"...located on a busy street in the heart of downtown."

Which of the following would you call a 'busy street?'

A.   

B.

  





Or  C (from Google Maps Street Level)?

Why do I ask?  Well, there's a lot discussion about the flood of Sarah Palin books.  I followed links today which got me to this quote from Scott Conroy and Shushannah Walshe’s new book, “Sarah from Alaska: The Sudden Rise and Brutal Education of a New Conservative Superstar,” on the HastingReport:

One afternoon, while conducting interviews in Juneau, we decided to take a short walk to catch a glimpse of the governor’s mansion, which is located on a busy street in the heart of downtown. On our way back, we crossed paths with Piper Palin and two of her friends, who were evidently returning from school. We had known Piper as a frequent guest in the back of the plane during campaign flights between the cities. Her energy and humor made her a favorite among the ever-exhausted members of the traveling press corps, and she seemed excited to chat briefly with us about her return to Alaska…[emphasis added]

The hedge in pictures C above belongs to the Governor's Mansion in Juneau.

For people who have never been to Juneau, the picture on the left is the northeast section of downtown Juneau.(The red section on the map below.)





The street in the picture below runs along the Baranof Hotel in the business district of Juneau.

While the Governor's Mansion (yellow circle) is technically in downtown Juneau. There are business sections and residential sections and the mansion is on a tiny residential street.  (Actually, there are several tiny streets that surround it.)  Is it just me, biased because I live in the metropolis of Anchorage, who doesn't think of any streets in downtown Juneau as particularly busy?   You can walk from the lower right of the map to the high school in 15 or 20 minutes.  And sure, thirty cars all leaving the Capitol at once could cause a bit of a jam, but this is much more accurately described as a tiny, quaint,  and picturesque town.

The picture below is of a house across the street from the Governor's mansion.  My subjects are standing in the "busy street" described in the book.

I raise this issue because it makes me wonder if they were even at the Governor's mansion if they describe the street it's on as "busy." The only way it might have been busy is if there was a tour bus or two on the street at the time they saw it. Or maybe there were a hundred out-of-state journalists driving around the house at the time.

But for most Americans who have never been to Juneau, hearing 'busy street' certainly has to conjure up an image closer to pictures A and B than C above.

So, what's my point?  This may be a poor description, but it hardly is important in terms of what they are writing.  Well, if they call this street busy, what else in the book is misleading, distorted, or just plain wrong? I don't know.  Maybe nothing.  I'll just put this out here for the record. Maybe this is the only error.  It certainly struck me when I read the passage.  Perhaps other readers will find other errors. Certainly the rush to publish around the same date that Palin's book is coming out may have caused there to be a number of such problems. Maybe not.