Some new ones from Wells Street in Fort Wayne

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Lev's Pawn Shop

The Pantry is the last of the rough redneck bars and biker bars that once lined Wells Street. I have a friend who lived on Fourth Street, the road that runs alongside The Pantry, around the time that I made this photograph. From her house, you could often hear people down at the bar screaming and cussing at each other, and starting fights!

Carriage House in the alley behind Wells Street

You can see my whole Wells Street project on my website.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

S'All Good, a used furniture store on Wells Street, has always been known for the giant fiberglass mouse that stands in front of the store during business hours. The store started out about 10 years ago on Fairfield Avenue, and when they moved to the present location on Wells, the mouse came with them.

 

[paulfish4570]

this is a worthy project, Chris.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Thanks Paul. This is something I have been doing a couple of years now.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Wildman's Tattoo and Body Piercing

Wildman's Tattoo has been in this storefront in front of an old house on Wells Street in Fort Wayne for at least ten years. The brick storefront next door used to be Wildman's Body Piercing, but they consolidated the two parts of the business into one building several years ago.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Your photos and the stories behind the buildings are fascinating. I'm glad you are documenting these places. Folks in the future will be glad you did. Things change and disappear before we know it.

Main street in our small town has completely changed over the last ten years.

Keep shooting!

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Your photos and the stories behind the buildings are fascinating. I'm glad you are documenting these places. Folks in the future will be glad you did. Things change and disappear before we know it.

Main street in our small town has completely changed over the last ten years.

Keep shooting!

Thanks 🙂 These are from last year. I am so far behind in my scanning, I think I have about 250 rolls of film waiting for me to pick stuff from to scan, and to do the scanning. After I finished scanning the photos from my New Mexico trip, I decided to start going through the archives to tie up loose ends on projects begun but not finished. I shoot more than I can scan, because I always have a camera with me, and I always have 3 or 4 projects in progress! I am shooting some new Wells Street stuff and some other stuff in Ft. Wayne, but I'm going to try to keep on my scanning stuff I let slip the last few years. I'm going to finish scanning the last of the Doll House photos in a couple week.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This old house on Wells Street looks like it used to have a store in the front. A lot of the storefronts on Wells, like Koch Hydroponics and Living Faith Ministries, are additions to the fronts of old houses. The little sign in the front window of this house says Colts Country. The Indianapolis Colts became very popular in Fort Wayne after they won the Super Bowl a few years ago. Before that, no one here seemed to know that they existed!

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Cellphone shops like PhD Wireless on Wells Street have sprung up all over Fort Wayne, selling phones and services from companies that mainly market to poorer urban customers. There is a similar store on Broadway that is called Dr. Wireless. Someone with a PhD is addressed as "Doctor." I wonder if the stores are owned by the same people?

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Linda Lou's Furniture occupies two storefronts on Wells Street. This one on the corner used to be one of the tough biker bars that once lined Wells. Linda Lou's opened up the wall between the former bar and their larger store next door to expand the used furniture store. The street lamp in front of the store is decorated for Christmas with a holiday wreath, as are the rest of the lights on the section of Wells Street between the bridge and West State Boulevard.

Shot this one on my Hasselblad instead of Leica, because I needed an excuse to test an A12 back I had just got back from repair. Decided since I was testing things, to try Tmax 400-2 in PMK Developer. I've been using Tri-X for almost all my 35mm work, but I have a ton of Tmax 400 in 120 and was curious how it looked in PMK. I like the resting tonality a lot!

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This door on the Fourth Street side of the Linda Lou's Furniture building is the entrance for the apartments on the second floor of the building.

This is also Tmax 400-2 in PMK