Robert Pence

Wonderful photos! They bring back memories of visiting a dear and now departed friend between Christmas and New Years, about 1991. Here's a photo from our ride on the Staten Island Ferry on a freezing-cold winter day:

The chapel stands as a quality example of Modern design from the fifties and sixties. Although that style has largely fallen out of favor in many circles, Valparaiso University's Chapel of the Resurrection and several public and private buildings in another Indiana city, Columbus, stand apart in three ways. First, they were designed by competent architects who were innovators, not imitators; second, they were built using the highest-quality materials and construction methods; and third, they have been impeccably maintained by owners who have respected the archtects' original intent and who have refrained from "updating" and expanding them with inappropriate remodeling and expansion. Buildings like these should be respected and admired as excellent surviving examples of a style that symbolized optimism, progress, and prosperity.

Duh! I knew better! I've even been to 30th Street Station a few times, and posted photos here. :bang:

My memories of North Philadelphia Station are faded and scratched with age; just after Christmas, 1964, I rode PRR's General from Fort Wayne to Philadelphia while returning to Dover AFB (Delaware) after a Christmas leave. I don't know if that train even stopped at Penn Station, but North Phila. was where the conductor told me I should get off. I might have had other options to get from there to Dover, but someone at the station told me I had to take a cab to get to Greyhound. It was unseasonably warm and drippy/foggy/hazy, and I hadn't been able to sleep much on the overnight train ride; my accomodation had been a tired and threadbare seat in a tired and rattly P70 coach with litter strewn in the linoleum or rubber-runner aisle, heat set below the comfort level, overhead lights on all night, and the door at the leading end of the coach latched open, letting the vestibule racket pervade the coach. I wasn't sufficiently experienced then to know how to get the door to close. I had to pay fifty cents for the use of a pillow. PRR was working hard to discourage ridership then, and it was working. If that train was ten percent occupied, I don't know where they were hiding the rest of the passengers. It wasn't until after the advent of Amtrak that anyone was able to get me to try train travel again.

I first heard "gay" used in reference to being queer or homosexual in 1962. I think it was part of my second such encounter. I understood the meaning by the context.

Nice light, actually. I like the effect when late-afternoon light reflects off the water to illuminate the structural elements beneath the bridges. The freighter activity is interesting, too.

Valparaiso, Indiana - May 11, 2011 All Photographs Copyright © 2009 - 2011 by Robert E Pence Valparaiso, population approximately 27,000, is the seat of Porter County, Indiana and home to Valparaiso University, a private Lutheran-affiliated institution founded in 1859. It is the southeasternmost suburb of the Chicago Metropolitan Area and is about ten miles south of the southern tip of Lake Michigan and Indiana Dunes State Park via Indiana State Highway 49. The present Porter County Courthouse is the third courthouse to occupy its site on the town square. The first, a wood-framed building was built in 1837. The second, a brick Greek Revival building with a pilastered portico and a bell tower, replaced the wood-framed building in 1853. The current courthouse, of Indiana Limestone quarried near Elletsville, was built in 1883. Originally it had a 168-foot clock tower. In 1934 a fire thought to have been electrical in origin heavily damaged the building and gutted the tower. Restoration, minus the tower, was completed in 1937. The Italianate building that houses the Porter County Museum of History originally served as jail and sheriff's residence from 1871 to 1974. The Historical Society is embarking on a fund-raising campaign to move the museum's collections to the original firehouse and former police headquarters just south of the courthouse. The Porter County Memorial Hall was designed in 1892 by local architect Charles F. Lembke. Some accounts claim that William Jennings Bryan spoke here during the 1896 presidential campaign. Theodore Roosevelt appeared here, along with John Philip Sousa and the Marx Brothers. When motion pictures became popular, venues like the opera house declined in popularity. It was converted to show movies, but by the onset of WWII it was abandoned. In 1955 the Community Theatre Guild leased the property and undertook maintenance for community theater productions. The city restored the building in the 1990s and leased it to the Memorial Opera House Company. Theater productions, concerts, and other events are held there. Valparaiso's central business district is fair-sized, with a variety of architectural styles represented. The historic authenticity of facades varies, but there are few vacancies and most buildings appear to be in a state of good repair. Central Park Plaza under construction. When finished it will provide an attractive amenity in an already-pleasant downtown. I don't know what this fellow's offense might have been, but considering the number of cops, the 'cuffs, and the tow truck, I'd venture it wasn't an unpaid parking ticket. Valparaiso University November 20, 2009 The Chapel of the Resurrection, at Valparaiso University in Northwest Indiana, was designed by Charles Stade and Associates, of Park Ridge, Illinois. It was built 1956-1959 at a cost of approximately $7.5 million, mostly from private donations, and was dedicated in 1959 as Memorial Chapel. In 1969 it was officially designated Chapel of the Resurrection. It is the largest collegiate chapel in the United States, with capacity for approximately 2,000 people depending upon seating configuration. I remember reading about this structure when it was new and I had often seen it from U.S. Highway 30 en route to Chicago, but I had never taken time to stop and experience it in person. I'm glad I made this trip especially to see it; I think it's stunning. The chancel is 98 feet (30 meters) high, with the apse in the shape of a nine-pointed star. The original design doesn't appear to have been altered, and the building is impeccably maintained. The newly-completed Christopher Center for Library and Information Services was designed by Esherick Homsey Dodge & Davis of Chicago. It is part of a $33 million project paid for by gifts from alumni and friends. The grid structure on the south and east sides adds visual interest and provides a sun screen.The building comprises 105,000 square feet of space and includes state-of-the-art building technology, including automated sun screens and many wi-fi hot spots in addition to hard-wired data access ports. Two hundred fifty computers are available for student use, and an automated storage and retrieval system can access any of the 60,000 infrequently-used documents and publications within fifteen seconds.

