Of water towers, old buildings and other roadside stuff

lee4hmz

I've been posting a lot about this in the "Photos of mundane things" thread, and I feel like I'm kind of cluttering it, so I'll post all the results of my following roads across the US here. 

I don't have anything interesting at the moment (I'm currently following US 30 across the country, and just left Pocatello, ID), so for now, have a water tower with a smiley face on it. :D

Imipolex G

she looks happy

lee4hmz

http://www.insidenova.com/news/local/manassas/iconic-manassas-water-tower-to-be-removed/article_ff87fedc-2fc9-11e3-984a-001a4bcf887a.html

:(

Anonus

whatever they do, I hope they don't fuck up the lettering if they do restore it

glennmagusharvey

We need a thread about water towers whose font is so obnoxious they had to reroute the roads so that travelers wouldn't see it.

lee4hmz

There's a water tower labeled in Brush Script somewhere on the other thread...XD

lee4hmz

One of the things that intrigues me about these cross-country map treks is just how many of these tiny Plains towns have no industry left at all besides farming. 

Some former commercial buildings in Bushnell, NE.

What looks like the old center of town...an abandoned bar, and a few abandoned stores.

The post office and the town hall, the only signs of commerce or government I could find. 

The town water tower, in surprisingly good shape for a place that looks like a ghost town.

lee4hmz

Behold: The Potter State Bank of Potter, Also Potter

Hehehe, Rick Rolls Ins.

Princess Alice

^^ Whoa, it's like a modern-day ghost town. That's kinda neat.

lee4hmz

Another commercial area that's long since been abandoned. Dig the vintage Squirt sign!

The school looks like it's in better shape, though.

Princess Alice

Mildly amusing thing: Gee, I wonder why this crossing is marked "EXEMPT".

lee4hmz

Heh, around here you'd usually see a crosswalk instead of a crossbuck, at least along the W&OD Trail.

Princess Alice

Rail-trail crosswalks always seemed distinct to me, in that they somehow look subtly different from typical suburban crosswalks...but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Princess Alice

An old Griswold crossing signal: that weird empty space would have originally held a stop sign that turned to face the road when a train was detected.

Unfortunately, most of these still in existence have, like this one, had their stop signs removed for one reason or another.

Vriska

"water tower" always makes me think of the Animaniacs.

Also there are some cool railroad tracks around here but I never have my camera when I'm near there.

lee4hmz

Oh wow, a standalone JCPenney that's a real store, not just a catalog store.

Princess Alice

Ooh, neat!

Salix Babylonika

heheh, there's a Yarn Basket near there.

lee4hmz

Yarn basket?

Oh, and hey, here's another one of those weird PDM tanks.

Salix Babylonika

there's a store called Yarn Basket down the street.

lee4hmz

Ah, okay.

lee4hmz

So anyway, I was flipping through channels earlier, and what did I find on PBS? "A Drive Down the Lincoln Highway." XD

I'll watch it later, it's almost my bedtime.

Princess Alice

You know, there's at least one rest area off US 30 in Ohio that has a sign reading "US 30: Abraham Lincoln Memorial Highway."

Which is kind of hilarious because it's off a modern freeway portion of US 30 that was obviously never part of the original Lincoln Highway.

lee4hmz

This is probably the oldest intact steel water tower I've seen so far on Google Maps. (It's not intact anymore; since the Street View was taken in 2007, it seems the tower and the entire water plant surrounding it have been removed, and the site converted to parkland. Still, though...)

It also turns out that the "European" water tower I found in Des Moines is actually on the NRHP.

Princess Alice

Various Columbus-area underpasses bearing the names of defunct railroads:

Pennsylvania Railroad

• Fields Avenue
• Essex Avenue (barely legible, but there)
• Cleveland Avenue

Norfolk & Western Railway

• Leonard Avenue/Fifth Avenue
• Maryland Avenue
• Greenway Avenue
• Clifton Avenue
• Long Street
• Broad Street (a bit less elaborate than the others)
• Franklin Park South
• Bryden Road
• Main Street
• Livingston Avenue
• Frebis Avenue (much later bridge, bearing later logo)
• Refugee Road (the name of which has its own history, we'll get to that another time)

There are probably more, but that's all of them from that one continuous stretch of track.

lee4hmz

The NW logo on the Frebis Avenue bridge is the one I remember seeing on coal cars in WV when I was little. 

lee4hmz

Oh wow, a four-legged version of that weird little CB&I tripod tower.

