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62 articles

Glyph: even in Mayberry, a traditional retailer needs to leave a strong impression.

June 7, 2018 11 Comments

As the term “retail apocalypse” becomes increasingly mainstream, it’s a bit comforting to see an all-too-rare example of what appears to be a purely local business trying its hand along an American-as-apple-pie main street. It’s even more comforting when the entrepreneur locates in an architecturally challenging building…and succeeds.Here we witness Glyph, a stationery-centered boutique that

Station Plaza: a strip mall of churches is hardly a shopper’s heaven.

January 31, 2018 2 Comments

I’ve spotted the storefront church numerous times in the past, both in strip malls and in conventional main streets. Rarely (if ever) have I described it with flattering words. It’s not that I harbor any hostility to the exercise of religion, nor do I feel that church plantings need to take place in conventional ecclesiastical

Service station sentimentality: frozen in time without spending a dime.

January 15, 2018 14 Comments

On a quiet corner in a mostly residential area, a modest little gas station offers a visual time warp to the 1950s.Where are all the digital numbers? And how much would it cost just to keep those dinosaur gas pumps working in this day and age? Normally, when we encounter a service station with infrastructure

Old Town Mall MONTAGE: life after people, a mile from Baltimore’s downtown.

October 31, 2017 10 Comments

Just a few weeks after a moribund mall montage, I’m back, despite the fact that these photo-heavy articles take forever and a day to create. But I can’t resist: like the Midtown Mall in Worcester, this retrograde retail ruin gets little coverage. It’s not a conventional suburban mall—it’s an urban setting, and, also like Midtown,

When steeples compete with summits.

October 26, 2017 6 Comments

The river-to-rail city of Cumberland, nestled between the prodigious hills that dominate western Maryland, may not be thriving, but it sure offers some charming, timeless vistas. As is too often the case, this photo only partially captures its objective: the Cumberland skyline—a city of churches. It isn’t a big city at all, so the

Pedestrian upgrades: best intentions aren’t always enough to make the grade.

October 6, 2017 16 Comments

As pedestrianism intensifies and its strongest advocates promulgate the newest and best practices, we predictably witness compelling or examples well beyond the big-city antecedents. Not surprisingly, we witness the same incremental improvements in accessibility for persons with disabilities, often in tandem with pedestrian upgrades. This should come as no surprise: after all, sidewalks should serve

The modern storefront looks great, but what they sell is just so two-dimensional.

July 12, 2017 13 Comments

Like many of the satellite cities surrounding Washington DC, Silver Spring offers a dense, active, well-capitalized downtown with a mixture of uses and solid accessibility, thanks to the robust and ever growing DC Metro system. And the downtown sits just a half-mile from the northwestern corner of the DC boundary, in the prosperous expanses

Setting bounds for the bail bonds.

February 13, 2017 8 Comments

Imagine if you can that you’re in Frederick—Maryland’s second largest city (a distant second, after Baltimore). You’ve just passed through the resurgent downtown, where a variety of restaurants and specialty shops line Patrick Street, the primary east-west corridor. Now, as you make your way past the bustle, you encounter a few businesses that suggest a

Boundary battles over sparklers and smokes?

May 11, 2016 6 Comments

We always look for the better deal first. It goes without saying. When two neighboring jurisdictions apply different regulations to a specific good or service for which great demand exists, the industry that financially depends on that good/service will gravitate toward the less stringent side of the boundary line. I’ve pointed this out before when

Electric neglected.

April 21, 2016 10 Comments

On a serene stretch of Interstate 70 in western Maryland—west of Hagerstown but not yet to the point where the freeway veers sharply northward into Pennsylvania—it’s still possible in mid April to see some antiquated power lines that parallel the road, even as dusk approaches. The foliage isn’t yet thick enough, so there they are.