A Personal Amateur Photography Blog
This is Marino Santa Maria. He is an artist that has decorated his street in Buenos Aires for many years, bringing an amazing amount of color and character to the neighborhood.
His talent has gone much further than his street though, he has decorated, among other things, some Buenos Aires subway stations.
Words are not required – the street is amazing!
Another sunny Saturday was the perfect day to take a ‘Tours for Tips’ of a neighborhood, this time back in San Telmo. Unfortunately the tour guide didn’t show so we set off on our own – finding plenty of unique sights.
We arrived at the 2nd major rail station in Buenos Aires – Constitucion. It is a classic!
Next stop was Parque Lezama, and the Palacio within.
We continued on into the main part of the neighborhood.
… checked out the shops in and around San Telmo Market.
Santo Doningo Basilica
A close up of the Casa Rosada
Puerto Madero
And finally at the Kirchner Cultural Center. Who needs a tour guide!
Montevideo has a massive amount of street art. While much of it, seemingly on every building, is just ‘scribbled tagging’, there are some really nice ones.
The Larz Anderson Auto Museum in the Boston suburb of Brookline is advertised as America’s oldest automotive museum. Larz and his wife were very early auto enthusiasts, buying their first ‘horseless carriage’ in 1899.
By the 1920s they had collected enough cars they stored them in the carriage house, and opened up their museum.
I had very high hopes for this museum, as it regularly makes the ‘top automotive museum’ lists. When we arrived we were greeted, somewhat, by a lady at the counter who barely had time to interrupt her conversation with her cousin about something to take our money and waive us towards the cars.
This obviously set a tone of disappointment, that fortunately was neutralized by a nice, small collection of some very impressive autos in a display called the Golden Age.
Further back there was a second room with a few more cars, also well displayed.
Another small room had a collection of pedal cars, and other items.
There is some nice automotive art throughout. The lower level had a few more very vintage autos in various states, as well as a bicycle collection.
The Larz Anderson Auto Museum is a nice place – however having seen numerous auto museums across the world I don’t think it rates as one of the premier ones. Perhaps had we attended on one of their numerous special events days where people bring their own classic cars.
The New Hampshire Telephone Museum has a fantastic collection of telephones and associated equipment. Our brief visit there gave me a great collection of photographs that show the simple elegance of the ubiquitous telephone.
In the 1960s Spencer and Rosa Clark started a collection that required a very large garden – they acquired architectural artifacts from large buildings in downtown Toronto that were being torn down and replaced with even larger ones.
This garden is located in suburban Scarborough, in what is now Guild Park and Gardens.
The archway from a long gone building leads you into the park.
What were once decorative pieces on the Toronto Star newspaper building are now giant building blocks.
Remnants from a Music Hall.
Smaller pieces are integrated directly into the gardens.
While others are added together to make a new sculpture.
Toronto’s second fire hall was located at Richmond and Portland Streets. Dating from 1871 it was torn down in 1968. In the background is a brand new events center.
The Greek Theater (also the featured photo for this posting). What was once the Bank of Toronto Building is now a theater in a park.
The grounds are immaculate, with the artifacts well spaced throughout.
The facing from the Quebec Bank Building has porcelain lions.
Additional random artifacts.
Easily the largest collection is from the former Bank of Montreal Building at King and Bay Streets in downtown Toronto. With this many fantastic items, this must have been an amazing building!
The Hockey Hall of Fame is filled with memorabilia of the sport. Easily the most prevalent are the jerseys from the various teams.
Let’s start with the NHL – both current and former teams.
The Toronto Arenas played the first two NHL seasons in 1917 and 1918. They eventually became known as the Maple Leafs.
This jersey is clearly a reproduction, with the modern NHL logo on it.
The Boston Bruins are another of the ‘Original 6’, with this jersey being one of the early ones.
The original Pittsburgh Penguins jersey, which made a return as an alternate jersey a few years ago.
The famed ‘Winged Wheel’ of the Detroit Red Wings.
The original NHL team in New York were the Americans, with the strange nickname of the Amerks – they were soon eclipsed by the Rangers and eventually folded.
Continuing with the short lived series of teams starting with the Cleveland Barons…
Kansas City Scouts…
Atlanta Flames…
And finally one that never should’ve been allowed to move – the Quebec Nordiques.
Some random cool Juniors and Minor League teams…
And finally an amazing collection of international jerseys, including many countries you wouldn’t think would have ice hockey – like India, South Africa and Argentina.
