Robert Pence

Neat shots; you certainly don't need to apologize for any of them. It looks like a visually-pleasing neighborhood; I love NYC's abundance of gorgeous Art Deco.

The size and activity level of downtown didn't seem commensurate with a town of 10K population. I didn't look for outlying subdivisions or commercial strips, but I think the town has become largely a bedroom community for people working in Chicago. It's only a mile or two from the Dune Park station, and then a 1:20 commute on the South Shore. Chesterton is the only significant town near Dune Park, and Dune Park is one of the top stations for passenger counts. Earlier, I had attended a NICTD board meeting. After the meeting some of the visitors and employees went to the North Shore Diner. I probably should have joined them; no telling what inside and off-the-record stuff I might have heard.

The old photos are essential in this thread; from the remnants it wouldn't be possible for most people to comprehend what a thriving place this once was.

Now I'm sorry I sold my pickup camper! :-( I remember my dad taking me to a couple of brickyards and tile mills in our area when I was a kid. That was before farm drainage was done with continuous corrugated plastic tubing placed in a single pass with a special trenching plow. Drainage tile was made from clay and fired in a kiln, and hand-placed in a trench about three feet deep, dug by a wheel excavator. Then the dirt was shoved back in. I loved watching the tile-making machine at the tile mill. The mostened clay mixture went into a hopper on a machine something like a meat grinder, and an auger forced it through a die to extrude a continuous tube onto a conveyor. The tube then passed beneath a multi-spoked wheel with wires stretched between its pairs of arms, like a cheese slicer. The wheel cut the tube into segments that were placed standing on end on pallets, and the pallets were moved to a large, warm room with arrays of gas jets on a grid of pipes on the floor. There the tiles were thoroughly dried before moving to kilns for firing. The finished tiles were the color and porous texture of plain clay flower pots. Brick manufacturing was a very similar process, and there was a lot of strenuous hand labor involved in both. Some clay field-tile drainage systems installed a century ago are still functioning with very little maintenance. I've seen clay field tiles in inside diameters ranging from 4 inches to about 24 inches. I think that above that, concrete was used. Expect a pop quiz when you least expect it. < / :speech:>

$18 wouldn't be a good start on a night of clubbing, and a decent dinner in a nice restaurant would cost way more than that. The museum's collections are vast (more than 300,000 items), and I don't think it would be possible to see everything in a day, maybe two. The exhibit spaces, themselves, are worth the $18 to me. Students and Seniors pay $12.

The chapel has a wonderful sound. While I was photographing, an organist (young guy, student, I'd guess) arrived with a couple of other people to set up for a recording. When they were ready to start, I capped my noisy DSLR and took a seat and listened. I don't know what he was playing, but it was joyful and uplifting and I felt really privileged to have been there at the right time. I think I know what you mean, sort of; although I was raised Protestant, it was in an old-school Evangelical and Reformed congregation, complete with the Heidelberg Catechism and very formal and structured order of worship. I'm most comfortable with traditional Gothic and Romanesque church architecture, and the modern designs put me off. The fifties and sixties produced a lot of uninspiring structures of all types, and churches were no exception. The Chapel of the Resurrection stands apart, though. The design and execution were done to high standards, with quality materials and careful attention to detail, and it has had good maintenance and respectful treatment that have enabled it to stand up well to the passage of fifty years. The interior has a reverent yet welcoming ambience, not at all sterile and cold, unlike most of the modern churches I've been in. It's especially surprising considering the huge volume of the space.

Yesterday evening a little after 9pm Saturday night (19th) I heard a car alarm and thought nothing of it. I hear them all the time around here, and they usually shut off after a few seconds. A little while later I heard it again, and it seemed louder and kept going for a while. It sounded like it was right outside, and there's no place anyone would park there. I got up to see, and I could see patrol car lights flashing on my blinds. Across the street, and crossways in the traffic lane, a Toyota SUV sat with a flat driver's-side front tire and a mashed-in grille. There was a track up over the two-tier curb and through the snow on a fairly high shoulder, leading to a tree. It was pretty easy to deduce what had happened. The street is two lanes, one-way, posted 35mph, and traffic moves from left to right in the photo below. The street was slick enough that it was treacherous to walk on. A little while earlier I had come home from the grocery in a mix of sleet and freezing drizzle at 20mph, and nobody passed me. Perhaps someone thought the TV ads were real, and owning a SUV exempted them from using common sense.

