Robert Pence

I'm drooling insane with envy! Neat photos!

A beautiful set of photos. It's good to see that these wonderful historic structures are being saved.

Christmastime in Chicago is wonderful - a dense, visually-compelling downtown chock-full of people. The place overflows with energy. Superb photo thread!

Looks cozy, and not far from my ancestral stomping grounds. The loft in this building appears to be vacant; maybe I could move there cheap. :wink:

^The best shot I've seen of the old concourse. I was, with Dad, but I was only six or seven years old and I don't really remember much about it. I do have a photo that my aunt took in the 1950s; I've posted it various times and places, and I've edited the thread to insert it just after the 1970s concourse for comparison.

In the seventies and early eighties when I traveled more than five or six hours, I got a roomette or slumbercoach whenever possible ("A gentleman always rides in the sleeping cars" - E.M. Frimbo). Before going to the diner for a meal, I always put on dark trousers with a crease in them, shiny shoes, and a white shirt and tie. The atmosphere and service then merited it, and I think I often was treated more cordially by the staff, some of whom could be a little long on fancy-restaurant stiffness and attitude toward passengers who didn't measure up to their expectations. Besides, dressing a cut above the average always has made me feel a little more self-confident and in control of my surroundings. I don't do it much any more, now that I've retired. Edit: I think you can buy reproduction B&O China, if the original is unobtainable or too pricey for you. They used to sell it in the gift shop at the B&O Museum in Baltimore; I don't know if they still do. Even a nice cup and saucer for your afternoon tea might be a nice thing.

And look how they dress! I hope that as Chief of Fashion Police, MTS has cleaned up this disgraceful situation!

That little cabbage-stacked woodburner looks like one that operated at Whitewater Valley in the early 1980s, and there was a Heisler sitting in the weeds with a boiler painted silver around the same time. I wonder if they were the same engines.

^You're naughty! If you didn't get coal this year, you will next year for sure! :evil:

Increased sensitivity to UV radiation is just one of the possible side effects of Accutane. In teens it's been linked to psychotic behavior and even suicides. It's hellish expensive, too. I took it for more than a year after I finished my radiation and chemo in 1997, because it was thought to have "chemo-preventative" value; chemo and radiation are, themselves, carcinogenic, and some research indicated that accutane's strong anti-oxidant properties might help prevent the formation of new tumors from forming as a consequence of the treatments. Subsequent studies found that it might, in fact, have just the opposite effect. I stopped. I do remember being very susceptible to reallyreally bad sunburns while taking it.

Menus were more restrained during WWII, I believe. People were admonished to travel only when absolutely necessary in order to leave room and capacity for military personnel. My dad had a physical deferment and worked in one of GE's defense plants. He had to make a business trip to Chicago, and he managed to finagle permission to take me along. We lived in Decatur, Indiana and I had just started attending Lincoln School. He got me out of school for the day, and before dawn we set out for the Erie depot. I still remember the smell of hot brakes mingled with steam from the heating pipes as the train pulled up to the platform, and until the end of steam heat on Amtrak, around 1980, the arrival of trains in winter always brought back that memory. We traveled behind a steam locomotive and arrived in Chicago at Dearborn Station. On the way, we had breakfast in the diner. Dad had bacon and eggs with toast and coffee, and I had oatmeal. The oatmeal had cooled and congealed into a grey-brown gelatinous lump in the bowl, and it was served with skim milk. I called it "blue milk" from the pale, watery color of it, and for many years into my adulthood, the term still would come up in conversations with Dad when we ate in restaurants. Breakfast in the Diner, Broadway Limited en route to Chicago from Fort Wayne, Black Friday, 1972:

Tuned up some of the dark and excessively-grainy photos at the beginning, and added four photos I found that were taken on the train that morning on the way to Chicago. Thanks. I'm glad people enjoy my visual reminsicenses. Amtrak service to Fort Wayne ended in 1990. The mergers that created Conrail resulted in consolidation of freight between Chicago and the Northeast on the former New York Central line that runs through Cleveland, Toledo, Elkhart, South Bend, etc. Conrail determined that a nineteen-mile segment of the former Pennsylvania Railroad route in Northwest Indiana was redundant for their operations, and told Amtrak that if they wanted to continue to use it, they would have to pick up all the costs associated with it. As an alternative, they offered Amtrak a substantial cash lump-sum payment to reroute the two trains (Broadway Limited and Capitol Limited) off the former PRR track. The nineteen-mile section was essential for access to Chicago's Union Station if Amtrak wanted to continue to use the former PRR route. The Capitol was rerouted on the former NYC route, with a stop at Waterloo, about 20 miles north of Fort Wayne and readily accessible off I-69. The Broadway was rerouted over CSX former B&O line through Garrett. After a few years (1995, if I remember correctly), the Broadway was eliminated. Fort Wayne's only surface transportation to Chicago now is via motorcoach from the Greyhound station downtown. There are two buses daily, one via South Bend and the other (Get This!) via Toledo - 7 hours! They used to take just over 3 hours running right up US 30, but no more. I think there may have been as many as five daily round trips on Greyhound using the direct US 30 route not too many years ago.