And another tripod, just down the road from the previous one.

lee4hmz

Oh, hey, a swimming pool that looks like a round, open-air drinking-water reservoir. (You don't see many of the latter anymore, because the EPA effectively banned them. Pittsburgh still has an open-air reservoir, but only because it's part of a very popular park; the water is run through an RO system before use.)

lee4hmz

viewer.nationalmap.gov is back up (has been since at least this morning), and the geekery has commenced.

lee4hmz

Oh, hey, an Aquastore tank that actually has the "AOSmith AQUASTORE" logo on it!

lee4hmz

And I made it to Atlantic City. Not much I haven't seen already east of, oh, Lancaster, but I'm done just the same. 

Tomorrow, I start on US 50.

lee4hmz

An intake structure that looks like a boat!

Princess Alice

New Albany before Les Wexner

New Albany after Les Wexner

Yeah, it's pretty much your typical suburban sprawl, but it's amazing just how fast it all happened. Pretty much all of the development you see there has happened over the last 20 years or so...

Fossilmaiden

Not old, but it is a good example of how not to do architecture. (It's the local police HQ, was built a few years back.)

Princess Alice

I would never have pegged that as a police building; it has the same sort of "trying too hard" 2000s aesthetic that I associate with deliberately grandiose buildings like arenas.

Fossilmaiden

Well, it does have the massive "Gloucestershire Constabulary" sign on it. :P

Previous Calica

Without that sign I would have pegged it as an arena too.

lee4hmz

The first thing I thought of was "old Safeway store".

Princess Alice

^ That too

Also I got distracted by traffic control

In front of the building there's a red sign that says "NEW TRAFFIC SIGNAL AHEAD", presumably in reference to that signalized crosswalk a bit down the street

lee4hmz

(Bonus: I actually wrote the last post while I was at Safeway!)

Princess Alice

Heh.

glennmagusharvey

@lee4hmz: Well, that looks more like a "watering hole".

Also, I almost thought that was Virginia until I realized how common the name Sandy Creek was.

Princess Alice

The elusive "Yes U-Turn" sign, as I like to call it

(To explain: The City of Columbus has a blanket ban on U-turns, so when a U-turn is permitted, it has to be explicitly posted)

Princess Alice

Talk about a confusing mess

lee4hmz

glennmagusharvey said:

@lee4hmz: Well, that looks more like a "watering hole".

Also, I almost thought that was Virginia until I realized how common the name Sandy Creek was.

Which post was this referring to?

Anonus

Central Avenue said:

Talk about a confusing mess

What is that building with the green roof, and how does that setup adversely effect traffic?

Princess Alice

It doesn't really have any adverse effect on traffic, but it's unpleasant to look at. You can probably tell, but the photo was taken when the old span-wire signals were in the process of being replaced by mast-arm signals, so there's an ugly mix of both there.

The building with the green roof is part of a strip mall.

lee4hmz

Oh, hey, a water tower along US 50 that's actually interesting! (Lakin, KS)

US 50 really is the loneliest road in America. There is basically a whole bunch of practically nothing between, oh, Tahoe and the Kansas border (Grand Junction and Pueblo are the only largish cities).

lee4hmz

The Google Street View car saw itself again! ^_^

glennmagusharvey

Thanks for making me wander the Oklahoma panhandle, north Texas, and eastern New Mexico by Google Maps.

I have now discovered the communities of Turpin, Oklahoma; Keyes, Oklahoma; Nara Visa, New Mexico; San Jon, New Mexico; and the Tolar Cemetery.

Justice4243

lee4hmz said:

The Google Street View car saw itself again! ^_^

Does this mean we get six more weeks of summer?