Some new photos from Fort Wayne

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This house is on the corner of Cortland Avenue and Putnam Street, in the Wells Street area of Fort Wayne, Indiana. I thought the plastic patio chair straddling the porch wall was amusing.

 

[KoNickon]

This house is on State Street, between Chadwick Street and Elizabeth Street, in the small town of Medina, New York.

Mind that first step....

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

The C. J. Schneider Building is a vacant storefront building on the corner of Main Street and Stone Street in the small town of Antwerp, Ohio. It was built in 1893 by J. Bauer. I was sitting vacant when I photographed it at the end of last year.



Mr. Bauer also built the C. Sullivan Building in Antwerp. It is located on the other side of Main Street, about half a block south of the Schneider Building.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Yesterday morning, the sky was beautiful in Fort Wayne. I made several photographs of it for my Abstract Images project.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Silsby's Double Dips is an ice cream stand on Main Street (State Road 63) in the small town of Medina, New York. I made this photograph in September, the day after they closed for the season.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

A ladies Schwinn bicycle in front of a pallet flag next to a house on the corner of West Avenue and Eagle Street in the village of Medina, New York.


Pallet flags are wooden shipping pallets painted to look like American flags; they're a common form of folk art in the United States. This is the first pallet flag that I have seen that was made with two pallets to make a larger flag.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Kwandran's Tae Kwon Do is a martial arts school in a beautiful old storefront on the north side of Center Street (State Road 31), just east of Main Street (State Road 63), in the village of Medina, New York.


The building is built on a hill, so the road and sidewalk in front of it are sloped downward at a strong angle.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

The front of First Presbyterian Church in the small town of Holley, New York.


The sign says: "All I want Is Justice and Fairness. Amos 5:24." The Bible verse it references says: "But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream."

The sign is a response to the killings by police of unarmed black men around the country, including one that took place in the nearby city of Rochester, New York.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

The LaSalle Building is a historic building on Adams Street in downtown Toledo, Ohio. It was built in 1917 for LaSalle & Koch, a locally owned department store. In 1983, the store closed and the building sat vacant until 1996, when it was redeveloped into an apartment building.


Toledo, on the western end of Lake Erie, is the largest city in northwest Ohio. The Maumee River, which forms in downtown Fort Wayne, empties into Lake Erie in Toledo, which is about a two hour drive from Fort Wayne.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This building is on the east side of Main Street (State Road 98), between Bank Street and State Street, in the village of Albion, New York. Albion is the county seat of Orleans County in western New York.



The windows on the second and third floor are boarded up, and have paintings on the plywood that covers the windows. Two of the first floor storefronts are occupied by a bar and restaurant called 39 Problems. The vacant storefront has an American flag in the window.


A sign in the window of 39 Problems says: "Re-Open NY. All Business Is Essential."

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

The Azar's Big Boy restaurant on the corner of Bluffton Road and Lower Huntington Road in Waynedale was, for about 20 years, the last remaining Big Boy restaurant in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It closed temporarily in March, 2020 due to the Coronavirus lockdown. In June, owner George Azar decided not to reopen. I made this photo in June a few days after George decided not to reopen.

Azar's was the local franchisee for Big Boy. When I was young, they had numerous locations in Fort Wayne. My family often went there to eat. In the mid-1990s, all of them closed, except the Waynedale location on the southwest side of Fort Wayne. A couple of the old Azar's locations have been demolished, and several have been turned into other restaurants. One is a strip club!

The Waynedale Azar's building is being remodeled as of November, 2020. A local Greek family that owns several restaurants in Fort Wayne is going to open a new one there.

 

[Bill Clark]

Very nice photographs Chris.

Thanks for showing them here.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Very nice photographs Chris.

Thanks for showing them here.

Thanks, Bill. Here's another new one. I'm trying to catch up on my backlog of B&W photos since I've been posting so much color work lately.

Todd's Townley Tavern is a bar and restaurant on the corner of State Road 101 and Lincoln Highway in a rural area in the southeastern part of Allen County, Indiana. The building was originally a gas station.


The crossroads is marked on maps as a town called Townley, but there is no town. Its just this bar, another business, and a house.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Mount Zion United Brethren in Christ Church is located on the corner of State Road 101 and County Road 450N in Bobo, Indiana.

The church's sign says: "Greater love has no one than this. Than to lay down one’s life for his friends."

Bobo is a tiny village with just a couple of streets in rural Adams County. Interestingly, the place is named on maps and on Wikipedia as "Rivare." The signs on state road 101 on the north and south edges of the town say it is called "Bobo." The signs were put there by the State of Indiana's highway department, so I figure that Bobo must be the correct name. At least the state government thinks it is!

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Several plastic kayaks on the ground under the Tree Canopy Trail bridge on the north bank of the Saint Marys River at Promenade Park in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana. They belong to Fort Wayne Outfitters, which is located just north of the park. The kayaks are available to rent.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This house is on Crescent Avenue, between Glenwood Avenue and Vance Avenue, in Fort Wayne, Indiana.


A sign in front of the house says: "You are not alone. We’re all in this together." I made this photograph in May, shortly after the state began forcing businesses to close to slow the spread of COVID-19.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

The downtown skyline on a very foggy morning in Fort Wayne, Indiana.


The fog was unusual in that it hovered high above the ground. The top of the PNC Bank building (originally the Fort Wayne National Bank Building), Fort Wayne's second-tallest skyscraper, disappears into the heavy fog while there is little fog at all near the ground.


Promenade Park, on the south side of the Saint Marys River, is visible in the foreground; there is a man mowing the park's grass. I made this photograph from the Tree Canopy Trail on the north side of the river.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This little house is on High Street, between Orchard Street and Marion Street (a few blocks west of Wells Street), on the working-class northwest side of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Lamb Of God Mennonite Church is located on Oak Street, between Broadway and Eastern Avenue, in the small town of Butler, Indiana. The old brick church building was built in 1886, and was originally Bethel Church Of God.


The church's sign says: "The True Church Triumphant Is Alive and Well."

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

For a century, General Electric operated a sprawling factory complex on Broadway, south of downtown, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The factory had a huge sign with the the company's name and logo spelled out in lights mounted on the roof of one of the buildings on the east side of Broadway.


The iconic GE sign remained lit long after the company had closed the factories, but it was finally dismantled on March 29, 2016. According to a local TV news report, the company took the sign down because people had been sneaking into the building and vandalizing the sign.


I made this photograph a few weeks later, as workers were dismantling and removing the steel I-beam frame that had once supported the sign. The building in the foreground is the IUE-CWA Local 901 Union Hall on Broadway, on the south edge of the GE complex. The union had represented the GE workers prior to the closure of the factories.

The sign in 2014