Since it is Thanksgiving week, I thought it only appropriate to add historic preservation to the list of things we can be thankful for (have you written to your senators to save the historic tax credit?). Today, I’m featuring five places historic preservation has brought me over the years and what I learned from them.… Read More Thankful for Historic Places
I came across this cottage-like building on a walk through Lincoln Park recently and ventured over for a closer look. Turns out this modest cottage packs a punch: not only was it built in 1888, it was designed by Joseph Lyman Silsbee. Silsbee designed a wealth of buildings in Chicago and beyond but… Read More Spotted: Joseph Lyman Silsbee in Lincoln Park
On a recent visit to Chicago (where I’ve now moved!), I found myself in the western suburbs with an open morning, so I headed straight to Riverside, Illinois. I’ve spend a fair amount of time in downtown Chicago, but the suburbs are a different place entirely, especially if you’re on foot. Riverside is a cornerstone… Read More Exploring Suburbia’s Roots: Riverside, Illinois
I spent the last few weeks traveling around Florida and I was excited to find so many cool places, from stunning historic buildings to white sandy beaches. By far one of my favorite spots in Tampa was Bayshore Boulevard. Located in south Tampa on the water, the boulevard features a linear park with a beautiful historic balustrade… Read More Tampa’s Historic Bayshore Boulevard
The Dalton Highway is one of the most unique highways in the world. 414 miles through Alaskan wilderness Crosses numerous broad valleys, mountain passes, and the Arctic Circle Few amenities and no cell phone service Narrow dirt road, truck traffic: broken windshields and flat tires expected So why is it there? The Dalton Highway, known… Read More Architecture on Alaska’s Dalton Highway
I’ll be upfront and say, I generally gravitate towards fiction (I’m currently reading this with my bookclub and my favorite book last year was definitely this one). I like to always have a architecture or preservation book on the back burner, but I take my time with them. Recently, however, I’ve found myself excited by multiple… Read More 2017 Preservation-Themed Reading List
Happy Halloween! To celebrate holiday, I thought I’d share some of my favorite types of ghosts: architectural ghosts! I love picking out ghost signs on old buildings (I previously wrote about resurrecting ghost signs, here). But ghost signs aren’t the only ghosts in the built environment. Often, especially on old brick buildings, you can see places were… Read More Looking for Architectural Ghosts
Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve is located in the steep and rolling hills of southern Oregon, on a dead-end highway 20 miles east of the town of Cave Junction. The cave itself, reportedly discovered in 1874 by Elijah Davidson, is the namesake and highlight of the park. However, due to the long history of… Read More Oregon Caves: More Than A Cave
The Vista House (1918), a rest stop and a memorial to the Oregon pioneers, opened just two years after the associated Columbia River Highway was completed. It sits atop Crown Point and offers stunning views to both the east and west along the Columbia River Gorge. Today, it is set apart from and above the busy interstate,… Read More Views of Oregon’s Vista House
Ballard, once a town populated primarily by Scandinavian fishermen, is now a popular neighborhood in northwest Seattle (I previously wrote about Ballard’s recent boom in popularity here and Ballard’s famous holdout here). Two of Ballard’s defining features are associated with the waterway that separates the neighborhood from the city: the Ballard Bridge and the Ballard Locks. The… Read More The Nation’s Most Popular Locks
Susie Trexler 