Blog Archives
Skylight
You know what I did here?
Yep. I went around back. The front of the place was boring. The back wasn’t.
Just between us, I like to think of those two light fixtures as “building polyps.” I realize that’s not a real thing, but maybe it should be.
Midland, Texas
photographed 8.23.2014
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
