Interesting Ideas

Some highlights from the October 16, 2016, Open House Chicago.

Carl Schurz High School is one of Chicago’s most beautiful school buildings and was included on the 2016 Open House Chicago tour.

Wales’ Plas Newydd was the seat of the famous Ladies of Llangollen, Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby. Inside is their collection of old wood carvings from the 18th century and earlier (but no photos allowed!). Outside the house is covered with carvings, some placed after the ladies lived there and coated with heavy black paint. It’s a spectacular home in a spectacular setting. Plus, the story of the ladies themselves is fascinating — Anglo-Irish gentry who eloped twice (they were caught both times but only forced apart the first) and settled together in the Welsh countryside, where they lived a

The painter of this sign for the Kebab Centre, Camden Passage, London, was not concerned with rendering a realistic gyros but rather embellishing it with grillwork-style details. Unique among the 500-plus images in The Gyros Project.

One more installment (for now) from my backlog of crazy store names. Find more than 500 other great names at the main Bizarre Bazaars hall of fame. Also: The Angry Chair hair salon, Newington, Connecticut Babies and Brats, Pawling, NY Bad Design, Switzerland Cafe Bong, Clark Street Card ‘N All, Closter, NJ Dead People’s Things, Denver, Colorado Heal N Cure, Northbrook, Illinois Here We Grow garden supplies, Hadley, Mass. Last Resort RV Park and Campground, Nashville, Indiana No Pork, Brooklyn, NY Stuff-It Storage, Hadley, Mass.

The Last Stop: Vanishing Rest Stops of the American Roadside by Ryann Ford My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is a clever concept, with great photos and beautiful landscapes for a wonderful book. Highway rest areas are, for the later part of the 20th Century, what diners and motels were for the middle of it. They are (and were) easy to take for granted until they start disappearing — which is what Ryann Ford noticed and led her to this project. Getting nostalgic about rest areas takes some getting used to, but the ways she frames them in the

Here’s the first installment from my backlog of interestingly named businesses. More to come soon. Go to Bizarre Bazaars main page.