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The ladies’
My favorite thing is the lettering on the door; I especially like the lilting curve of the word “ladies” and the intertwined Os in “room.” It’s a little hard to imagine that the owner of this place (a service station when it was new), ordered up something fancy for the door, but maybe that is what happened. After all, it is right around the corner from the town’s museum district.
For the record, St. Paul is the first town on the road trip where we heard loudspeakers broadcasting local radio stations. We thought it was for some kind of special event (was there going to be a parade?) but then we heard the same thing in several other towns.
St. Paul, Nebraska
photographed 8.30.2014
Like draperies
The street side of this block houses a law office, an antique store or two, and the Museum of Nebraska Major League Baseball (who knew?).
And, while that was interesting, as you know, I like to check out the backs of things. Otherwise, I would have missed the sad state of things in the alley, with that dumpster that left me wondering how the garbage truck got to it, the plastic sheets that’ve been hanging on the wall for so long they looked like tattered draperies, and the G.A., which might have stood for Go Away.
St. Paul, Nebraska
photographed 8.30.2014
It all falls down
Whatever used to be there is now just a pile of bricks. I know this isn’t how it works, but I had the impression that those bricks just all let go, at the same time.
St. Paul, Nebraska
photographed 8.30.2014
PS. So, I decided to look at a map of St. Paul, Nebraska. And while I was looking at the map, I decided to take myself on a little street-view tour, where I saw this image from April 2012. See how the building’s gone, but the pile of bricks isn’t even there? Now I think maybe the bricks are slowly returning to the site and will reassemble themselves into that building….
Stairway to…9th Street
What a graceful stairway! It connects the rarely-used plaza level of the Civic Center with pedestrian-unfriendly 9th Street.
As we say about failed architecture, “I guess it looked good on paper.”
Lubbock Memorial Civic Center
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 8.16.2014
The after-hours club
Usually when I am out shooting, passersby don’t engage me in conversation.
On this particular day, though, an older man driving a pickup pulled over as I was shooting the old drive in from the other day. Our conversation:
Him: Do you remember what used to be here?
Me: No, sir. I’m from out of town, so I don’t know anything about it.
Him: Well, it used to be one of them after hours clubs. You know the kind I mean – the ones that didn’t even open until all of them other ones had closed. There was a lot going on here.
Me: How long ago did it close down?
Him: How long? Oh, it’s been closed forever.
Now, at this point I had seen three of the four sides of the place and was still under the impression that it was a drive in, so I wasn’t too sure he knew what he was talking about. But after he drove off, I looked in a broken window on the side I’d not yet explored…and then I believed him.
He came back around a few minutes later, pulling up close to where I was standing. This time he said, “Are you looking to buy anything?”
I was afraid to delve any further into that. It can’t have been good, right?!
Midland, Texas
photographed 8.23.2014
One Day | One Image 