As roadside travel plazas get plush, why not make every old rest area a more welcome center?
The fate of interstate highway rest areas in the 21st century has been checkered, to say the least. As privately owned service stations become larger and posher, state-operated rest areas have found it increasingly difficult to justify their existence. In the eastern US, familiar names like Wawa, Sheetz, Pilot, and Love’s have expanded their convenience
Arlington Temple United Methodist: the gas station church gets its own catechism.
The primary photo in this article features a landmark that is widely known to people in the greater Washington DC area, particularly those on the Virginia side of the river. But it isn’t significant or important enough to have any clout nationally or even outside the region. It’s a visual landmark in the sense that
How do can we tell if a restaurant is an ascendent chain? It calls itself “local”.
It’s been over a decade since I wrote about the fish, chop, and steakhouse known as Kincaid’s, a chain with a location in Carmel, Indiana (an Indianapolis suburb) that, based on my fleeting observations, was doing everything it could to downplay its very chainy-ness. And that was the point. The interior of Kincaid’s included
Party walls in college towns: campus culture can shift building form, punching holes or tearing them down.
I haven’t contemplated on party walls in quite some time, but it used to be a subject that vexed me. It’s a tricky one, because there’s no universally understood term for what I’m describing here, which makes it harder to pin down. Is there a better label than “party wall”? Simply put, the old commercial
Sweet Escape: cleverly combining two fun pastimes so the axe hits the bullseye.
As the year winds down, I intend to avoid any aphorisms or wisdom accrued over the past year—far too cliché. New Years Day is, after all, a capricious imposition of significance to a 24-hour period that otherwise if fundamentally like any other. Just an arbitrarily agreed-upon point on the elliptical orbit. Why impart words of
White stripes: in this context, the drums may be the most essential part.
It’s amazing the world of difference that a few stripes of paint can make. Thirty years ago, the notion that various municipal public works departments would overtly reserve portions of our roads as exclusive lanes for bicycles was essentially an extravagance—a weird provision relegated to a few choice roads in college towns, which were the
Architectural forensics in Takoma Park: what was the original use of that cool little corner building?
A vlog that I enjoy has the name “Retail Archaeology”. I like the name just as much as the subject: predominantly an exploration of dead malls and nostalgia for the salad days of mall culture (mostly the 1970s and 80s). I’ve indulged in the subject more than a few times; it has resulted in some
Exploitation: early American Dirt photos of Camden devastation make it to documentary film.
My images of urban devastation in Camden, New Jersey were one of the earliest of my articles to go “viral”, a term I use in quotes since it’s only relative to my blog as a whole. But the article about the 100% abandoned Arlington Street in Camden still has more quotes than just about any
Epiphany Church in Valdez, Alaska: a hybridization of denominations?
The religious landscape in America is changing. This isn’t a revelation (pun intended), nor is it particularly novel; it’s always been changing. The media and think tank buzz about the nation’s growing secularization is so abundant these days that it’s impossible to ignore. It takes no great deal of detective work to find evidence that
Are balconies an intrinsic value?
Even as a child, I can recall the family trips down to Florida or South Carolina, witnessing all those high-rise apartment and condo buildings, each one of which had its own balcony. Sometimes two. And I remember noticing how there never seemed to be anyone out using them. Needless to say, I didn’t understand real
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As roadside travel plazas get plush, why not make every old rest area a more welcome center?
The fate of interstate highway rest areas in the 21st century has been checkered, to say the least. As privately owned service stations become larger and posher, state-operated rest areas have found it
Arlington Temple United Methodist: the gas station church gets its own catechism.
The primary photo in this article features a landmark that is widely known to people in the greater Washington DC area, particularly those on the Virginia side of the river. But it isn’t
How do can we tell if a restaurant is an ascendent chain? It calls itself “local”.
It’s been over a decade since I wrote about the fish, chop, and steakhouse known as Kincaid’s, a chain with a location in Carmel, Indiana (an Indianapolis suburb) that, based on my fleeting
Party walls in college towns: campus culture can shift building form, punching holes or tearing them down.
I haven’t contemplated on party walls in quite some time, but it used to be a subject that vexed me. It’s a tricky one, because there’s no universally understood term for what I’m
Sweet Escape: cleverly combining two fun pastimes so the axe hits the bullseye.
As the year winds down, I intend to avoid any aphorisms or wisdom accrued over the past year—far too cliché. New Years Day is, after all, a capricious imposition of significance to a
White stripes: in this context, the drums may be the most essential part.
It’s amazing the world of difference that a few stripes of paint can make. Thirty years ago, the notion that various municipal public works departments would overtly reserve portions of our roads as
Architectural forensics in Takoma Park: what was the original use of that cool little corner building?
A vlog that I enjoy has the name “Retail Archaeology”. I like the name just as much as the subject: predominantly an exploration of dead malls and nostalgia for the salad days of
Exploitation: early American Dirt photos of Camden devastation make it to documentary film.
My images of urban devastation in Camden, New Jersey were one of the earliest of my articles to go “viral”, a term I use in quotes since it’s only relative to my blog
Epiphany Church in Valdez, Alaska: a hybridization of denominations?
The religious landscape in America is changing. This isn’t a revelation (pun intended), nor is it particularly novel; it’s always been changing. The media and think tank buzz about the nation’s growing secularization
Are balconies an intrinsic value?
Even as a child, I can recall the family trips down to Florida or South Carolina, witnessing all those high-rise apartment and condo buildings, each one of which had its own balcony. Sometimes
Recent Comments
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- on Student Driver subterfuge: are they really new and inexperienced, or merely incompetent?: “I see these stickers very often in Charlotte, and 90% of the time, it is a full grown adult driving.…” Jan 27, 09:04
- on Arlington Temple United Methodist: the gas station church gets its own catechism.: “Tashukur.” Jan 23, 21:19
- on Another defunct college campus, cleft in two.: “I graduated in 1970. The campus and surrounding area were beautiful. I walked everywhere and never felt unsafe at that…” Jan 23, 13:20
- on Another defunct college campus, cleft in two.: “The newer building closest to Prospect St was Pudet Hall, the science building. Upsala was a wonderful college.” Jan 23, 01:55
- on Another defunct college campus, cleft in two.: “Editor-in-Chief of the Gazette here from 1968 to 1969. Selected 3rd best small college newspaper in the country. We had…” Jan 22, 22:04
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