Chicago Christmas Shopping The Day after Thanksgiving, 1972 All Photos Copyright © 2009 by Robert E Pence Grainy Ektachromes, probably ISO 64 or maybe even 32. Arriving at Fort Wayne's former Pennsylvania Railroad Station on Baker Street to board Amtrak's perversion of the former great Broadway Limited. Fairly busy waiting room The train's arrival has been announced, and we head for the platform No yellow line to stand behind Here it is! Breakfast in the diner. A newspaper in the lounge - on the right, notice the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. Finish out the ride in a coach seat. Arriving at Chicago Union Station on Amtrak. Still a few privately-owned steam locomotives sitting around. The one with the silver-painted boiler is a Heisler geared locomotive. Those typically were used where pulling power and the ability to operate effectively over rough, uneven track were valued but speed wasn't, like logging and quarrying. Union Station's Great Hall was grimy, then. The current bright and clean appearance was the product of a cleanup and restoration following a major fire in July 1980 that killed one person and injured several others. Here's what they razed in the late 1960s to create the sterile, claustrophobic space pictured above; photo taken in the 1950s by Jeraldine C. Baumgartner, M.D. The architectural travesty for which the classic passenger concourse was razed Marshall Field, traditionally decorated for the season Shoppers throng State Street Michigan Avenue Commerce on the river Back to Union Station and Amtrak to Fort Wayne This is almost ten years before the Superliners went into service. The bi-level cars are former Santa Fe.

Shaker Square folks is downright scary. See for yourself!

I ran out of postage stamps before I could send my printed cards to all UO forumers, so here ya' go! Warmest wishes to all; you're an important part of my chosen family.

How cute! Don't those adorable dimples just make you want to pinch his cheek? :wink:

Beautiful views of a place with a tragic history. I saw similar vistas in August 2008, but the fields were parched and brown, the sky was bright overcast, and the heat and humidity were sweltering. It helped me visualize (without the monuments) what Union and Confederate troops might have experienced, with the misery exacerbated by wool uniforms and heavy packs, as they moved into their positions before the slaughter began.

Eeeewww

Or catenary!

I visited the Cleveland Art Museum years ago, and haven't been back (except around the exterior) since the expansion. I need to go back. Ohio has some outstanding art museums; I've seen Dayton's and Toledo's, and both have impressive buildings and collections. That lamp put off quite a lot of heat, too. The floor built up of drywall on top of styrofoam was interesting for more than the intentional distressing; it had a nice resiliency to it. I was thinking it might be a good idea for a workroom where you're on your feet for extended periods. Go over the drywall with a leveling compound to smooth out the seams, and then lay down sheet vinyl; it's flexible enough to give with the substrate, and impervious to spilled liquids and easily cleaned with a damp mop. My niece and I spent so much time with the Modern Wing and the "Apostles of Beauty" Arts and Crafts exhibit that we didn't get to the Burnham plan before we ran out of time and energy. I need to go back before it ends. Thanks. I was trying to figure out a way to get an unobstructed view of Millennium Park with the skyline backdrop, but there's a glass barrier that kept me from getting close enough to the window to shoot between the muntins, and people kept walking in front of me with their point-and-shoot cameras. Then, it dawned on me to take a photo of the people taking photos, and it pulled the whole scene together.

^They call it that because twenty minutes after you eat one, you'll wonder what the heck was in it. :-o

^... and it was wild, too. Still is, in some places.

Something I started a few years ago, that's useful for repeating a color, repainting, or touch-up, is making a sample board. For each exterior or interior paint project, I take a piece of 1x4 about 18" long, prime it, and paint it in sections with body, trim, and accent colors from the same cans that I used for the paint job. I write the paint manufacturer, color description, and color number on it, and put it in the basement where I keep my painting supplies and tools. If I need to match a color later on, even if I can't get the original manufacturer's product, I can take the sample board to any full-service paint store. I like Bejamin Moore for interior painting, and their web site is excellent. If your monitor is calibrated accurately, you can get a very good idea from it how different colors and combinations will work.

Beautiful shots, nice digs. Do you have a wide-format printer that will do 20x20, or did you have that done in a lab? I use an Epson R2880 that will go up to 13" wide, but bigger than that, I take the disc to a shop that's about six blocks from my house. They do beautiful, meticulous work for a fair price, and if I get there early I usually can get same-day turnaround.

I have mixed feelings about the in-your-face approach. The residual twenty-something in me says, "Yeah! Go for it!" but the seventy-year-old has learned from experience that confrontation seldom leads to resolution. Perhaps the Hasids could respond to an approach that says the challenges and temptations are meant to strengthen their faith. :wink: Concerning the danger to children alighting from school buses, don't traffic laws everywhere stipulate that vehicles may not pass school buses when the stop sign is extended? Cyclists should be expected to obey that just as they're expected to obey other traffic laws, and if the school buses use designated stops, spot enforcement should be effective in educating the chronic offenders.