Whether Mr. C’s Steak House in Omaha swarmed with kitsch or charm is all in your point of view. But take a look at the faces in its dioramas. Each is said to have represented a local notable. Yano and Mary Caniglia had a drive-in restaurant on 30th Street that they rebuilt and reopened as Mr. C’s in 1971. It was a classic local institution and one of those rare places where you could dine inside an art environment. It closed in 2007. You can read more about Mr. C’s, including its disappointing racial history, here: https://northomahahistory.com/2017/12/06/a-history-of-mr-cs-restaurant-in-north-omaha/
Continue readingCategory: Roadside Art
RIP Jeff Elersic, artist
I never met Jeff Elersic, who died Dec. 14, 2024, at 70 years old, but I did manage to photograph his house/tirade in Geneva, Ohio, northeast of Cleveland. In common with a number of other art environments (W.C. Rice’s, Royal Robertson’s and Jesse Howard’s among others), Elersic’s expressed an uncomfortable degree of rage. To say his language was not measured is an understatement. But it was artfully written and arranged, and he was an excellent colorist. Have a look. Images are from 2016. You can view a short obituary here and read more about him at Spaces Archives.
Continue readingThe Red Hot Annex
Before I started photographing the gyros signs of Chicago — now collected as The Gyros Project — I had an idea to document signs at Chicago’s hot dog stands. I had become increasingly interested in roadside signs as examples of vernacular art, and hot dog stands have long been a ubiquitous part of Chicago’s street life. The red-and-yellow red hots signage that advertised and decorated so many of them literally set the local color for the city. I ultimately decided against hot dogs in favor of gyros, however, for two reasons. First, in those days (early 1990s) there were so
Continue readingRoadside Muskegon Marvels
No shortage of things to see to in this lakeside Michigan city. These photos mostly date to 2011. The Signs The Buildings
Continue readingRoadside Giants of Cross Plains
Back in the 1990s, the trio of roadside giants in the first image — pink elephant, towering Indian and modest knight — resided next to Loco Joe’s fireworks in Cross Plains, Tennessee, north of Nashville . Time took its toll, however. The knight disappeared and the other two figures weathered. They outlasted Loco Joe, however, as well as the adjacent antique mall. Today the elephant continues to decay in its original spot, glasses gone but still holding the martini glass complete with olive. The Indian moved across the road to Sad Sam’s fireworks and has been refurbished. You can read
Continue readingMansards Forever!
As Modernism lost its grip on the collective imagination in the second half of the 20th century, adding a mansard roof to a building must have seemed like an easy way to affix substance and class. Mansards proliferated, on buildings both residential and commercial. So why not achieve the same sort of upgrade by putting mansards atop signs, which were likely even more in need of classing up? I can’t speak for the whole country, but in the Chicago area our streets were once lined with this oddball expression of 1970s-era mansardism — signs with roofs. Back in 2003 I published a
Continue readingMartha Timm Memorial Rock Garden
The Martha Timm Rock Garden is fenced off in New Hampton, Iowa’s Mikkelson Park, making photography a challenge but visiting easy. You can just walk up any time and look. An information sign supplies what little information I can find about this modestly scaled art environment: “Martha Timm and her husband were retired to a home in New Hampton from a farm southeast of the city when she began the building of her rock garden. It includes rocks from every state of the union, collected by her and for her by relatives and friends in their travels. The shards of
Continue readingPoland: Plenty to Love
I originally wanted to go to Poland as a matter of family heritage. But it turns out there is a ton to like there beyond the ancestral village. Quaint, baroque, modern, lovely, horrifying — the country’s history makes for a rich and varied experience. Click to see.
Continue readingZakopane Cemetery
This cemetery is well worth the trip to Zakopane, the town’s other virtues aside. It’s not huge, but its mix of folky and modernist memorials — sometimes combined in a single monument — makes it an artistic treasure. Back to Poland index page
Continue readingPolish Churches
It’s no surprise that deeply Catholic Poland has churches aplenty. What’s remarkable is the duality of its wooden country churches — many of them UNESCO World Heritage listed — and the splendor of the baroque religious palaces in the cities. More remarkable is that those old country churches, their modest exteriors beautiful enough, often feature some of that baroque splendor inside. Back to Poland index page
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