Historic Idaho sign goes missing days before donation to Museum of Idaho
Historic Stinker Station sign, which is currently missing. Courtesy of Museum of Idaho.
From EastIdahoNews.com: IDAHO FALLS — An iconic piece of Idaho history has gone missing, and the Museum of Idaho is desperate to find it.
You may remember reading the back of this large 12′ by 4′ metal sign as you drive northeast of Idaho Falls: “WARNING TO TOURISTS — DO NOT LAUGH AT THE NATIVES.”
On the front, the quirky sign advertises the nearest Stinker Station to travelers: “FEARLESS FARRIS STINKER STATION HI-WAY POCATELLO-BURLEY SAVE LIKE MAD.”
After 70 years, San Francisco’s skyline ‘miracle’ is about to come to a close
A view of the Safeway sign on Market and Church streets in San Francisco, Monday, March 31, 2025. Charles Russo/SFGATE
From SFGate: The world’s rarest creature died in 2012. His name was Lonesome George, and he was the last Pinta Island tortoise, a subspecies of Galápagos tortoise. By most estimates, he was 100 years old when he died of natural causes.
Scientists call creatures like Lonesome George “endlings,” a term for the last surviving member of a species. The Galápagos Islands had Lonesome George. Here in San Francisco, we have the glowing Safeway sign on Market Street.
Standing 85 feet tall near the corner of Market Street and Duboce Avenue, the unassuming landmark has overlooked the thoroughfare for more than 70 years. Its red neon glow reflects off the tops of F streetcars as they rumble along the tracks. When the sun goes down, you can clearly make out its bright capital letters from Corona Heights, sharp over the blurry stream of yellow headlights below.
Skyway Lanes Will Stay Open After Chicagoans Step Up To Save City’s Last Black-Owned Bowling Alley
From Block Club Chicago: JEFFERY MANOR — It was barely past noon Monday and Skyway Lanes owner Brunetta Hill-Corley was already busy passing out bowling shoes, answering the phone and hustling between lanes to keep a youth group and a seniors league rolling along.
Foot traffic at Skyway Lanes, 9915 S. Torrence Ave., has been almost nonstop since Hill-Corley declared the 36-lane bowling alley — a South Side gathering space since the 1950s — was at risk of closing.
Hill-Corley told Block Club last month that the family business had lost many of its bowling leagues after the pandemic, while the property tax assessment more than doubled last year at the historical 35,000-square-foot alley, which is in need of costly repairs.
NYC’s Neptune Diner finds a new home on Long Island
From Fox 5 New York: After serving Queens for more than 40 years, the beloved Neptune Diner has found a new home in Syosset, Long Island. The co-owners made the move after their lease in Astoria ended, transforming the former Celebrity Diner into a modern take on a classic favorite. FOX 5’s Jodi Goldberg has the story.
Where Will We Eat When the Middle-Class Restaurant Is Gone?
Photo by Phil Donohue
From The New York Times: When Daniel Cox was growing up in Rochester, N.Y., he spent every Saturday night at Pizza Hut with his father and two brothers. The server got to know the family so well that when she saw their blue Dodge Caravan roll up, she would put their order in: two cheese pan pizzas and two pitchers of Pepsi.
Mr. Cox’s parents were divorced, and the Pizza Hut ritual was centering for the family. “It was a time when we were all together and everyone was enjoying the experience,” he recalled. “Who doesn’t like pizza?”
Now a father himself, Mr. Cox rarely goes out to eat with his kids. They’re in travel-soccer practice three nights a week, and his family can’t get out of the local pizzeria for less than $100. He couldn’t think of an affordable, sit-down meal they’d shared recently.
‘Neon bender’ restores landmark M&M sign in Uptown Butte
The restored neon M&M sign shines light into a blustery night on March 29 in Butte. Joseph Scheller/The Montana Standard
From the Longview News Journal: DILLON, MT — Ben Kenealey reached beneath his workbench and extracted a section of glass tubing with a diameter of about one-half inch. He marked the glass with a soft-lead pencil, wielded a metal file to score a small groove in the glass and then deftly broke off a nonessential piece.
A key stage followed, one that yields the phrase describing the esoteric craft Kenealey and others pursue. He is a “neon bender.”
He heats the glass and then carefully bends it, a process that requires dexterity, judgment and patience.