RDZ Photography

Cleveland – June 2019 – Architecture and Public Art of University Circle

Featured on a number of postings, the University Circle area of Cleveland is home to Case Western Reserve University, as well as most of the museums for the city.

We were in town on this sunny Saturday for ‘Parade the Circle’ (featured on an upcoming posting), we also wanted to participate in a walking tour of the area lead by the volunteers from ‘Take a Hike Cleveland’, but apparently because of the parade they cancelled. As with other times like this, we made our own tour.

The Cleveland History Center features a carousel from a long lost amusement park – Euclid Beach.

The Cancer Survivors Plaza. A local independent newspaper named this the worst public sculpture in America, with the surreal look of the people seemingly running away from something.

The tower in the background (and on the featured photo for this posting) has unique brickwork.

Just across the street the Museum of Natural History has an excellent welcoming sign.

While the population of Cleveland has dropped precipitously over the last 50 years, there are still some grand old apartment buildings in the city, as evidenced by the Park Lane Villa.

The Maltz Performing Arts Center. Built in 1924 as the Temple Tifereth, it now serves the arts community.

There are statues scattered throughout the area.

A view of University Circle United Methodist Church.

There was once the largest skating rink the world located in here – the Elysian. It is celebrated by art on an electrical box.

Mark Hanna – While William McGinley was officially the president, Mark told him what to do.

A view of the Museum of Art.

Severance Hall – home of the Cleveland Orchestra.

The Kelvin Smith Library at Case Western Reserve.

Case Western Reserve was at one time two separate entities, including the Western Reserve College for Women.

A chapel at Case Western Reserve.

Finally, the best building in the area. It is now home to the Cleveland Institute of Art, but it’s first life was as an assembly plant for making Ford Model T’s!

Across America – May 2019 – Random Scenes Part 2

Architecture, Art, History, Nature, Transportation, Water Features

Central Tennessee – Bus Graveyard

Northern Alabama – Rock Zoo

Scottsboro, Alabama – Did you ever lose your luggage on an airplane and never get it back. It likely ended up here, as they buy all of the unclaimed luggage from the airlines and sell it in essentially a thrift store.

Pawhuska, Oklahoma

Bartlesville, Oklahoma – Phillips 66 Petroleum Company Headquarters

Vinita, Oklahoma – Will Rogers Rodeo

Eastern Oklahoma – Pensacola Dam. A mile long and releasing a lot of water because of the recent rains.

Joplin, Missouri – America’s 2nd largest truck stop.

Southern Missouri – Presumed dead armadillo

Somewhere else in Southern Missouri – Coke Machine Graveyard

Scenes around Cairo, Illinois – At the confluence of the Ohio River and Mississippi River – with flooding.

Evansville, Indiana – Restored Greyhound Bus Station, now a hipster hamburger place. Manhattan prices in small town Indiana.

The interior looked nothing like a bus station.

Evansville, Indiana – County Courthouse

Scenes around Louisville, Kentucky

And after 3 weeks of running around the country – back in Ohio (in Cincinnati). Only 2 hours to home.

Across America – May 2019 – Random Scenes Part 1

Architecture, Art, History, Nature, Transportation

The following are interesting scenes that didn’t fit any of the other postings.

Lajitas, Texas – The only place to stay was a golf resort, but it had a great sunset.

Texas border area – We saw a few instances of the border patrol in action, including going through 2 checkpoints along the highway. Strangely the checkpoints were at least 40 miles from the border.

Marfa, Texas – This town is an artist enclave for New York artists. How and why a bunch of New York artists decided to go to a small west Texas town is far too long for this blog.

Fort Davis, Texas is a historic town with a former frontier fort. Today it has a couple of cool re purposed buildings.

Pecos, Texas – For about 100 miles in any direction from Pecos were new fracking oil wells. The landscape was filled with these towers burning off natural gas, as well as truck traffic jams and RVs parked in the desert for the workers. The high pay also caused our most expensive hotel night in Carlsbad, New Mexico as the demand for housing far exceeds supply.

Roswell, New Mexico – While I have a posting for the UFO industry of Roswell, there was also a very cool airplane ‘boneyard’.

Portales, New Mexico – When we were driving into town the billboard for Burger King said ‘next to the airplane’. They weren’t kidding.

Hereford, Texas – Beef capital of the world. I think they are correct.

Canyon, Texas – A Giant Cowboy

Amarillo, Texas – Much cleaner energy source.

Canadian, Texas – Lonesome train blues.

Near Shattuck, Oklahoma – Folk Art along the Highway.

Fairview, Oklahoma – We were looking for some Good Eats, but needed to find somewhere else.

Jet, Oklahoma – One of our disappointments was being unable to check out the Salt Plains National Refuge – where you can dig around for crystals in the salt flats. Much of Oklahoma was flooded, and it flooded the salt flats.

The cows however were making the most of their new beach.

Somewhere in Oklahoma – The Perfect Farm Photo

Part 2 in a second posting.

Evansville, Indiana – Bosse Field

Architecture, History, Sports

Bosse Field in Evansville, Indiana is known as the 3rd oldest baseball stadium still in use, although they are disregarding Rickwood Field in Birmingham in that statement.

The stadium is most famous for being used in a number of the scenes from the movie A League of Their Own.

While it is an interesting stadium, it does not have the character of Rickwood Field.

Paducah, Kentucky – May 2019 – Flood Wall Murals

Uncategorized

As with many towns Paducah, Kentucky has murals on their flood wall along the Ohio River. Unlike most towns, theirs is very well done and extensive.

The murals were done by Robert Dafford and team. They are the same group that has done murals in Portsmouth, Ohio featured in this posting

https://rdzphotographyblog.com/2017/01/10/huntington-wv-march-2015-in-search-of-the-mothman/

He also completed the ones in Maysville, Kentucky.

https://rdzphotographyblog.com/2019/05/10/maysville-kentucky-may-2019-great-architecture-in-an-unlikely-place/

The Paducah Flood Wall Murals:

Not a mural of the Market.

Mural of the Market.

Metropolis, Illinois – May 2019 – Superman’s Hometown

Art, History

The town of Metropolis, Illinois was founded in 1839, and for 100 years it was just another small town in the midwest. All that changed when the Superman comics hit the newstands in the 1930s, and called a fictional Metropolis his hometown.

Since there is only one Metropolis in America, this town in Illinois found it’s fame.

I was expecting it to look like Roswell, where everything in town has an alien them. Metropolis is not like that, there are a few indications of this connection, but most business look like anytown USA.

There is however an excellent Superman statue downtown, and an equally impressive museum across the street.

Superman superfan Jim Hambrick has over 100,000 items, and the museum houses many of them. The young lady at the counter said she was his daughter and that they moved from California to Metropolis to open the museum years ago.

Welcome to the ultimate Superman experience.

Mountain View, Missouri – May 2019 – Horsing Around at the Bank

Uncategorized

The Landmark Bank is located in south central Missouri in the town of Mountain View. Situated approximately half way on our drive across the state it was the perfect stop to check out their metal sculpture horse herd.

The horses are made out of scrap metal such as barrels and a grill from an old tractor.

Time to continue the ride eastbound. It’s time to leave Mountain View (which I didn’t see any mountains, or even large hills, in Mountain View, Missouri).