Jay's Motel and Magic Wand

Here's a 1960's chrome card of Jay's Motel and Benny's Coffee Shop, in Elko, Nevada.  I especially like the Googie architecture sign out front, with the ovals framing the names of the establishments and the big "magic wand" with the starburst at the end.

Elko is called the "Heart of Northeastern Nevada," basically because there is nothing else there for miles around.  It's on the highway, though, so there were a number of motels like this one for the folks traveling between Salt Lake City and Reno.

Jay's is now a Budget Inn, and they went and lopped off the top of the top of the sign, halfway up.  Here's the proof:

I kind of like the older version better!

Here's the Church, Here's The Steeple

Some postcards have great messages on them, and the messages contain great mysteries.  The subject of this mystery is this card of Lewiston, Maine.  It's postmarked 1909, and it's mailed to Miss Helen Libby of Biddeford.  The message on the front is written by a man who worked on the steeple of the church in the picture.  The text reads: "I help build this steeple over last fall, way to the top of it.  Where the x is is the shop where I work."   You can see an "x" on a low brick building a few streets behind the church.   Additionally, the church steeple is marked with an "x" and labelled "180 ft." 

The mystery?  What church is this, is it still there, and does it have an interesting history?  That's what I set out to discover.

The first order of business is to locate the church.  There's no church that looks exactly like it using Google Earth, so maybe it no longer exists?  A clue to its location is the light colored building in the foreground.  I have other postcards of Lewiston, so I took a look and found several of a building with suspiciously similar porticos, and the same number of windows per floor between the cards.  This is the newest one, postmarked in 1960:

Although the chimneys seem to be gone, and there's a new cornice, these cards are of the same building.  And the building according to these cards is the DeWitt Hotel.  The chrome version above gives the address as 40 Pine Street.  Great, now all I have to do is go back to Google Earth and take a look at that address today.  And the answer is:  no DeWitt Hotel building and no Church on Pine Street:

There's a flat-roofed office building where the DeWitt was, and there's a parking lot and a nondescript building where the church was.  

So, what church was it, and what happened to it?  More internet research turned up interesting additional clues, and now that I had the street, I quickly discovered that it was the Pine St. Congregational Church.  It was built in 1866.  I also found this photograph below, which was captioned  "Maintenance on the Pine St Church Steeple," but I think this is earlier than 1909, because the building closer to us in this photograph looks older than the one with the mansard roof in the postcard above.  Another mystery for another day (or else I'll never complete this post)!

OK, when did the Pine St. Congregational Church disappear, and why?  After a lot more searching, I found the following one sentence in the "City Locals" section of the Lewiston Evening Journal, July 11, 1940.  Between an item about a city clerk testifying in a court case and an item about Mrs. Gauvin recuperating from an illness and now "out of danger," is our clue: "The Hub Wrecking Co. of Boston began yesterday the razing of the 75 year old Pine Street Congregational Church.  A First National Stores super market will be erected on the site."

The following day, the newspaper had this picture, but no other explanation.  The workmen were demolishing the very structure that our postcard sender helped to maintain over 30 years earlier.

In the Fall of 1940, the other shoe dropped with a full page ad in the newspaper announcing the opening of the new store:

More research uncovered several other facts about this address and the demise of the church.  A good source for church history, believe it or not, is information about the organs in churches, many of which are documented in several databases.  I learned the reason for the abandonment of the Pine St. Church building from one such database, here: http://www.quimbypipeorgans.com/completed/rebuilt/st-john-s-episcopal-church-2006.  It turns out that the reason for the demolition of the church was due to the merger of the church with the Universalist Church in town, becoming the Federated Church of Lewiston in a different location.

As for the organ, it was an E. & G. G. Hook, model Opus 326, installed in the church in 1866 and then electrified in 1923.  The website database.organsociety.org notes that the organ was saved and sold for $850 to a church in Biddeford, ME.  Now, it's in Quincy, Illinois. There will be a quiz.

 The story of this location does not end with the First National Super Market.  In 1958, they built a new one a half mile away, knocking down additional buildings to have parking for 200 cars.  And the old location?  Now, it's a very banal brick building, used by a youth social services agency, but with a "for lease" sign in the window.

Progress?  You be the judge!  Here's my attempt, through the magic of photoshop, to re-insert the old church over the current landscape, with the steeple proudly worked on by an anonymous postcard sender of 1909:

Streamline Time

It's been awhile since I posted a card featuring streamline architecture...so here you go.  The Beachcomber in Clearwater Beach, Florida is the place, and the menu is famous for the "Back-to-the-Farm Fried Chicken Dinner."  I wonder if that's a precursor to "farm-to-table" restaurants of today!

Guess Who Turned 100?

Grand Central Station in New York City, that's who!  On February 1.

Visit their 100th birthday website here:

http://www.grandcentralterminal.com/centennial/learn.cfm

Don't Throw Stones

The Glass House Restaurant in South Hill, Virginia was unique, being built almost entirely of glass brick.  According to the website of the newer, Glass House Grill nearby, the original opened in 1937 and stood for decades in the center of South Hill, Virginia on Highway #1, the main north/south artery along the East Coast. It served as the town's bus terminal and was the center of activity for the area. The building of the I-85 Interchange in the mid-1960's changed the traffic patterns and the Glass House Restaurant eventually closed. The building was purchased and renovated in 1974 by long-time South Hill resident, R.T. Arnold, to serve as the town's new library. The original structure was razed in 1999 to make way for the construction of the current library facilities. Another amazing building of the streamline era gone.

Three Little New England Libraries

Three old libraries with lots of character.

In Rockland, ME, the library was one of the Andrew Carnegie libraries, built in 1903-1904. 

Carnegie librariew were built with money donated by Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish-American businessman and philanthropist.  Almost 1,700 were built in the United States between 1883 and 1929, with money made available to towns through a grant system.  By 1919, half of the libraries in the US were built using Carnegie grants.

The Calais, ME library was built in 1892  .The yellow brick building, designed by A.H. Vinal, was constructed at the cost of slightly over $10,000 and was first opened to the public on July 4, 1893. Vinal was greatly influenced by the architectural style of Henry H. Richardson, designer of Boston's famed Trinity Church.

 

In Laconia, NH, the Romanesque Revival-styled library was originally a gift of Napoleon Bonaparte Gale, a local banker who died in 1894.  Construction began in 1901 and the buidling was dedicated in 1903.  

All three libraries are still in action today.  They have additions, but they're in the style of the original buildings.  Way to preserve these great architectural gems of the past!

Shell Oil Tower

According to the architect George Robb's website (www.gra.ca) the Shell Oil Tower was the result of a 1954 architectural competition for an observation tower at the Canadian National Exhibition. The Tower appeared as a beacon in the night, surrounded by urban floodlights and activity. The Tower glimmered from within, emphasizing it openness, freedom of movement, and purpose as a conspicuously important place in the city.

The Tower was completed in 1955 and served as a landmark for its citizens. It was torn down in 1986. Yet it still holds a place in the history of Toronto as a significant and visionary example of civic architecture. Here's a photograph of the tower at some point in the '60's. Looks better in the illustration on the postcard, dont you think?