Robert Pence

This thread is a visual delight! The photos are excellent, and there's a lot to look at. I've passed through Denver on trains numerous times, but never been out to walk around on the streets. Looks like a "must-visit" kind of place!

I know I posted photos of the Allen County Courthouse in Fort Wayne a few years ago. I just found the original Camera RAW files that I thought had been lost, so I've reworked the JPGs to make them bigger and sharper and hopefully with better color, and added a bunch more exterior photos taken before and since the original post. Allen County Courthouse Fort Wayne, Indiana All Photos Copyright © 2004-2009 by Robert E Pence The Allen County Courthouse is one of only 35 National Historic Landmarks in Indiana. It was ordered in 1895 and dedicated in 1902 at a cost of more than $800,000. Designed in the Beaux Arts style by Brentwood S. Tolan and constructed by James Stewart, it replaced a badly-deteriorated 1861 brick structure on the same site. The courthouse shares county offices and functions with the newer City-County Building across Main street. To learn more about National Historic Landmarks and the courthouse restoration, visit the Historic Landmarks Foundation site. A late-night view looking down Court Street before the plaza was created. Looking down Court Street in 1983, with the Lincoln Tower decorated for Christmas. Looking down the alley from the east, 1981. Glimpses from various places around downtown, as early as 1983. Several years ago a block of mostly-nondescript buildings immediately to the east was cleared and Court Street was closed and landscaped to create an attractive plaza and to provide an unobstructed view of this magnificent building. The City-County Building, the Journal Gazette Building, the Anthony Wayne Building, Fifth Third Bank and the Lincoln Tower also face the plaza. Some details. Some pre-dawn winter views from February, 2008. Let's go inside. First, lock your cell phone, pager (people still use pagers?), camera, and any other electronic devices in your car. You can't take them into the courthouse during business hours, and the guards at the security desk <i>will not</i> hold them for you. Thanks to the efforts of the Allen County Courthouse Preservation Trust, the courthouse has been lovingly maintained and recently underwent a $9 million restoration of its interior design features, scagliola (faux marble) and Charles Holloway murals. The richness of detail and ornamentation are wonderful, and it's especially remarkable that it has been restored after having been overpainted many years ago. Cornerstone from the previous (1861) courthouse. That building's architect, Edwin May, designed the 1888 Indiana State Capitol. The courtroom photographs show the Circuit Court. It was the only courtroom not in use during my visit. The intersection of Main and Calhoun Streets, seen here from a second-storey window, once was known as the Transfer Corner. Here the North-South and East-West streetcar lines, and later, bus lines, intersected. In the horsecar era a turntable in the middle of the intersection allowed cars to change directions. In the streetcar and trolleybus era, the intersection was one connection short of a double-track grand junction, and the catenary wires overhead looked like a spiderweb. The photo below was chosen by the Indiana DNR's Department of Historic Preservation and Archeology to be published on the state's 2006 historic preservation poster.

Looks pricey, but quite nice.

Mighty cute, and I love the architectural variety. The ice cream stand is way cool!

There are two camping areas, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and Indiana Dunes State Park. I used to camp at the state park 2 - 3 times a year, but haven't done that since they completely rehabbed the campgrounds about 3 years ago. I always went before Memorial Day or after Labor Day, and for summer weekends I recommend reservations. The state park has gorgeous beaches and trails through dunes, forest, and marsh woodland. For a day trip to Chicago, catch a South Shore train at Dune Park station, a walkable/bikeable mile from the campgrounds via the park entrance road and a short trail.

Iowa is great news. Other than Ohio and Indiana, in the 1930s Iowa had one of the nation's most extensive systems of early intercity rail, electric interurban railways, and some of their interurban lines were the last to fade away. The best-known, the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Railway Company, now operates as a diesel-powered short line hauling freight and has celebrated its 100th anniversary.

Good tour! Boulder has a comfortable look, solid and established with a nice mix of architectural styles and ages, attractive public spaces, and a gorgeous natural setting. I love the activity in the photos, with ages ranging from little kids through college-age to seniors.

