Alexander Diaz

Site Visit

Descriptive Analysis

Friday March 24

Descriptive Data

• First brought to an old barber shop behind lawyers row
• The shop smelled old and only had one seat
• The door creaked open as we entered and the shop looked as if it were stripped down
• As we walked out to lawyers row, the day grew dark and the street lights flickered on
• We approached an old brick path that lead to short brick apartments that looked aged and tattered
• The sounds of cars passing by seemed foreign in such an old place
• People talked as Mr. Clyne walked up the creaky old white steps of the apartments
• I looked up into the dark windows
• A shiver ran down as I felt something look back
• A subtle breeze rolled through and the lights created a shadow leading down the stairs
• Chipped paint on the windows fluttered in the wind as it blew

Qualitative Data

• Why pick an old barber shop as the meeting place for an interview?
• Why have these old apartments still standing out of sight?
• What effects made this area’s aura so disturbing?
• Is it just because of the old nature of the place that makes it haunted?

    As me and Mr. Matthews walked down the street to find our meeting location, we noticed a little barber shop with a man shuffling around inside. We did not know at the time that this man was actually Mark Clyne. What he was doing in that little abandoned looking barber, we do not know. But this would be the location of our interview as we could not do it outside due to excessive wind and outside interferences such as people or cars. So we that in this small barber shop that only had one chair. There was a poster on the wall that gave a cartoon rendition of what I’m assuming what this barber shop used to be. The cartoon illustrated a barber with a customer in his chair giving him a haircut, and it was drawn from the point of view of someone looking from the other room into the barber shop. We sat down in the old chairs, as Mr. Clyne sat down in the barber chair, and we started chatting about our goals for this project. The place smelled old, like the kind of smell old wood makes mixed with outdated cushion seats. The interview went on and as my partner asked the questions, I examined the area, the random portraits of little girls in the window sill, the toilet in the dark bathroom right next to us that seemed like it hasn’t been used in years, the outdated magazines that seem to lay there for people who were waiting for something in here. I asked myself if people actually still had haircuts here. Was Mark Clyne secretly a barber too? Why own such a place, and what made this shop so significant to him? As the interview went on we realized that Mr. Clyne used the old building for séances that happened in the next room. Strangely the door was blocked with plants and stacks of pots in the way of the door. After his performance where he acts like he talks to a ghost and has it touching him, and after he thoroughly has creeped us out, he brings us to lawyers row. We came in when the sun was still in the sky but when we left to lawyers row the night had overtaken the day. We arrived at lawyers row to find a collection of old brick apartments that created a pattern as the design repeated from apartment to apartment. The bricks were old and the white paint chipped and faded off the windows and stairs. The breeze picked up heavily since lawyers row was behind main street, creating a windy tunnel effect. The line of apartments seemed so out of place compared to the rest of lexington. It was old, not kept up at all, run down almost. I looked up into the windows and it was pitch black. I looked into the abyss and it was almost as if something looked back. Was this creepy feeling something real or was it just because the place was rundown and old? Would it be different in the daytime? Mr. Clyne explained the age old story on top of the first step leading up to the apartments. I looked up the staircase as he talked and saw only more darkness, like if shadows only lived there now. We left the row and I felt as if we had left a place of loneliness behind. Lawyers row may be haunted, not with a host dog but instead with the echos of the past.