Central New Jersey Diner Tour
This D.I.Y. tour guide complements our 2011 North Jersey Diner Tour and More and our 2015 South Jersey Diner Tour and More.
Lakefront Anonymous, Chicago’s Unknown Art Gallery
Lakefront Anonymous, Chicago’s Unknown Art Gallery
By William Swislow (text and photographs) and Aron Packer (photographs)
Chicago: Interestingideas.com, 2021
Softcover, 160 pages, $40
Reviewed by Joseph Marlin
Who would have thought there would be a book about graffiti and vernacular stone carvings on Chicago’s lakefront? Not I, and I live here! But William Swislow, an SCA board member, has spent three decades photographing and documenting these works typically created by untrained, anonymous carvers.
Neon: A Light History
Neon: A Light History
By Dydia DeLyser and Paul Greenstein
San Francisco: Giant Orange Press, 2021
Softcover, 88 pages, $25
Reviewed by Douglas C. Towne
There’s a new book on neon signs that excels at, in the authors’ words, bringing “the light of the past into the present.” The cleverly titled Neon: A Light History beautifully and meticulously illuminates the evolution of this electrifying advertising medium. But that’s only the start. The text goes a step further and connects neon signs with the larger economic and societal forces that impacted them, placing them in the crux of American history.