I recently spoke with an Over-the-Rhine business owner and was told that another obstacle is that in many urban areas when you cut down into the sidewalks to bury these utilities you are cutting into basements/storage areas connected to the building fronting the street at that particular location. This is fine, but the owner must come up with the resources to secure their building so that it is not exposed during the construction process. If that can not be done and an agreement can not be reached then it's a no go. In Cincinnati, and in many other urbanized areas, basements or coal storage areas (for heating systems) were often constructed under sidewalks as a cheap method to provide storage to various businesses -- upon a business owner requesting it. As was the case with the Vine Street project (and the 4th Street project in Huntington, W.Va.), those storage areas needed to be removed before the project could commence. The owners of the storage areas needed to secure it -- as you noted, but the cost was borne by the property owner as the storage facility was on city property and it was up to the discretion of the city engineer if the underground units could stay or go. When burying utilities, then it is 100% probable that the storage areas must be removed since they are typically right under the sidewalk. I remember when almost all the buildings in downtown Fort Wayne had sidewalk vaults, sometimes for coal, but often for freight delivery. They had an opening right next to the front of the building with steel doors over it, and a sort of dumbwaiter that would rise to sidewalk level and push the doors open. That was how merchandise was delivered to many stores. You could spot where the sidewalk vaults were by the sections of sidewalk that had glass prisms set into the concrete to let light into the space below. Replacement of deteriorated sidewalks and buried water, sewer, and gas lines over the past thirty years has involved filling in all the sidewalk vaults. The blocked up the openings into the basements and then removed the sidewalks and filled in the space with crushed stone.

I thought he got booted off for being arrogant and argumentative and repeatedly trying to stir up sh!t. I hated to see him go, because it was fun watching everyone pile on him when he got out of line, which was every time he posted.

In my 30s I worked in a factory office with a bunch of car-dependent suburbanites, some of whom thought I was weird because I walked or rode a bike to work. When they learned that I rode a bus in bad weather, they treated me like I had cooties. My arrogant-prick boss told me he wished I would drive, because he was afraid I would get shot in "that neighborhood." He wasn't particularly concerned about my well-being; neither of us made any secret of our mutual dislike for each other. The company had a hiring freeze on, and he didn't want to go through a hassle hiring and training a replacement.

That was a common thing in old houses/buildings in the early years of indoor plumbing, possibly because it put the two rooms that would use plumbing next to each other so that it was easy to share a common soil stack and water lines. That meant just one set of pipes running to the basement, and only one vent through the roof. Twenty years ago a friend lived in a two-room, fourth-floor walkup in a building dating to about 1905, right near the Queensboro Bridge. The building was fairly well maintained and probably quite beautiful for its era, but had had no updates since it was built. Each room had a light on a cord hanging from the ceiling and one wall outlet. His tiny bathtub was beside the kitchen sink, and you had to duck under the cabinets to get in/out. The toilet was in a tiny water closet on the other side of the atrium where the stairway came up; there were five water closets, one for each of the apartments on that floor. The toilets were original, a porcelain funnel leaded into a cast-iron trap that went into the soil stack, and a tank up on the wall with a pull chain. His monthly rent would have made a house payment on a very nice place in most mid-sized cities.

Been there, done that - and not like Mayday suggests. It can be a real hassle and take a lot of time to get everything replaced. I hope everything works out OK.

Definitely doesn't have the character of the first two, but rather cute. It could be a real charmer with a good restoration. The corner cabinets have to go, ditto the pink tile in the bathroom. The bathtub looks like genuine American Standard cast iron, in pretty good shape. The little hearts cut into the stair balusters are just too cute! You can't always be sure that the woodwork is good hardwood under the paint. Many houses of the 20s and 30s had poplar or other less-expensive trim, and it was always painted. I stripped a few spots in my brick house and found poplar in every case, so I kept it painted; it would not have looked good in a natural finish unless I stripped and bleached and stained it, and that would have involved removing all of it and sending it out.

Plus, if they had passengers detraining in the middle of the night/wee hours of the morning, they had to make sure the passengers got a wake-up early enough to be ready. Sometimes they had to turn a room quickly, getting one passenger out, cleaning everything and changing the linens and getting the next passenger in. I made a couple of trips Chicago-Oakland or Oakland-Chicago in the middle of winter, when the train was delayed 12-14 hours because of weather. On-board service crews had to work those extra hours and then got just enough time to shower and put on fresh uniforms and be back on the job for the return, which also got delayed because of weather. The attendant in my sleeper was completely awesome in staying on his toes and keeping his cool; the only time I saw/heard him lower the boom on anyone was when a couple of kids maybe eight or nine years old were running up and down the car and messing with stuff that made his job harder. Then, he cornered them when they got to one end of the car and gave them a lecture. They settled down, and I didn't see that he got any flack from the parents. It's a tough job when everything is running normally, and Amtrak's frequent late running has made it much harder.

