Category: Historic Architecture
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“Central Indiana Interurban” chronicles the state’s electric trains
There was a time when electric railroads, called interurbans, crisscrossed the state, connecting the small villages and large cities of Indiana. “I was about 10 when my mother first started letting me take the interurban on my own,” recalls Lorraine Simon, who was born in East Chicago in 1911. “My mother would put me on…
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New mystery explores New York in the 1910s and 1990s
Patience and Fortitude, the marble lions gallantly standing at the steps of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan, were only 2 years old when Jack Lyons, along with his wife and two children, moves into a large apartment hidden away on the library’s mezzanine floor. It’s all part…
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Indiana Landmarks Rescued and Restored
“These places are all about the people who made them,” says Marsh Davis, president of Indiana Landmarks,“and the people who worked at saving them.”
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Ten Restaurants That Changed America: Howard Johnson’s A Roadside Gem
Howard Johnson’s: As American As Fried Clams.
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1000 Places to See Before You Die: The World As You’ve Never Seen It Before
Patricia Schultz and I had only been on the phone together for five minutes before we decided to make the trip to New Zealand—neither of us had been and both of us wanted to go. And no, I haven’t bought my ticket yet but that’s how mesmerizing Schultz, who introduced the concept of bucket list…
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Fading Ads of Chicago
For more than 40 years, Joe Marlin, author of the just released Fading Ads of Chicago, photographed ghost signs, those fading advertisements painted on the sides of brick buildings, a onetime popular way to advertise in the U.S. “I’d take notes when I was driving to and from work on the west side…
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The Body in the Castle Well
After reading Martin Walker’s The Body in the Castle Well, the 14th book in the series about Chief of Police Bruno Courrèges, I Googled real estate listings in the Périgord, known for its castles, caves, gastronomy and lush landscape of rolling hills, woods and vineyards. From Walker’s description, this region in southwestern France seems…
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Art Deco Chicago: Designing Modern America
sleek and glorious as any Art Deco masterpiece whether it be the grand Palmolive Building built in 1922 or the much lowlier but still spectacular Bell telephone Model 302 designed not by a noted artist or architect but instead by George Lum, a Bell Labs engineer in 1937, Art Deco Chicago: Designing Modern America (Yale…
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Paris in Stride: An Insider’s Walking Guide
Imagine strolling through Paris with a friend, one who knows the greatest little patisseries, cafes, outdoor markets and shops tucked along winding cobbled streets. Together the two of us try on amazingly chic designer dresses at La boutique Didier Ludot and amble through the courtyard gardens and gaze at the Swedish art work at…
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