Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Ashland

Ashland by William 74
Ashland, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.
The view of the Chicago skyline, as seen from the pedestrian bridge at the Ashland Avenue train station. Built in 1892 for the Lake Street Elevated Railroad, the Ashland stop is one of the oldest station buildings still in use in the Chicago rail system.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Tivoli Lanes

Tivoli Lanes by William 74
Tivoli Lanes, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.
This is the bowling alley next door to the Tivoli Theater. I like this sign, but I really like the glow on the side of the building.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Tivoli

Tivoli by William 74
Tivoli, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.
I believe we've visited Downers Grove's historic Tivoli Theater before. It's a nice old building, but it's marquee is kind of hard to shoot. It's only one-sided, and sticks out at a weird angle from the building. Plus you have to stand in the middle of the street to get a clear shot at it. Fortunately, even on a Saturday night, traffic's fairly light.

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Grain Belt

Grain Belt by William 74
Grain Belt, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.
The iconic Grain Belt Beer sign in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Erected in 1941, the sign originally sat atop a downtown club until 1950, when it was moved to it's current location on Nicollet Island. Featuring the early, pre-WW2 logo, the sign has 800 feet of neon tubing and 1400 incandescent bulbs in the lettering, which lights up sequentially. It looks great, but sadly, despite being restored in the 80's, the sign no longer works. Hopefully it'll be restored again someday.

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Field

Field by William 74
Field, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.
I took this on Christmas Day, somewhere out in the countryside west of town. We'd had some snow the previous days, and a cold snap had finally caused the trees to shed the last of their leaves. The skies were a solid overcast, almost exactly the same shade of white as the snow that covered the now bare fields. It was stark, almost monochromatic, a typical Midwestern winter scene.

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Ranstead

Ranstead by William 74
Ranstead, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.
I have taken to looking at rooflines more and more of late, finally realizing that there's often a name and date inscribed at the peak, sometimes some interesting decoration or brickwork, some bright colors, or in this case all three.

I have plenty of shots like this but haven't really ever published them. I'm starting to realize what I missed.

Taken in Elgin, IL, in december of 2013.