After a series of relatively short visits - 14 pictures, 15 or so - we’re back to the long slog. As I’ve said before, I never look at these after I clip them. Probably clipped these a year ago or more. No idea what we’re in for, or why I did so many. Could be a lot of bad; good be there’s lots to praise. Let’s open the folder . . .

 

Well ain’t that America, as the poet said.

They have the sidewalk corner-cut plates with the raised metal nubs, so it looks like some ADA money sloshed through York.

We must be on the outskirts, moving in.

There was always one of these on the outskirts of downtown. Two bays, brick, Buckaroo Mansard - can’t quite fix the brand.

Okay, now that I think of it, it's probably a Texaco. They had those awful lights for a while.

Whatever it is now, we know what it was then.

OUMB in the most forbidding style of the day.

An old dealership, I’d say. The odd windows seem original. The upper floor makes no sense.

Rust stains were the proud sign was once anchored.

Hold on now - is this then, or now? What year is it?

You decide. Or, I could go back and check, but no: you decide.

What an oddly underwhelming theater facade.

Marks of an old marquee?

Still playing? Still playing. It’s the Sun, and has a website with absolutely no historical info at all.

Holy Crow, it’s the most 1968 building EVER

You’d have to be required to smoke Silva Thins and wear English Leather if you went there.

 

The rare three-name-block building:

An cum unum adolescens. Est at iusto eligendi. Vidit volumus mel ea, ei has errem ridens maiestatis. Ei sea bonorum concludaturque.

   
  HAMILTON
   
  JOE FRANK
   
  REYNOLDS
   
     

Mirrored glass made for striking abstract scenes, but they have a way of alienating everything around them. Don’t look at me! Look at yourself, you stupid loser!

 

Of course it’s a courthouse.

The "Couldn't be bothered" style of civic architecture.

The inevitable old hotel.

But was it a hotel? Seems to be offices now. Lacks the telltale second-small-window that used to indicate a bath.

The top indicates a hotel, though; that elaborate balcony for important events.

Lights for a roof deck?

A perfectly fine nice old bank.

And this is also a bank.

A perfectly fine nice old bank.

And this is also a bank.

As is this.

My point being, we lost a lot when small-town bank architects stopped trying.

Why yes, it was!

A movie theater, I mean. The old marquee can be seen here, where it’s also reported that “A wind storm toppled the upper portion of the facade in 1993.”

Before there were movies:

The old Opera House. Every self-respecting prairie town had to have one. Quantity of Actual Opera actually enjoyed: quite small.

We’ll end here, because it seems as if I could go forever.

Rome, eternal. Until the tornados come through, I suppose.