^Natural Bridge?

It's easy for the uninitiated to misjudge the speed of an approaching fast train, especially in poor light. I've stood close to the tracks when videotaping, a practice I've since discontinued, and never got used to the feeling because I'm not an adrenaline junkie. A train moving at 70-80mph seems to be approaching slowly until it's very close, and then rushes up on you in an instant. When one is moving really fast, there's a bow wave of pressurized air that can nearly knock you down if you're not prepared. The railroad has had problems along that same route with kids playing "chicken" with trains in some of the Indiana towns. I haven't heard about it lately, so maybe they resolved it; if so, it would be interesting to know what their approach was. There's an appalling lack of railroad awareness in our culture. I think there should be more teaching of young school children by taking them trackside and letting them experience live the passage of a fast-moving train at close range. Their parents should be notified to send them to school with a change of underwear on those days, because some of them will need it.

Good shots. Don't be too anxious about the camera; you're getting good stuff with the one you have, and when you can get a better one, you'll be able to make good use of it.

Chesterton, Indiana November 20, 2009 All Photos Copyright © 2009 by Robert E Pence Chesterton is located in Porter County, in Northwest Indiana. At the 2000 Census, the town's population was 10,488. It's the nearest town to Indiana Dunes State Park, where South Shore trains stop at Dune Park Station. Valparaiso's V-Line Orange Route transit serves Chesterton, but the town has no local bus or taxi service of its own.

Valparaiso University November 20, 2009 All photos Copyright © 2009 by Robert E Pence 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 seems to be 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. I had hoped to photograph more of the campus and then go into the city, but the intense and strongly-directional late-afternoon light limited my opportunities. Now, I have an excuse to go back.

I'm very aware of how blessed I am to have half a dozen adult nieces and nephews who are all good company.

Art Institute of Chicago December 17, 2009 All Photos Copyright © 2009 by Robert E Pence My niece, Carrie, had suggested that we should take a day trip to Chicago to visit the Art Institute. She was looking forward to seeing the Modern Wing, and I hadn't been inside the building in many years. We caught South Shore train #116 at Michigan City's Carroll Avenue stop and detrained at Van Buren. First stop was the Corner Bakery in the Santa Fe building, for coffee for me and hot chocolate for Carrie, followed by a visit to the Chicago Archicenter model in the atrium. Art Institute admission is $18 for adults and $12 for Seniors, and free on Thursdays 5pm - 8pm. The free checkroom is a great convenience when dealing with winter coats, backpacks, etc. Cameras are allowed, but in some of the temporary exhibits photography isn't. Tripods and flash are prohibited. I took several photos of the building interior and its vistas, but none of the exhibits. Here are a few that I liked. I had anticipated a shot from the section of the building that overlooks the approaches to Millennium Park Station, and was at first disappointed to see that the sunshades were down. I decided to see what would happen, though, and I rather like how it came out. The shades are of an open weave, and create an interesting canvas-like texture. One gallery off the Griffin Court contained a piece that consisted of a large array of fluorescent tubes arranged around a u-shaped matrix. It was intensely bright, and the reflections were inescapable in some of my attempts to photograph through the court's large expanses of glass. You can see the light from the display spilling into the corridor on the left.

Neat shots. The wet streets add sparkle. We're getting a steady, light snow this morning in Fort Wayne, with temps in the high 20s - low 30s, and the show is sticking to the tree branches. It's very pretty. Early winter is always a delight to me, but by February-March my enthusiasm starts to wear thin.