Wow! Both of those are impressive, and neither one would scare me if I were 20 years younger with the stamina to put in a lot of work. Aesthetically I like the first one better because of the original fixtures like kitchen sinks and the style. The second house has a lot going for it in terms of location and overall condition. It looks a little more recent in style, but still has wonderful features like the detailed wood paneling, apparently intact and in good condition. I look forward to seeing number 3. Considering the size of those houses, even with good insulation and windows the heating bills could be pretty stiff. Steam heat is both a plus and a minus; a friend has it in his house, and I love how it's quiet and draft-free and gives the place a cozy feel. On the other hand, there's no ductwork to facilitate central air. I guess that's not a serious issue in a major rehab, though. It's a fairly straightforward job to tuck a pipe chase in a corner that will be behind an open door, or if the framing style permits, you can even hide ductwork inside a wall as if it were original construction. In my shack in Fort Wayne, I ripped out all the interior wall surfaces down to the wall studs and added 2x2s on the face of the studs to make a six-inch wall cavity for insulation (the wall studs were full 2x4 rough-sawed hardwood, not planed down like modern ones). I put in fibreglas and followed it up with plastic sheet for a vapor barrier before installing drywall. During that work I put firestops inside the walls, too; the house didn't have any between the first and second floors. Firestops are an important thing to check when you have the walls open; in my other house, built in 1919, the builders set 18-foot 2x4s on the sill plate, running all the way to the attic. All the joists were nailed into the sides of the studs, so there was an open flue all the way from the basement to the attic and into the space between the first-storey ceiling and second-storey floor. That was common construction practice in that era, and a fire originating in the basement when no one's home can fully involve the entire house before anyone notices it from outside. A cousin's house went that way; a neighbor saw the siding start to smoke and called the fire department, and while he was on the phone the entire house suddenly erupted in flames. Insulation in the walls helps form a barrier to impede the spread of a fire, but it doesn't stop it. Youngstown is awesome yet, and I'm happy to see that there are people who care about keeping it that way. :clap:

Four Hundred Hours a Month! To maintain that schedule with dignity and decorum and without showing fatigue and frustration requires strong character and pure dedication.

Much of the city's old core just outside the CBD was ripped out when they pushed I-65 and I-70 right through the center of it, in many places clearing vast swaths of land on either side of the expressways. In many respects it's a whole different city than it was before the interstates. There were neighborhoods there, although many were in decline.

I can just picture that! Good times!

Neat! Some year I hope to remember to get there to see the floral carpet. The workstation cabinets inside the salon look like mechanics'/technicians' roller cabinets. They wouldn't by any chance be Kennedy, made in Van Wert, would they?

Playground equipment now is such crap, all made out of bright-colored plastic blow-molded and designed so even the most self-destructive brat wouldn't be able to devise a way to hurt himself. All in a giant sandbox. That's what they put in the park by my house when they removed the good stuff. They had towering swings with steel-pipe frames and steel chains suspending wood-plank seats. You could get going high enough on those things to scare the bejesus out of yourself, high enough that the chains would go slack and you thought for sure you were about to die. The see-saws were 2x12 oak planks, probably 18 feet long, pivoted over a heavy steel-pipe frame; there were three of them, painted in strong, saturated red, yellow, and green, repainted by parks and recreation workers every spring. See-saws are pretty tame, as playground equipment goes, but it was always fun to jump off without warning and let the other kid bottom out with a "THUD!" That only worked once on any see-saw partner. The see-saws are gone, too. My mom used to tell about the really tall slides in Lakeside Park, in the neighborhood where she grew up. Back then, bread from the bakery came wrapped in waxed paper, and she and her sister would take bread wrappers and slide down on them until the slides were really slippery. Then they'd watch as the little kids would start down and get a frighteningly fast ride and go sprawling in the dirt at the bottom. My elementary/junior high, a township school, had the steel-pipe jungle gym, tall swings, a pretty good slide, and best of all, they got this carousel sort of thing that was a circular wood platform with steel-pipe stanchions to hang onto. The whole thing rotated about a center pivot and you could stand on the platform and push with one foot and get it going 'round really fast. A favorite pursuit of the bigger kids was to get it going so fast that the smaller kids couldn't hang on. One time a fifth-grader got thrown off and broke his arm. He was crying awful, and you could see the bend in his forearm where the bone was broken but hadn't quite broken through the skin. The principal put him in his car and drove him to the hospital in town, and the next day he was back in class with a sling and a cast. No lawsuits, no investigations, no angry parents at school board meetings, just part of growing up. The kid apparently wasn't damaged for life; now retired, during his working life he ran a major industrial contracting firm.

