Lafayette is a great midsize city; unfortunately I was quickly losing daylight when trying to capture the city and Purdue, just across the river in West Lafayette.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few odd shots from Purdue...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nice town and great pics!

In some respects I'd say Lafayette is Indiana's best small-to-midsize city, the one all the others should be trying to emulate. It has a dense, urban downtown with intact blocks of restored, occupied, functioning 19th-century buildings, areas of restored/preserved historic housing, a developed riverscape, and a good transit system with active digital reader boards at major stops, giving the destination and eta of the next arriving bus. The courthouse is among the most extravagant of Indiana's many fabulous ones, and was recently extensively restored.

 

Some bigger cities like Fort Wayne and South Bend can't hold a candle to Lafayette for all-around urban quality. The only other Indiana city smaller than Indianapolis that even comes close to Lafayette is the other big college town, Bloomington, and I don't think it has the historic intergrity the Lafayette does.

 

Nice city. 

 

Since nobody else asked, WTF??    :-o :-o :-o :-o  If that's not a gay bar, it should be!

 

 

Cute

Very nice pics. Lafayette and West Lafayette are really nice towns with some good urban areas.

Nice city. 

 

Since nobody else asked, WTF??    :-o :-o :-o :-o  If that's not a gay bar, it should be!

 

 

There are no homosexuals in Lafayette; they all moved to Indianapolis or Chicago. Anyway, Purdue is an engineering school. The nerds haven't figured out yet that they're queer.

 

You want homosexuals, go to Bloomington; Indiana University is the liberal arts school. Those kids have known since they were 12.

 

:wink:

Nice city... If that's not a gay bar, it should be!

 

 

There are no homosexuals in Lafayette; they all moved to Indianapolis or Chicago. Anyway, Purdue is an engineering school. The nerds haven't figured out yet that they're queer....

:wink:

Git the gun!

 

I was in a Communications 101 class when I was "there" as a freshman.  My earnest teacher was trying to challenge the class to expand their view of the world and began a discussion on homosexuality.

 

Just as quickly, some blonde-haired male "student" interjects with that comment.

 

Sorry that I keep bringing up this nasty sht about Purdue.  Looking back, I realize that there were actually a lot of nice people from there.

Nice city... If that's not a gay bar, it should be!

 

 

There are no homosexuals in Lafayette; they all moved to Indianapolis or Chicago. Anyway, Purdue is an engineering school. The nerds haven't figured out yet that they're queer....

:wink:

Git the gun!

 

I was in a Communications 101 class when I was "there" as a freshman.  My earnest teacher was trying to challenge the class to expand their view of the world and began a discussion on homosexuality.

 

Just as quickly, some blonde-haired male "student" interjects with that comment.

 

Sorry that I keep bringing up this nasty sht about Purdue.  Looking back, I realize that there were actually a lot of nice people from there.

 

Lafayette definitely has a redneck element, but I think it's less influential than it once was. You don't have that level of preservation activity in a community without gay people's investment and policy input, and I think that the people who run the businesses and influence public policy are mostly open and accepting.

 

When I was a student there (50 years ago), we weren't that far out of the McCarthy/Roy Cohn fag hunts, and the whole national climate was more repressive than now. If you had broken down all the closet doors (including mine :roll: ) and piled them up and set fire to them, the glow in the sky would have been visible for at least a hundred miles.  :-D

i'd say you caught some magic hour light very well....hard to get much of this time of year.

 

i'm a sucker for these deco-ish movie theaters, i love'm. looks like lafayette has a nice one:

 

 

Lafayette definitely has a redneck element, but I think it's less influential than it once was. You don't have that level of preservation activity in a community without gay people's investment and policy input, and I think that the people who run the businesses and influence public policy are mostly open and accepting.

 

When I was a student there (50 years ago), we weren't that far out of the McCarthy/Roy Cohn fag hunts, and the whole national climate was more repressive than now. If you had broken down all the closet doors (including mine ::) ) and piled them up and set fire to them, the glow in the sky would have been visible for at least a hundred miles.  ;D

 

Fag hunts?  Is that a fabulous scavenger hunt run by gay?

 

Rob, that sound like a pretty impressive bonfire.

yes... the magic hour...

 

that threatre appears to be more art-moderne

Fag hunts?  Is that a fabulous scavenger hunt run by gay?

It was a fabulous witch hunt led by McCarthy's close associate, a closeted young lawyer named Roy Cohn, who sought self-vindication via the ruining of other people's lives and careers. After his death from complications of AIDS in 1986, the country came to know of his exclusive parties attended by beautiful boys.

 

The 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings made gays out to be one of the greatest threats to America because, it presumed, social stigma and our great fear of being exposed made us vulnerable to blackmail by Communist agents. Cohn focused on outing suspected homosexuals with access to national-security critical information especially related to military strategy and technology. I think that much of the current paranoia about gays in the military can be traced back to that era; there are many stories from pre-McCarthy years (WWII and Korea) that make it clear that homosexual orientation and homophobia were not widespread morale-busters in the armed forces.

 

 

I know! I know! Sorry!

In some respects I'd say Lafayette is Indiana's best small-to-midsize city, the one all the others should be trying to emulate. It has a dense, urban downtown with intact blocks of restored, occupied, functioning 19th-century buildings, areas of restored/preserved historic housing, a developed riverscape, and a good transit system with active digital reader boards at major stops, giving the destination and eta of the next arriving bus. The courthouse is among the most extravagant of Indiana's many fabulous ones, and was recently extensively restored.

 

Some bigger cities like Fort Wayne and South Bend can't hold a candle to Lafayette for all-around urban quality. The only other Indiana city smaller than Indianapolis that even comes close to Lafayette is the other big college town, Bloomington, and I don't think is has the historic intergrity the Lafayette does.

 

 

Totally agreed.  + the topography is an oasis on that I-65 drive to Chicago/Indy.

yes... the magic hour...

 

that threatre appears to be more art-moderne

 

indeed. and fyi i found out it was built in 1938.

 

that reminds me, one of these days i gotta me to napier, new zealand to see the other miami beach on the other side of the world. someday!

 

 

After being stripped of its fixtures and seats and standing unused for several years, the Lafayette Theater was being restored as a versatile entertainment venue with tables for patrons when I took this photo on a gloomy, dreary October day in 2005 with the marquee lit. It was still mostly a bare shell with work under way and the dusty alkali smell of new concrete everywhere.

I was perusing a book about the Wabash and Erie Canal at Half Price Books.  The canal extended west along the Wabash River to Lafayette, Indiana, which was the limit of navigation of steam powered riverboats.  There was a similar "connecting canal" that extended from the Ohio and Erie Canal at Dresden to the limit of navigation of the Muskingum River at Zanesville.

 

The limit of navigation on the Allegheny River was Olean, New York.  Nineteenth century travelers would work their way west to Olean and then be able to travel to Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, St. Louis,  or New Orleans.  According to the museum in Salamanca, some people just rafted down after the ice let out on the Allegheny.

Damn that place is nice. I have driven by so many times going to Chicago, but never stopped downtown.