Some new photos from Fort Wayne



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These are the final two photographs that I made of the demolition of Saint Joseph Hospital in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana. I made them on the morning of November 4, 2022. The last part of the structure was pulled down the previous evening around 6pm.

The complete project consists of 53 photographs made with a forty year old Polaroid SX-70 camera.
https://chriscrawfordphoto.com/chris-results.php?category=130&secondary=268

Here is the story that one of Fort Wayne's local news programs did about my project:
https://youtu.be/smJvKfK-LxM
 




Ceylon Covered Bridge was built in the late 19th Century to carry County Road 950S over the Wabash River near Ceylon, a small settlement just north of the small town of Geneva, in rural Adams County, Indiana. I'm not sure of the date for the bridge's construction. The signs on the bridge say 1860, but the town of Geneva's website has a page about the bridge's history that says it was built in 1879!

The part of the river that the bridge crosses is now a meander that has been partially disconnected from the main stream, which had shifted its course at some point after the bridge was built. A modern bridge nearby crosses the main part of the river, so the covered bridge has been closed to traffic and preserved as a historic site. It was renovated in 2012. The Ceylon Bridge is the only one remaining out of the twenty three covered bridges that once crossed the Wabash, which is Indiana's longest river.

12-10-21
 
Out to Lunch said:
I've always wondered as to why they decided to cover these bridges: tradition; convenience, or esthetics.
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There's a lot of theories, but no one knows for sure. None of the purported reasons really make sense. Some say its to keep people dry in rainy weather, but the rest of the road is uncovered! Some say it was to keep horses from being afraid to cross a river, but even when these bridges were built in the late 1800s, the majority of bridges were not covered and most of the covered bridges crossed relatively small rivers. None were ever built over really wide rivers like the Ohio or the Mississippi. I have a friend in Louisville, Kentucky who is afraid to drive over the Ohio River, which is more than half a mile wide in the Louisville area. If she has to go into Indiana, she has to have someone drive her and she keeps her eyes closed the whole time so she doesn't see that wide expanse of water under her! Never heard of horses having such a fear, though.
 
First thing that comes to mind: to protect the wooden planks from rain (which obviously can’t be painted since they’re travelled on).

Second thing: to provide photo opportunities.
 




Briggs Hardware is a locally owned hardware store on the south side of Line Street in the small town of Geneva, Indiana. The store has been in business since 1882. It is right next door to The Hub, in the same brick storefront building.

Geneva is a small town in the southern part of Adams County, Indiana. Like the larger town of Berne, located a few miles north, Geneva was founded by immigrants from Switzerland.

12-10-21
 
raydm6 said:
It's nice to see these old family run businesses still around. We still have a few in our area but unfortunately, an old-fashioned 5&10 store recently closed - Changing of the times: West Concord 5&10 closing.

Love the empty wooden wire-spools in the 2nd-floor window.
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I actually didn't notice the wooden spools before you pointed them out! Old stores like that can be a treasure trove of interesting things. There's an old plumbing supply shop I go to because they also refill propane tanks for outdoor grills. The place is owned by an 89 year old man named Virgil who bought the store in 1950 in partnership with his older brother, Homer (Homer died in 2011). It is filled with ancient stuff, parts for 1950s-era faucets, and the back room is a well-equipped machinist's shop. Virgil used to make parts for old faucets back there if someone needed something that was no longer available. Virgil is in bad health and says he wants to retire but I doubt he will. It gives him something to do and he likes talking to people who come in. He never married and has no kids or grandkids.



Virgil at his desk. He still keeps all his records on paper, using a manual typewriter.




Homer's desk, left pretty much as it was when Homer died.




Old faucet parts.






These photos were made in 2018. Virgil has been trying to sell the store so he can retire.
 
^^ Great stuff Chris. It's great that you are capturing these old glimpses of Americana that will be disappearing soon. Love "Homer's Desk..." - an old manual analog cash register, El Producto and Dutch Master Cigar boxes, Hill's Bros. and Maxwell House coffee cans among other things... Love this stuff.

I bet he can find or put his finger on any item requested that he has in stock.

We are fortunate to have many old-mill building antique co-ops in the area and I love browsing them for old things. Very nostalgic. The buildings themselves have a story to tell.
 
There are quite a few shops in Saigon, typewriters and all, that have survived for one particular reason: they sell on credit. In traditional Vietnamese society, one has to settle one's debts before entering the new year. Ignoring this rule will bring bad luck. Cheers, OtL
 
raydm6 said:
^^ Great stuff Chris. It's great that you are capturing these old glimpses of Americana that will be disappearing soon. Love "Homer's Desk..." - an old manual analog cash register, El Producto and Dutch Master Cigar boxes, Hill's Bros. and Maxwell House coffee cans among other things... Love this stuff.

I bet he can find or put his finger on any item requested that he has in stock.