I flew on an Electra just once, so far as I can remember. In the spring of 1962, after completling USAF Basic Training at Lackland AFB, I flew home from San Antonio. There had been two or three disastrous crashes involving Electras just prior to that, and they were considering grounding them until they could find out if there was something wrong with the design of the plane. There was a major storm raging across much of the Central US, and it the weather was rainy in San Antonio. They announded my flight for boarding, and as I walked out the gate (no jetways then), there sat a Braniff World Airways Lockheed Electra. My mood changed from anticipation to dread. The weather joined forces with the plane to make for an unpleasant flight; Even before we got into the bad weather and the ride turned bumpy, the cabin was noisy as hell and the vibration was awful.

I visited the Art Institute of Chicago yesterday with my niece. They have a beautiful architect's model of Lever House in the Architecture section. There's Also an architect's final model of the Inland Steel Building in Chicago.

The same situation exists in numerous towns in Northern Indiana; truckers take US 20 to avoid the tolls, inflicting awful wear-and-tear on small-town downtowns. The town councils and officials complain endlessly because of it, but they get no support from INDOT for measures that would calm traffic and make the route unattractive to trucks. I'm thinking add a couple of traffic signals, and maybe a two-block jog that would require them to make four sharp turns. Another tactic might be to have the state police bring their portable weigh-scales to town every now and then; the whole outfit is modular and can be carried in a van, and it would be a plague upon the truckers who take US 20 to avoid weigh stations.

But it's the most likely place for a kitty to find breakable things to shove off onto the floor so they go smash! Of course, knocking lamps off end tables, vases and candlesticks off fireplace mantles, and clearing potted plants off windowsills are all fun, too. One of the most fun things is a light bulb left on the kitchen counter. Those things are best done late at night, so kitty can hide behind the sofa and watch for the expression on your face when you come stumbling from the bedroom, still half asleep, to see WTF was that hellish noise.

That was exactly the comparison that popped into my mind as I viewed the photos; once-thriving heavy-industry city on hard times and making a valiant effort to put its best foot forward with its downtown. A pretty cynical-sounding opener, but whatever. Some reasons might be roots or family ties in the area. Often a city with a depressed local economy offers a low cost of living that might be attractive to retirees with fixed/limited incomes, and I'm sure that not all jobs in Flint have gone away. Some people like living within walking distance of their work and not having to take care of landscaping, roof, gutters, etc.

The Caravelle was sweet. I was stationed at Dover AFB in the '60s, and would catch a Trailways bus from Dover to Philadelphia to come home on leave. The drivers would go off-route and drop me right at the terminal when I traveled in uniform. I can't remember just what the routing to Fort Wayne was any more, whether via Cleveland or Toledo, but the first leg, out of Philadelphia, sometimes was a Caravelle. Pure luxury compared to the DC-6s that usually flew in and out of Fort Wayne. There was another plane they'd use sometimes, a turboprop with Rolls-Royce engines (Edit: I just remembered, it was the Vickers Viscount). If I remember correctly, United got them when they acquired another airline - maybe Capital? The passenger cabin was rather claustrophobic for headroom, but once you were in a seat it was comfy as heaven, and one of the smoothest, quietest planes I ever rode in. There was no perceptible vibration whatever, and only the slightest audible whine. Compared with most of what I've traveled on in recent years, even the DC-6 was more comfortable. It was noisy and slow, but the seats were big and comfy and there was plenty of legroom. Besides, they often flew low enough that in good weather the view of everything below was detailed.

Upon arrival in DC, they could even walk from Union Station to the White House, reducing both their carbon footprint and their fat assprint.

Interesting-looking downtown; it looks like there are a lot of quality vintage buildings in use and in good repair. I like the streetcar; do you know if that is one of the replica cars built by Gomaco? That broad street terminated by the Capitol is quite a vista; it would benefit by some more quality architecture filling in some gaps along the way, like that suface lot on the right in one of the last blocks.

Topic please! This thread has wandered away photos and comments on them. Please take the recipe-swapping to the kitchen - or urbanbar.

Nice job; partly depressing, partly hopeful. The pizza looks tasty.