Buildings

Another view of the building--addition, I suppose--behind CCD Engineering in Mulliken, Michigan. I'm not sure what CCD builds, but the building's interior looks like a machine shop. When this was a hardware store , the back room was your typical hardware-store back room--full of miscellaneous odds and ends, accumulated over the course of decades of selling tools and parts to the community. Neat building, in its way....

Until Dad passed away, he and Mom usually shared this cabin when they stayed at Jolli-Lodge. Or so Mom told us. When she started inviting us up for Labor Day, she naturally had us stay in a larger place. Note the bottom of the large mast on the right. It serves as a very large flagpole.... Camera: Nikon N90s. 1999.

The building on the left has four apartments; the lodge, proper, is on the right. The complex has evolved over the years; this view is quite different from my first encounter with the place, early in 1991. Camera: Nikon N90s. 1999

Downtown Mulliken, Michigan.

New Station Two of the Kalamazoo Fire Department, at the corner of Bryant Avenue and James Street in the Washington Square neighborhood. This station was brand-new when Martin Serstinger captured it on film in the mid-fifties. This was Dad's station--he was the Lieutenant in charge of one of the shifts--and it was about half way between our Palmer Avenue home and Washington School, so we'd regularly stop and visit on the way home.

I love those colors, and all the detailing. This cute little building lives at the end of Main Street in downtown Mulliken, Michigan. It's currently someone's home, but it's housed a business within my memory. The wooden addition seems to get rebuilt with frightening regularity.

Leland, Michigan; 1973. Photo by Roger Dinda.

Let's recap earlier discussion: This building's in the middle of a field , north of Eaton Rapids, Michigan. It's on the abandoned right-of-way of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad , which was a component of the New York Central System. The track beside this building was pulled up in 1940. I don't know what the original function of the building was, nor much about subsequent use. Closer examination reveals that this warehouse is actually an array of buildings, and includes a couple of mysterious peripheral structures.

Pleiku, Republic of Vietnam, 1971. Back "behind" the hospital proper, there were a bunch of abandoned buildings which had presumably housed the medical staff when the 71st Evacuation Hospital was a large operation. We scavenged them, and rebuilt the interior of the large wards we inhabited into what amounted to a sheltered village of plywood shacks.

Fishtown in Winter.... Leland, Michigan. Sorry about the unintended sunlight effect.

Fishtown in Winter.... Carlson's still sells fish in Leland, Michigan's Fishtown. Looked like they were the only functioning Fishtown business last weekend; the other stores are quite tourist-dependent and apparently close down for the off-season.

Fishtown in Winter.... It was slippery . I'd just fallen on my rump, and was still sitting when I took this one. The odd construct on the immediate left is a fishnet, hung out to dry--actually a decoration, here, but you get the idea. Janice Sue's a commercial fishing boat--I presume she belongs to Carlson's. When she's out on Lake Michigan, she has a remarkable ability to attract gulls.

Downtown Portland, Michigan. These are not the buildings I photographed a few weeks ago ; they're across Kent Street from those buildings. I'll get to the others presently, I promise.

Strange School, Strange Highway @ Oneida Road, near Grand Ledge, Michigan. This is still a functioning school, though (as you can see) it's grown a second classroom.

Fishtown in Winter.... Here's the Leland River, looking from Fishtown towards the brand-new dam. The hotel across the way is Falling Waters Lodge. This view just invites photographers to whip out their cameras. Compare with my Dad's 1973 picture to see how little the view's changed in three decades. We'll take a closer look at the dam in a day or two.

This door's in a bunker-like building near Calumet & Hecla's Red Jacket shaft, once the world's deepest mine at 8000 feet. I presume the building originally held explosives. Now part of the Keweenaw National Historical Park in Calumet, Michigan; shot from the Coppertown USA museum.

Windows above The Pub in downtown Portland, Michigan. Continuing my photographic exploration of the Kent Street business district.... I've shown you these windows before, by the way.

Fishtown in winter.... We've turned around, and are looking down the river to where it empties into Lake Michigan. Leland's Fishtown is on the right; the breakwater shows in the background. The large boat is Mishe-Mokwa, the transport to the Manitou Islands. This photo is quite similar to one I posted a couple weeks back ; that one was taken by my father in 1973. Besides the sorts of insignificant details you'd expect to change in three decades, the most obvious change is the planking on the boardwalk.