.

His opinion of the Expressway is of a structure that was built without rapid transit and without provision for rapid transport in the future. With time as each section of the highway was opened, starting from 1955, it was packed with an immense amount of traffic. This structure which was meant to facilitate and started of as Robert Moses’ dream became a nightmare for other men. With time the huge road widened and stretched eastward till it went deeper to Suffolk; and as it spread so did the amount of congestion.

Owens description is facilitated by his provision of a figure of 80,000 vehicles being a daily capacity for the Long Island Expressway however by 1963, 132,000 vehicles per day were found to be jammed on this expressway; hence the name ‘the world’s longest parking lot’. There is a similarity being the Ronkonkoma Lake and the Island Expressway. Both these figures which are of such prominence in Owens work were initially overvalued structures which were meant to uphold a certain amount of pride and facilitation for people however failed to fulfill their purpose.

The Lake Ronkonkoma which was described as ‘the jewel’ of the community, lacked basic supplementary aspects of the structure such as a boardwalk, a sidewalk or even a pathway encircling the lake which failed to let residents enjoy the beauty of the lake and provide safe passage around it. Instead of the Lake being surrounded by structures that enhanced its value there was only an unsafe perimeter road, and scattered arrangements such as homes in some areas, a restaurant, low income apartments and trailer parks.

Similarly the Long Island Expressway instead of facilitating transport was always full of fast moving traffic making it unsafe for Owen to cross with his son. Also the structure was jam packed and highly congested making transportation through the expressway a hectic undertaking instead of a facility. Reference Derek, O. Where I’m writing from.