Atlanta awarded $25,000 to preserve LGBT history
The National Park Service’s nearly $25,000 grant will create a Historic Context Statement for important sites of LGBTQ+ history in Atlanta. Photo by Harry Wyman | The Signal
From The Signal: The U.S Department of the Interior’s National Park Service has provided the City of Atlantawith a nearly $25,000 Federal Historic Preservation Grant last month to preserve LGBTQA+ history in the Metro Atlanta area.
The competitive grant, supported by the National Park Service’s Underrepresented Community Grants program, will fund a Historic Context Statement for areas critical to the LGBTQA+ community in Atlanta. A Historic Context Statement is a document that historic preservationists use to identify and evaluate potential landmarks. Then, the National Park Service can designate them as federally significant historic sites.
Roadside-attraction showdown: And the winner is…
Left: Big Bruce (Courtesy of Mark Davis) Right: Husky the Muskie. (Wikimedia Commons/Pclerkin)
From TVO.org: The moment is here.
From Since early July, TVO.org has been highlighting Ontario’s roadside attractions — and the stories behind them.
We met a cheese that caused a commotion at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. A floral clock that serves as a gateway to the “the fourth dimension.” A Muskoka chair that came to be thanks to a tornado. A snowman with a hollow belly that provided shelter to locals looking to recover after a night on the town.
We heard of the trials and triumphs that made these landmarks possible.
Then we asked you to pick your favourites — and saw titans fall: Sudbury’s Big Nickel failed to make the finals. So did Colborne’s Big Apple.
In the end, only two remained: Kenora’s Husky the Muskie and Chesley’s Big Bruce.
Historic Red Lion sign returning to Bridge Street in Grand Rapids in time for ArtPrize
The Gutowski family plans to install the vintage, neon sign for the former West Side eatery next week in a parking lot at 412 Bridge St. NW. Photo provided by Jessica Gutowski-Slaydon
From mlive.com: GRAND RAPIDS, MI — A piece of local culinary history is returning to Grand Rapids’ west side in time for ArtPrize.
The vintage, neon sign for the Red Lion restaurant, a longtime fixture of city’s west side that closed in 2004, has been restored and will be installed early next week at 412 Bridge Street, a parking lot owned by former Grad Rapids city commissioner and developer Walt Gutowski Jr., as well as his wife, Amy.
The sign will be an entry in ArtPrize, Gutowski told the Grand Rapids Planning Commission this week. But the sign will remain in the lot permanently once the event wraps up in early October.
Neon and Light Museum opens in River North: The glowing retro medium is new again
“Connect/Disconnect Four Polygons” by Monika Wulfers at the Neon and Light Museum on Sept. 2, 2021. Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune
From the Chicago Tribune: Signage. Practical, functional. Tells you when to walk, points you to a door.
But in River North, signage is the main attraction at the Neon and Light Museum, a pop-up exhibition with dozens of light-based artworks from artists as close as a few blocks away from the exhibition space to as far away as Mumbai.
Museum director and curator Ken Saunders created a show with works from 18 artists, knowing that immersive pop-ups are the new normal.
Despite Rumor, Bakersfield’s Historic Woolworth Luncheonette Isn’t Closing
The Woolworth’s sign in Bakersfield. Farley Elliott
From Eater Los Angeles: Have no fear, Bakersfield’s still-untouched Woolworth luncheonette is not closing any time soon. Over the long holiday weekend, historian and noted lover of all-things-vintage Charles Phoenix posted to his nearly 65,000 Instagram followers that the iconic diner, opened since 1950, would be likely closing permanently — but thankfully, that’s not the case.
Per multiple news outlets like KGET, the original five and dime store where Woolworth’s resides has been purchased by a local financial advising firm, but that only means that the multi-story antique mall that used to take up most of the space is vacating. Reps for the buyers say that the luncheonette counter will remain open and untouched long-term (in part to save on having to make loads of upgrades to the place), but it’s possible the diner space inside the building could have its hours truncated temporarily amid the changeover and renovations elsewhere in the historic building. Otherwise, expect the usual array of Woolworth’s fare to continue, hopefully for decades to come.