What do people do in Euljiro-3-ga? They put on suits and ties and go to work at the gleaming new glass and steel office towers that crowd around the intersection of Eulji-ro (을지로) and Samil-daero (삼일대로). Or they put on white hard hats and reflective vests and go to work building two more such towers. …
I like Yeongdeungpo-gu. It doesn’t have much charm, but it has more interesting and idiosyncratic spots than most people realize, or at least remember: the machine shops and art scene in Mullae, the Chinese neighborhood in Daerim, the parks and behemoth Yoido Full Gospel Church on Yeouido, Seonyudo’s industrial island oasis. It’s also the (mostly)…
The facades of the buildings around Sinseol-dong crossing come in unfashionable shades like burnt sienna or bearing the tint of decades of dirt and pollution. It’s a palette that buildings only get if they’re reused and used again, and it tells you just what kind of place Sinseol-dong is. A couple blocks south from Exit…
Wind blustered down the wide, straight avenues between office towers, flapping the ties of the men in business suits as they made their way back to their desks, coffee cups in hand. Their routes took them past makeup shops and restaurants, past a new tea café where someone wearing a fuzzy black ball on their…
On a normal day Euljiro-1-ga pulses with activity, occupying the sweet center between Myeongdong’s shopping bazaar, the metropolitan seat of power at City Hall, and Seoul’s centuries-old main boulevard, Jongno. The day I visited, though, was the day before Chuseok, Korea’s biggest holiday, and with many shops closed and a large number of Seoulites out…
