Touristing

Spotted From the El

A building in Chicago with a problem we see all the time in New York. The front facade – on the right, around the corner – has hard-burned brick veneer with thin joints. That’s the classic nineteenth century fancy brick. The side wall – the one we’re looking at – is common brick with wide …

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Surprisingly Staid

I’m back from the Construction History Society of America meeting – more about that soon – held on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After four days on campus, I still can’t tell you exactly where the boundary between the two towns is, as the campus layout completely ignores it. I was …

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Phonetic

I was in Poughkeepsie last week and that’s a picture of my train ticket. “POKIPSE” is a pretty good phonetic spelling of the name, although I would have gone with POKIPSEE. I’m curious as to why the name was shortened: “GRAND CENTRAL” is 13 characters and “POUGHKEEPSIE” is 12, so it appears that the name …

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