We are fortunate to have many old-mill building antique co-ops in the area and I love browsing them for old things. Very nostalgic. The buildings themselves have a story to tell.
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Pál_K said:
Indeed - those photos inside are a delight.
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Yeah, he can tell you exactly what he has in stock and where it is in the store. This building was built in 1946 by the store's original owner. Virgil and Homer worked for him and bought the store just four years after the building was constructed. The store was founded earlier in a different location before it moved to the current building. Virgil does have a more modern electronic cash register now, but it is a fairly primitive one that does not read barcodes or connect to a computerized database of inventory like modern retailers use. Note the "Complaint Button" in front of the register!




The cat bed on the shelf belonged to Lucky, a scraggly looking old cat with a bad attitude that Virgil took in when it wandered into the store one day. He had Lucky for a long time, ten or twelve years, before he died in 2017.






This photo is from 2014. Lucky spent most of him time lounging on the counter. One day, I sat my camera bag on the counter, and Lucky got up and stretched, then slithered up on top of my bag. When I tried to get something out of it, he tried to scratch me! Virgil was in the back looking for something for another customer. I told him his cat, who was still on my bag, tried to scratch me. He replied: "Yeah he does that to everyone. Goddamned cat is meaner than Hell!" So, of course, he let it lounge on the counter and interact with customers, lol! Below is a crop from that photo showing the look on the cat's face. This was after I got him off my bag so I could get my camera out. Every time I went in the store after that, the cat would act all friendly and rub on me and purr....the when I'd try to pet him, he'd take a swipe at me, claws out!



 




I made this photograph in my front yard early in the morning a few days ago. Everything was covered in frost; the grass, the fallen leaves, and the lonely dead plant. The frost melted about an hour later.

11-26-22
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
This photo is from 2014. Lucky spent most of him time lounging on the counter. One day, I sat my camera bag on the counter, and Lucky got up and stretched, then slithered up on top of my bag. When I tried to get something out of it, he tried to scratch me! Virgil was in the back looking for something for another customer. I told him his cat, who was still on my bag, tried to scratch me. He replied: "Yeah he does that to everyone. Goddamned cat is meaner than Hell!" So, of course, he let it lounge on the counter and interact with customers, lol! Below is a crop from that photo showing the look on the cat's face. This was after I got him off my bag so I could get my camera out. Every time I went in the store after that, the cat would act all friendly and rub on me and purr....the when I'd try to pet him, he'd take a swipe at me, claws out!



Poor Lucky had spent all those years on the counter, dealing with customers. Anyone who has worked in retail understands Lucky's ornery attitude.
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I’m sure the plant is not dead and is just sleeping for the winter, likely to blossom into a beautiful creation in the spring.
 




This tree is in the back yard of a house on Arbor Avenue in my neighborhood in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It is one of many in this part of the city that was damaged by the June 13, 2022 derecho, a storm with hurricane-force winds that also damaged many homes in the area.

A lot of the homeowners with fallen trees allowed people to take the wood in exchange for cutting it up and cleaning up the mess. The woman who owns this place put a sign on one of her trees with hand-drawn hearts that said "Chainsaws Welcome" to let people know that they were welcome to cut up and haul away her broken trees. She had a lot more debris from fallen trees piled up along the road in front of the house, too!

7-8-22
 




This little bungalow is on Arbor Avenue, south of Sandpoint Road, in my neighborhood in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It is one of many in this part of the city that was damaged by the June 13, 2022 derecho, a storm with hurricane-force winds that also damaged many homes and broke or uprooted hundreds of trees in the area.

The city government asked homeowners to pile the uprooted or broken trees and tree branches along the roadside so that city crews could pick up the debris. Many houses in my neighborhood, like this one, had so many damaged trees that the pile of debris along the road formed high walls hiding the houses! This 'wall' was quite a bit taller than I am! It took weeks for the city to collect it all.

6-25-22
 




Another from my backlog of work I am finally getting edited

I was getting ready to photograph these two small storefronts when a man and woman came out on the sidewalk and started talking. The woman was showing the man her arm tattoos. They were standing in front of the Wells Street Coin Laundry and the Fort Wayne Guitar Exchange on Wells Street, just north of Fourth Street, in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

4-26-18

Update: The Fort Wayne Guitar Exchange closed in 2019, and the Wells Street Coin Laundry closed in 2022.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:

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I like this; it’s appealing. There are so many things to notice, so many things different than what I usually see today.

The three small separate brick buildings - you’d never see that made today. The barbershop - is it still there? I like it because my father was a barber and I grew up in barbershops, listening to adult conversations of daily issues. Also, having once worked for a typesetting company, I notice the barbershop’s use of the Broadway font for their sign is certainly different.
 
Pál_K said:
I like this; it’s appealing. There are so many things to notice, so many things different than what I usually see today.

The three small separate brick buildings - you’d never see that made today. The barbershop - is it still there? I like it because my father was a barber and I grew up in barbershops, listening to adult conversations of daily issues. Also, having once worked for a typesetting company, I notice the barbershop’s use of the Broadway font for their sign is certainly different.
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The barber shop is still there. All three buildings are pretty old. The barbershop used to be a body piercing shop. There's a tattoo shop on the other side of it.

The Broadway font is unusual; not one you often see today. Typefaces have always fascinated me. I used to do a lot of graphic design work and have accumulated a huge typeface collection and a lot of books on the history of type design.
 
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