They're known as package stores in Indiana, and I don't know any that have drive-through. That's probably prohibited under state law.

I've known Geoff Paddock for more than twenty years. He's been heavily involved in successful civic improvement efforts in Fort Wayne for as long as I've known him, and he's a solid, rational advocate for passenger rail who understands the importance of a pragmatic approach to restoring service to Fort Wayne. The estimate of a few hundred thousand dollars to restore the former PRR line (PRR > Penn Central > Conrail > CSX/Rail America/Chicago Fort Wayne & Eastern) for 79mph passenger service most likely is a mis-quotation by the News-Sentinel; some of their reporters don't know their posterior from a hole in the ground. The correct figure more likely is a few hundred thousand dollars per mile, and that's on the conservative side. Most, if not all, of that line has been single-tracked and de-signaled. Amtrak prefers not to operate on single-track lines and wouldn't be able to approach 79mph without signals. I speculate that a million dollars per mile would be closer and even that might be conservative. The commenter, Mr. Schwinn, appears to be in the camp of impassioned foamers who want bullet trains and want them now, and who have no comprehension of the the financial and logistical complexities of the undertaking, and aside from lacking any sense of what's attainable in the near term, he doesn't have his facts straight. The 1990 discontinuation of Amtrak service on the line was not because Amtrak was the only user of the entire line. Amtrak was the only user of a 19-mile segment in Northwest Indiana, and Conrail offered Amtrak two choices; either assume all the maintenance costs for that segment, or discontinue service thru Lima, Fort Wayne, and Warsaw so that Conrail could shut down the segment. To sweeten the pot, Conrail offered Amtrak a substantial lump-sum payment to reroute its trains off the line. The line through Fort Wayne has always continued to carry freight traffic; if there had been no freight revenue, I doubt if either Norfolk Southern or CSX would have wanted it when Conrail was broken up. CSX leased the line to Rail America, and currently it is operated by Rail America's wholly-owned subsidiary, Chicago Fort Wayne & Eastern.

You have an interesting family, David.

On the South Shore en route from Chicago to Michigan City this afternoon there was an announcement over the PA that due to extreme heat restrictions our speed would not exceed 55 miles per hour. That's the first time I've ever experienced a temperature-related speed restriction on the South Shore; the line has a lot of curves and I didn't think there were very many areas of welded rail on tangent (straight) track that would require restrictions. Overall it made less than ten minutes' difference in our arrival time because of the large number of stops and the urban stretches where operating speeds already are less than that.

Impressive city. When I saw this: I thought of Henry Hobson Richardson and the Allegheny County Courthouse and Prison in Pittsburgh:

Excellent! Providence has been on my must-see list for a long time, and this thread moved it up a couple of notches. That probably explains why there's no one downtown. :wink:

Wow! Superb photo set! Weather conditions and time of day provided perfect light, and you really put it to good use with beautiful compositions and technical excellence. :clap: :clap: :clap: This reminded me of the 2006 meet. It still stands as the best UO Meet Special Event ever!

