There isn't all that much of a story here -- these pictures are from Benson Mines, in the north country of New York. I've been here quite a few times, but it really doesn't get old, being just about the easiest place I've ever explored too.
As many of you know, two weeks ago, on June 23rd, I was hit by a car for the first time. Well, sort of hit anyway, the car just clipped the back wheel of my bike enough to send me careening into and over a guard rail, and landing in a lump on the shoulder of 490. The bike was a wreck, basically totaled, after having it for all of 10 minutes; I'd just bought it from Jason at a Euro 2012 soccer party. I didn't know I was a wreck yet. It didn't hurt *that* much for some reason,…
Wednesday, May 23. It was the tenth day of Laura living with me, and things weren't getting any better, crying and fighting all the time, sitting around with nothing to do but watch old episodes of Red Green, or on a particularly lucky day, some obscure French film from the library. I rather enjoyed these things when I could still have another life. There were times where I was happy around her, while there was still a place to hide, but that was getting closer and closer to impossible, sharing a studio apartment downtown, never being able to get more…
I've spent so much time this winter and spring walking around Mount Hope Cemetery with Laura. I never thought I would, but it's one of the very few things we can agree on to do -- I get outdoors every once in a while, she gets to have her Victorian architecture fix, and we wander around, looking for various pieces of lost history. Yesterday was more of the same, with one exception: the chapel doors were wide open! I'd already been a few times, but getting in would be a dream come true for Laura! Or not; she wouldn't follow…
The rest of the places in Buffalo this weekend that weren't quite big enough for their own posts WILDROOT -- the product that made 50s hair the greased-up mess it was. Just by nature of what the factory made, and a precipitous drop off in demand once greasers were out and bowl cuts were in, Wildroot closed after just 14 years of operation, in 1963. A few later attempts were made to bring the product back, then to attach the Wildroot name to other hair products, but the association with crew cuts and grease was just too much for the…
Buffalo's Sacred Heart Cathedral, like so many other Catholic churches, fell into ruin at the loss of its flock. Once Buffalo's diocesan church, well before 1900, it became an early casualty in 1952 due to suburban sprawl and white flight, leaving behind a church building that soon after reopened as a prominent black church and religious school before fading away in the early 2000s, again facing the loss of its congregation. The church basement held a variety of religious leftovers from both the Catholic and AME eras of the church. Molding away in a few boxes were 1930s and 40s…