I think there is such a thing as sex addiction, but only the man, himself, possibly with the help of a professional therapist, can determine whether he's addicted. I've known men who spent every possible moment looking for sex, to the point of missing work and getting arrested multiple times for public indecency or public lewdness, or beaten up, sometimes even repeatedly in the same place. As an outside observer I couldn't say whether those individuals are under the influence of an addiction, or whether they're just stupid and overly self-indulgent. There were some instances in my past where I took excessive risks and put myself in personal peril, but I chalk that up to youthful horniness and poor impulse control overriding my instinct for self-preservation. In a choice between an adventure and personal obligations and professional commitments, obligations and commitments prevailed. For me, that's where the boundary lies.

Every now and then I encounter a whippersnapper who just needs a good spanking. I've learned to refrain, because afterward they tend to follow me home. :evil:

Happy Birthday, MayDay! Shows what a sick dependency on Urbanohio.com I've developed, that your birthday was one of the first things I thought of when I was awake enough to know the date.

I'm just a couple of months from 70, and I have no desire to bash anyone unless they exhibit malicious intent and I can't otherwise avoid them. Different times present different challenges, and different people choose different directions and career paths. Some of us adapt to the changes, and some just keep on keepin' on, and I'm not the one to say that's wrong. They're doing what seems right to them. I've known people who can manage and motivate and inspire large staffs of workers to do their best work, and I've known people who can start with iron, coal, and a hammer and anvil, and produce a beautiful, intricate piece of art, or who can add some ash lumber and build a wagon wheel or an entire wagon that's sturdy and functional and built to last a hundred years with decent care. I accord them both the same level of respect, because they both employ their native talents and experience in ways that are useful in an interdependent human society.

I was in my early 30s when IBM came out with the PC. I bought one in 1983 with 256K RAM (maxed out on the motherboard), a 4.77MHZ 8088 CPU, and two 5 1/4 inch floppy drives with a capacity of 360KB each. The monitor was green-on-black monochrome, text-only. If I recall correctly, MS-DOS was up to version 1.1 by then. You had to put the MS-DOS floppy disc in the drive to boot the system. If you powered up without the MS-DOS disc in the drive, the PC would come up to a built-in version of Basic. Hard drives weren't yet available, and an expansion board to take RAM up to 640K cost hundreds of dollars. I bought a Hayes Smartcom 1200-baud "fast" external modem and an Okidata dot-matrix printer that used tractor-feed continuous-form fan-fold paper. Throw in a copy of Word Perfect, and the whole package came to about $5,000. There wasn't enough RAM to completely load WordPerfect, so you'd load the program disc and let the system read that in, and then load a disc with overlays and leave it in, to be read by the system as needed for various actions. That's where the second floppy drive came in handy. With just one floppy drive, you'd have to swap back and forth between the overlay disc and a data disc when you wanted to save your work or edit something you'd done earlier. With a second floppy drive you could leave the overlay disc in one drive and the data disc in the other and not have to mess around swapping them. One of the guys from work came over to see it. He had a Tandy computer, a TRS-80 ("Trash-80") I think, and he was awed by how blazingly fast the IBM was in comparison. The closest thing to IBM compatibles then were Wang and Texas Instruments, and they were less than 100% compatible. Each had its own version of DOS and its own version of the limited amount of business software that was available. The most widely-used application was Lotus 1-2-3, for several years the dominant spreadsheet program.