First all-electric hotel in the world being restored

According to the blog for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, The Hotel Edison is being restored to its 1930s glory by two real estate investors.

Named for the man who, in 1883, made it the first commercial structure illuminated by electricity,The Hotel Edison was converted over time to support a mix of uses and had been in a state of decline for years. Though they lacked any experience with historic preservation, Meghan Beck and her business partner, Bradley Niemiec, both 36, bought it anyway.Three years and countless hours of restoration work later, the hotel, located in downtown Sunbury, Pennsylvania, is thriving.Using photographs taken of the hotel in the 1930s as a guide, Beck and Niemiec started restoration work with the dining room — applying new wallpaper, installing picture and chair rails at the appropriate heights, reupholstering furniture from the 1930s, restoring the molding, and even tearing up the carpet and refurbishing the original wood floor.Next came the upstairs hallways where ceilings regained their original 12-foot height and fluorescent lighting was replaced with more historically accurate fixtures.

I so love to hear about this sort of preservation-restoration going on!

“The Girl From Ipanema” Turns 50

This little feature about the history of this famous and favourite bossa nova tune zipped by me today—courtesy the Wall Street Journal. I’m sure you’ll agree the narration could use a little more, well, zip (attention WSJ: this silken-voiced-when-she-needs-to-be Specs Howard grad is available), it’s an interesting run of tidbits. Featuring everyone from Frank Sinatra to Mike Tyson singing the very-alluring tune, it’s worth the two minutes.

UPDATE: Sigh. Per usual, iframe videos are not embeddable in WordPress, so you’ll have to click the link. I’m sorry! “The Girl From Ipanema” turns 50

By the way, according to Wikipedia, the song was inspired by Heloisa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto, a pretty 5’8″ brunette, seventeen years old at the time, who would indeed stroll to the sea and around Ipanema, a neighborhood in southern Rio de Janeiro. As a result of the song’s popularity, Heloisa became a celebrity in her own right.

Has your appetite been whetted? Here’s the entire song, from 1964 (you can read about the recording here).

Have a delightful weekend!

Road Trips: Good for your heart

If you can’t tell, I’m a BIG fan of road trips. This is likely because I grew up driving and RVing, not flying, around the country. We drove everywhere; in fact, I’ve only been on an airplane six times in my life! Clearly, I was born into this love for the open road and photographing everything on it (Dad is a shutterbug, too). But not only are road trips great fun, according to this story they might be good for your romantic life, too!

When Greg Moore was planning his road trip of a lifetime, he never imagined it would also lead to the love of his life.

“I knew in my heart something big would come of the trip,” says Moore, 43, a quadriplegic who refuses to let his wheelchair get in the way of his adventurous spirit. “I just had no idea that it would be to fall in love and get married. I didn’t see that coming at all.”

But that’s what happened on Saturday, when he and Keri Cameron, 29, said their vows surrounded by family in the backyard of the Kitchener home where Moore has lived for 12 years.

It all started when Moore placed a Kijiji ad seeking travel companions for his kitsch-hunting road trip from home to Los Angeles and back, and he ended up travelling another man from his town as well as Ms. Cameron. Not only did they all have a good time…well, clearly, he found love for life. See? Road trips are great for romance! Best wishes to the couple for a long, happy marriage—one with plenty of road trips.

The story gave me the warm fuzzies all the way through and left me with a big smile on my face. Hope you enjoy it too!

If The River Can Bend or…”Travelling This Road Can Improve Your Romantic Life!”
Route 66, Oklahoma, USA

The First McDonald’s–and a question!

The First McDonald’s, all decked out in neon—Right on Route 66

First of all, I came across this fun post about the very first McDonald’s, which opened in 1948 (though it was built as a barbeque and burger stand in 1940), on the always-interesting Retronaut blog. What he doesn’t tell you is that this very first McD’s, in San Bernardino, sits right on the Mother Road! Of course, the original building is long gone now, and the site has become a museum dedicated to McDonald’s (apparently you can see every Happy Meal toy you’d ever want to see here) with a smaller Route 66 museum in the back.

Do pop over to Retronaut and take a look at the photos from the glory days of classic cars and fifteen-cent burgers.

Also, a question. I’d like (of course) to offer gift certificates in the shop, particularly with Christmas approaching; photography art is such a personal item, I know some would rather give someone a GC than run the risk of buying a die-hard GTO fan a photo print of, say, a Thunderbird, and creating a rift in the family even time and tiki cocktails cannot heal (or is it only in the Motor City that things like that are possible?).

Before working on designing gift certificates for the shop, I thought I’d ask what you prefer to see on your gift cards and gift certificates. Clean and simple or with art on it? Would you want a “hard” copy of the certificate or is a pretty one emailed to you just as acceptable or even better? Would you like a space for the name of the recipient or is that unnecessary anymore? Do you prefer a mid-size (say 5×7) gift certificate or one that is more business-card sized?

I appreciate your input! And yes, this is a great time to share another of my classic car photos. You can see this beauty pulling up to that old McDonald’s, can’t you?

“Doctor Teeth”
1950s Studebaker Champion

Weekend Roundup

Lassie rescued Timmy from cougars; Ben passes out my business card and rescues people from…non-limited edition art?

Well, I certainly hope this finds you well! The summer flu knocked me flat out Monday night and I’m just now getting my legs back under me. Consider yourselves warned (unless you like accomplishing nothing, something I’m not at all fond of)!

Unfortunately, I shook off the NyQuil daze only to hear about what happened in Colorado last night. My prayers are with the families of the murdered and wounded, and also with the parents of the man who put this horrible plan into action, because surely they feel beyond awful. I cannot imagine.*

It’s good to be upright again—though I’m thankful for smartphones. Mine enabled me to keep tabs on my shop and email from the comfort of my cozy bed…a good thing since walking and I were not getting on well at all. Rest assured, even if I can barely move, I can still run the business! Though I do think I’ll have to start teaching Ben to pack up orders. If he can pass out my old business cards…why not?

At any rate, be careful out there!

Since I’ve been rather ill, I thought I would just share a few of the blog posts I’ve managed to glimpse over in the past few hours (after disinfecting every doorknob, handle, light switch, radio knob, my phone, and everything else ) during the time I am able to sit up. This is probably something I ought to do frequently, being a voracious reader of many things, including blogs. Really, this gives us an opportunity to get to know one another better—though a photographer by trade, I’ve a disturbingly wide range of interests; it’ll be fun to see what you like to check out, too!

Cathe at Just Something I Made created some very lovely bird’s nest featuring vintage spools of thread. I’ve several such spools that belonged to my great-grandmother, and as the thread is hardly useful for sewing, this might be a way to use them. She, a lover of birds, would probably appreciate it, too!

I really cannot wait to whip up these chocolate-covered frozen banana and peanut butter bites! They’re gluten-free and…well, sorta primal. Okay, not at all. But they look delicious!

Retronaut found a photo of the models for Grant Wood’s iconic painting American Gothic. I was just reading about this particular painting recently; apparently Wood’s dentist, the model for the pitchfork-wielding farmer, was a very jocular and good-humoured man. We’d never know it to look at him, I daresay…

Pam at Retro Renovation always has some fabulousness and swank going on, and I definitely missed reading her blog when I was ill. RR is one of my favourite blogs and has been for a loooong time (though I had to stop reading during the deepest throes of Mourning Having To Leave Our WV Home Period). During my catching up today I managed to get to this fantabulous post about vintage paint-by-numbers!