| Posted on Fri, Sep. 12, 2003 | |||||||||
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Toynbee tiler may be in
Phila.
Inquirer Staff Writer
If you find yourself stuck in traffic on the Blue Route in Delaware County (don't try this at high speed), keep your eyes peeled on the northbound side, just beyond Milepost 12 near St. Davids and Villanova. In the middle of the right lane, you will see a white inset in the pavement reading, "Resurrect Dead." About 75 yards farther on, you'll read, "Planet Jupiter." You have just entered a new dimension, somewhere between light and shadow. You have entered the Tile Zone. The Toynbee Tile Zone. The puzzling Blue Route message is merely an adaptation of a phenomenon that has intrigued a sizable number of buffs worldwide - well, hemisphere-wide - for more than a decade. Someone, and the evidence suggests it is one person, has been painstakingly carving a cryptic message into what appears to be heavy-duty vinyl or plastic floor tiling, then gluing the tiles to roads from New York to Rio de Janeiro. There have been more than 130 sightings. The message, in its most complete form, is always "Toynbee Idea in Kubrick's 2001 Resurrect Dead on Planet Jupiter." And it looks like that someone lives in Philadelphia. As elusive as Bigfoot, as far-roaming as Elvis, as secretive as Area 51, the tiler apparently has never been caught. No matter where you live in the Philadelphia region, chances are there is a Toynbee tile on a road near you. They are probably most common on Center City streets and least common in New Jersey, though sightings have been reported in Bellmawr, Atlantic City, and rest stops on the turnpike. The farthest north they have been seen is in Boston. The farthest south in the United States is near Washington, and the farthest west is Kansas City, Mo. They are all over Manhattan, and several have been seen in Chicago and Detroit. One each has been reported in Rio de Janeiro; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Santiago, Chile. But it is Philadelphia that seems to have the densest concentration, and that has also produced the world's most dedicated scholars of the tiles. Especially Bill O'Neill, 31, a Bucks County native who noticed his first tile in Center City about 1994, while a student at Temple University. One tile, he thought, was just a bit of urban weirdness or street art. But then he saw others, and he learned they were popping up in New York. "This is getting out there," he said of his reaction. "This is cool. Your typical guy on the street with a cardboard sign warning of the apocalypse - they don't get around much. This guy gets around." O'Neill was working in Temple's computer systems at the time, and "I needed something to put up [on his Web site], so I put that on there." O'Neill's Web site, now www.toynbee.net, is still the most authoritative source for tile reporting, with scores of entries and photos of many. "I would guess it is one individual. In all the pictures I've seen, the tiles have been identical - the style of the letters, the material," he said. And is that person local? "I think so, because that's certainly where I've gotten the bulk of the sightings. New York is second," O'Neill said. And does he think the tiler is, well, able to function in society? "I imagine he would have to be coherent to a certain extent, just to do that much traveling." O'Neill points out, though, that many tiles have an unambiguously paranoid addendum, relating to the Soviet Union or conspiracies by journalists. Justin Duerr, 27, is another longtime student of the tiles. A South Philadelphia house painter, Duerr has a hunch that the tiler is on some sort of disability income, "probably lives with his mom and just spends all his extra income on bus tickets." How did the tiles get to South America? "Who knows?" Duerr said. But Duerr may have come closer than any terrestrial to actually seeing the tiler at work. A few years ago, he said, he was living in Chinatown and was making a predawn run to a Wawa. He crossed the street near 13th and Arch, noting nothing out of the ordinary. When he retraced his steps after shopping, there was a fresh tile on the pavement. Already a tile fanatic, he tried to find whoever had just put it down. "I was walking around yelling, 'Toynbee idea! Toynbee idea!' " into the silent darkness, he said. He went back to the tile. He could peel the layers apart because no cars had yet run over it. "It was crazy how intricately it was done," he said. First was a layer of street tar, then two or three layers of tar paper "intricately folded," then the tile with the message, and on top another layer of tar paper, which would be quickly worn away by traffic. The black would fill in the letters of the message against the white background. Duerr left the tile intact, out of respect. Later, he took an ordinary floor tile, heated it, and with a utility knife found he could cut it "almost like butter." The tiles on the street, he said, will last "almost indefinitely" unless paved over. Duerr said he believed the tiler did have some sort of rational plan. "I think there's something he's trying to lodge into people's unconsciousness." Arnold Toynbee was a historian and philosopher who thought that belief in one God should give way to pantheism. And Stanley Kubrick's 1968 movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, featured an astronaut who does go through some sort of rebirth on Jupiter. But Jupiter, the largest planet, is not the sort of place likely to appeal to many dead earthlings. It is almost entirely liquid and gas, and little solid rock. Charlie Taylor of Queen Village, a Temple classmate of O'Neill's, dipped into Toynbee's writings. He said he could see some vague connection but ultimately decided, "It's meaningless, really." Taylor, a network engineer, was so dedicated to unlocking the mystery that he followed up on one of the tiles' most tantalizing clues. The tile in Chile contains a street address. It is a Philadelphia address, on Seventh Street near Oregon Avenue. With a reporter, Taylor recently went to that address to find out who lived there. It was a middle-aged single man, more than a little rattled to find two strangers trying to ask him about strange tiles and resurrecting the dead. "That's crazy," the man said. "Are you guys religious? Are you Mormons?" Over the years, many have tried to follow various leads, but to no avail. Someday, O'Neill said, the mystery may be solved, and he isn't sure how he would feel. "It's almost like I don't want to know," he said. "It's more fun this way." | |||||||||
David L.
Ben Franklin: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt, they have more need of masters.”
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Charles
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2003 3:44 PM
To: 'The Sandbox Discussion List'
Subject: [Sndbox] The Toynbee Tiles
The Toynbee Tiles
Mysterious tiles have been turning up all over the U.S. They are size of license plates, embedded in the street and all say the same thing: "Toynbee idea in Kubrick's 2001, Resurrect dead on planet Jupiter."
Doug Worgul writes in the Kansas City Star that he first spotted one in his home town in 1996 (and it's still there today). He did some internet research and found that there have been more than 130 of these "Toynbee tiles" seen in at least 20 cities around the United States (and two in South America). In New York, around 50 tiles have been found, and in Philadelphia, nearly 30. Twenty have been spotted in Baltimore, 16 in Washington, D.C.
They all look the same and say the same thing, except some are made with colored letters and others with black letters. They first started turning up in the late 80s. No one has ever seen one of them being embedded in the street, and no one has claimed responsibility for them.Charles Mims
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