what about the plastic animals?

Steubenville City of Murals

Steel Workers by Eric Grohe

Dean Martin by Robert Dever

Smiley Faces by ???

If you're going to visit one corrupt rust belt Ohio River town that's filled with murals you might as well visit the other one.  A couple of days after Portsmouth I stopped in Steubenville for lunch and a bit of downtown sightseeing.  Unlike Portsmouth, where the murals are by one artist and all along the flood wall, the murals in Steubenville are by many artists and scattered about town.  The smiley faces do not appear to be part of the official mural program.

Dean Martin is Steubenville's most famous native son.  His mural, however, is exiled to a wall on a Krogers away from downtown.  More important for Ohioans, Steubenville is the hometown of jazz musician Dorothy Sloop.  Buckeyes really like the song allegedly named after her.

But NOT in Beatty

In honor of Ken Lewis being dumped by Bank of America shareholders today, I bring you the giant anti-Ken Lewis sign in Beatty, Nevada.  I don't know that there's a connection between Ken Lewis and Lewis Street.  Beatty was an interesting, isolated town a few miles east of Death Valley.  More pictures to come someday but first we need to hop eastward to visit Steubenville City of Murals.

Only Tweety Remains

Jan 25th, 2009

Apr 5th, 2009

Some sad news and good news to report this evening.  The sad news is above.  The cartoon characters adorning a deli at 110th and 2nd were covered over sometime this winter.  King Kong and Spiderman, who is visible at left on the bottom picture, were also defaced.

Now the good news.  Frequent commenter Cheryl, proprietress of Flyover People, also writes a weekly column for The Emporia Gazette.  Last week the Kansas Press Association honored Cheryl with a first place award for column writing.  Very cool.  Congratulations!

The National Road circa 1918

The National Road was the first federally-funded interstate highway.  Construction began in Cumberland, Maryland in 1811 and wound its way west to Vandalia, Illinois in 1834.  Before the railroads arrived it was an important route to the western parts of the country.  The road became popular again with the rise of the automobile in the 1920s.  In 1926 the National Road became part of US-40 and stretched from coast-to-coast.  The interstate system pretty much killed the popularity of US-40 beginning in the 1960s.

This part of the National Road east of Cambridge cuts off from US-40 and is now named Peacock Rd.  It was paved with bricks in 1918 to speed up World War I shipments.

Baker Boy

Kennedy's Cakes and Donuts in Cambridge is an experience.  A wonderful experience.  First, they've got a Big Boy earning his keep as a Baker Boy out back.  Not out front where it might attract customers, but at the back of the parking lot so as you're driving up Southgate Parkway from I-70 you'll only notice it out of the corner of your eye then almost drive off the road as you look for a place to turn around and think of the run-on sentence you'll later use to describe the experience.  By the way, the brown disk leaning against the wall is Big Boy's hamburger.

Once inside your senses will overload.  Bread, cookies, cakes, muffins, pans, cooling racks, pie tins, home furnishings all are mixed together and apparently for sale.  One million milkshake flavors (WTF is that?  I don't remember seeing any milk shakes) may or may not be available.  When Kennedy's says "A Full Line BAKERY" they mean it and then some.

You don't want the imaginary milkshakes or any of that other stuff.  Concentrate.  Look at what's under the display cases that ring the back of the room.  What's that?  Fried pies?  Cherry fried pie, raspberry fried pie, apple fried pie, raisin fried pie, blackberry fried pie, apricot fried pie, cheese fried pie, blueberry fried pie and on and on and on.  Get the fried pie.  You won't regret it.

A Broader View

The morning I left for Las Vegas I went out and bought a wide angle lens for my camera.  It was expensive but I figured the lens would be good for the open skies of the southwest.  It is also good for catching buildings like the fake Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas and the Siegel-Cooper Dry Goods building on 6th Avenue.  I was pretty pleased that I could finally get a photo of the latter.

Cambridge is not New York

The seating area of a coffee shop in downtown Cambridge, Ohio.  As I sat in the vast, empty space enjoying a chai and writing postcards I wondered how many customers per hour a place this large would need to survive in New York.  From what I could figure out retail rents in Cambridge are 5-20 percent of that charged here in Harlem, which is one of the cheaper neighborhoods in the city. 

White Satin at Night

The product of the hour is on Wheeling Ave, aka US 40, aka The National Road, in Cambridge, Ohio.

Unrelated:  Instructional video on how to make a baby from fertilization to birth.

Going Up the Hill

Another set from Saturday afternoon in Central Park.

Springtime Saturday in Central Park

The Pool

Blue Flowers

Bamboo

Pretentious Affectation

It was the warmest day of the year so far (79 degrees!).  I spent several hours in Central Park doing not much of anything.  I don't know why there is one clump of bamboo growing along the Loch.