Fireplace Lounge

The Fireplace Lounge on Samuel Blvd., in East Dallas.  A classic roadhouse, but in the city across the street from a golf course.

Economic Abandonment

A former AMC Theater recently closed in Dallas near I35 and Walnut Hill Lane.

Denton Drive, Dallas, Texas

Denton Drive, between Royal and Walnut Hill Lanes

Locker rooms, Bishop Lynch High School, Dallas, Texas

Casa Linda Theater, Dallas, Texas

The Casa Linda Theater, Dallas, Texas. Once part of the McClendon chain of indoor and drive-in movie theaters, it has been closed since 1999 and it is unlikely that it will ever show movies again.

Update 12/24/10:  The theater is now scheduled to become a grocery store.  Colorado based Natural Grocers has leased the space and is expected to open in April of 2011.

Infrastructure

New construction over Loop 12, Irving, Texas

New Work

I am continuing to look at the flat, open spaces around North Texas, particularly vacant lots and what is adjacent to them. These near the intersection of the LBJ Freeway and I35. 

Looking at the Landscape Over Time

I am preparing an image maker presentation for the Society for Photographic Education South Central Regional Conference in October titled "Don't Lose Your Way". The black and white image above will be the first in the Keynote slide show, one that I made as an undergraduate at Ohio University.  I had hitchhiked to Cincinnati where I saw this expanse of asphalt and the row of older Ohio industrial city style homes at the top of the frame. The thing is, I am still looking at these things today. I have returned to look at the landscape in much the same way I did then, I have found my way back.  The image below was made last year in downtown Dallas, a parking lot with the W Hotel, high rise condos and four story apartments that surround the American Airlines Center.

DART Light Rail

As a continuation of my exploration of the built environment, I have been photographing the DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) light rail construction and thinking about the possible changes in the landscape around it. The image here runs parallel to the existing highways, bypassing businesses and dividing the landscape it runs through. Businesses will close, others will open and how society interacts with the landscape will be altered.

There is a history of transportation changes altering communities. A a string of towns runs between Shreveport, LA. and Dallas, Texas that were railroad town in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  The  automobile and US Highway 80 changed that, and eventually many of these towns were bypassed all together by the interstate highway a few miles from the town centers. In Dallas, the demise of the trolly system closed businesses and even churches, who depended on public transit and had no parking facilities.  link to images

Signs of the Economy

42 acres at the corner of Walnut Hill and US 75, Central Expressway in Dallas, Texas.  A large apartment complex was demolished to make room for an ambitious mixed-use, high end development. The land has been taken back by the lenders and they are trying to sell it to recover the more than $40 million they have invested in it.  link to image

Executive Fitness in Dallas

Hart's Military Training, US 75, North Central Expressway, Dallas, TX.

Possible keywords: executive training, corporate culture, militarism, competitiveness, machismo, football culture, butch, capitalism
link to image

Texas Stadium Awaits Demolition

We dropped my wife off at the airport so she could visit family in Mexico and I stopped to shoot this on the way home: Texas Stadium in Irving, former home of the Dallas Cowboys awaiting demolition. Arlington down the road offered Cowboys owner Jerry Jones a better deal, including huge tax breaks so Irving in the end will soon have a vacant lot. You can just see downtown Dallas in the distance. Is this about politics? I don't know, but it is about winners and losers when communities bid (and bet) on sports franchises. link to image

The Urban Canopy

I have been including in my photographs the canopy that stands over our heads as part of our built environment. The utility poles and wires of older neighborhoods are being joined by microwave antennas and cell phone towers.  The images above are of the athletic field at Dallas Lutheran High School and of the former Whole Foods Market at the intersection of Preston Rd and Forest Ln. in Dallas, TX.

Repurposed Gasoline Stations

I think that part of my interest in repurposed gasoline stations is that they represent both a change and a constant in society.  Not too long ago they were service stations, places that not only sold gasoline, but also repaired your car, sold tires and batteries and even supplied maps for your trip at no charge.  The station owner's name was above the office door, though the big sign on the corner said Gulf or Esso, it was his business.

Today, with a few exceptions, we pump are own gas.  If we interact with someone at a gas station it is to buy drinks, snacks, cigarettes or lottery tickets.  Many of those former service stations provide the same services as before, they just don't sell gas.  Others have become beer stores, bail bondman and hair salons.  They represent another aspect of the disappearing, unfranchised landscape. 

A little while after I started collecting these recycled gas stations, I was introduced to Edward Ruschas's Twenty-Six Gasoline Stations, and Jeff Brouws' homage, Twenty-Six Abandon gasoline Stations.  These repurposed gasoline stations seem to be a logical and relevant extension of those earlier observations.  

 link to more repurposed gasoline stations

Gasoline Station repurposed as Jake's White Trash and Pink Lemonade Coiffure, in Fort Worth, Texas.