It depends upon the situation and the people. I've been officially "out" since I was interviewed with a few other people for a feature series in the morning paper in 1981, and I quit trying to hide my orientation about ten years prior to that. If it's someone who's well-intentioned, I'll break the news gently in private. If it's someone who's a real ass and I can knock his feet out from under him publicly, I'll not pass up the opportunity. For instance, one day at a tavern near the factory, members of our regular lunch group were swapping stories about how we scratched out a living when we were young, uneducated, and inexperienced. I related how after I moved away from home and the home town, I lived at the Y for a year and a half and paid my room rent by operating the old-fashioned manually-controlled elevator on night shift. This was a few years after the Village People's hit, YMCA. Tom, a fresh engineering graduate in a manufacturing management training program and working in our office, Commented that nowadays people would make assumptions about a person's sexual orientation if he lived at the Y. That cocky, quick-mouthed arrogant little prick had been getting on my nerves a lot, ever since he came to work with us. I told him gently, without raising my voice or implying anything with my expression, "Tom, it's common knowledge that GE's published policy prohibits job discrimination based on sexual orientation, and I seriously doubt if anyone in our office hasn't known for years that I'm gay." It was a big, public, shut-up-and-listen lesson for him; his face turned redder than a fresh-spanked twink's butt, and although he continued to go to lunch with us, he kept his mouth shut after that except when he could ask a relevant question. Eventually he came to my cubicle and apologized and said he had no idea. I told him no sweat, lots or people state positions based on assumptions they find out aren't accurate. So, I guess I pulled the rug out from under him, but then let him down gently.

Again, quite nice. You stepped up the techincal quality quite a bit. I think they've cleared some brush since I was there in 1999; then, I don't thing there was any single vantage point where I could see the entire wye.

In my retirement I abstain from television, listen to NPR, and annoy my peers by ridiculing teabaggers. I'm pleased that the smartest of my neices and nephews claim me as their most interesting relative and sometimes turn to me for advice. One of my pet peeves is having a total stranger from among my age/ethnicity peer group start a conversation with the assumption that because I'm an old white guy, I can't wait to get rid of that socialist in the white house who's trying to bankrupt the nation with his health care takeover, and that I deplore the liberals' attempts to ruin the institution of marriage by letting gays marry each other, which inevitably will start America on a slippery slope toward group marriages and people marrying farm animals.

Revisiting this thread brought the Greyhound station to my attention again. That building kicks butt! I've seen a few of the standard blue tiled Art Deco ones (Fort Wayne had one), but never before a Deco limestone one. Classic!

Excellent photos in any context, and the fisheye lens definitely adds something extra. I Like!

Nice job! The black-and-white rendering with vignetting and a little flicker makes it look like vintage film. The steadiness is a big plus; that's something that's often lost on folks shooting video with a phone or small camcorder.

Two thumbs up for Frontier Communications. I'd been experiencing problems with my FIOS connection starting about the time I put my new computer into service, and thought at first that I might have configured something wrong. Then, I tried my laptop and had the same difficulties even after bypassing my router and plugging directly into the Cat5 connection on the ONT (Optical Network Terminal). I called Frontier last night about 10:30 and went through everything with a tech, who rebooted and checked everything from their end, still without connection. He said they'd send a tech on site in the morning, and sure enough, the field tech called about 8 a.m. and then showed up about 8:30. Right away he noticed that I still had the D-Link router that came with the installation in 2006, and said those weren't very good routers to begin with, and now they're obsolete. He connected a new one, and also replaced the outdated ONT with a new one. He called his office to tell someone what changes he had made, and in just a couple of minutes my internet and email connected. Now it seems even quicker and more stable that it was before I started having trouble. Then, he looked at the fiber line that comes in from the pole in the alley -- hanging off a neighbor's house, draped across the roof of another neighbor's garage, and tied off to the gable on my garage before reaching my house. He got the ladder off his truck and spent about an hour rerouting the cable from the pole in the alley to a pole at the corner of my back yard to my house, without involving any other structures. Nice guy, polite, capable, and efficient and made an extra effort to be sure everything was right. It's my only experience so far with Frontier customer service, and on this one I'd have to give them an "exceeds expectations."

Nice-looking downtown. I have a friend who lives there, but I haven't visited in a long time.

Beautiful thread, Marc. I knew Ithaca only by reputation, and it exceeds my expectations. Excellent photos, lots of people, lots of life.

My first roommate in USAF tech school (1962) was from Ashland, but I never knew much about the city. Apparently back then it was still an active city. Now there still are some good-looking buildings, but far too many upper storeys are boarded up. That bodes ill for the buildings, because it means nobody ever goes up there, and roof and other structural problems go undetected until sometimes it's too late to save the building.

Indiana's Governor Mitch Daniels perseveres in his plan to extend I-69 southwest from its present terminus at Indianapolis and is adamant that it will not be a toll road. More burden, direct and indirect, will be passed on to local, state, and federal taxpayers to create a subsidized expressway for truckers operating in direct competition with an already-established, tax-paying freight rail system serving the same intended origin/destination (Great Lakes to Mexican Border).