Historic Theatres of the Erie Canalway Heritage Corridor

Minnehaha Liquors, Minneapolis, MN.

(Photo courtesy of Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest)

In July 2010 I made my way back to Minneapolis, MN for the first time since May 2006 when I left the Twin Cities. I had lived there from 2001-2006 and had seriously been missing it those five years I was away. While I was taking a road trip to Northern Minnesota to see Dwight Yoakam (also for the first time!) I made a stop over in Mpls to break up the 10-hour drive and to see my favorite Midwestern city once again. Driving down Lake Street I saw many things that had changed, yet several that had (luckily) stayed the same. When I came across one of my favorite local landmarks, the Minnehaha Liquor sign at 2613 E Lake St, I noticed that it was receiving a touch up. I enthusiastically took this opportunity to obtain some more info on the sign.

According to the above historic photo, Minnehaha Liquors has been around since the 1920s. According to the man repairing the sign (why didn't I get his name?!), the original porcelain-fronted neon sign is currently maintained by Skyline Neon at 451 Taft St. NE in Minneapolis. He also discussed how all of the signs once lit by neon are now lit by LED---even the Payless Shoes sign across the street. He took great care and pride in his work to keep these signs alive and continuously illuminating Minneapolis' streetscape. I'm thankful I had this chance to return to the city and spend this time with him finding out more information on this icon that always managed to capture my attention the countless times I traveled back forth along Lake Street while living in the Twin Cities.

History & Identity As Told Through the Historic Taverns of Bay View, WI

Spring 2010:

Last winter I moved to Milwaukee, WI. To get to know the area better I set out with a few cameras and my Zoom H2 to explore Wisconsin's very ummmm, unique, drinking culture. The result is this documentary that focuses on the experience and history of Lee’s Luxury Lounge at 2988 S Kinnickinnic Avenue, Milwaukee, WI. You’ll hear both residents and patrons express what they feel gives shape to and defines their distinctive Bay View identity.

Special thanks to Lee's owner, Deanne Wecker. Sadly, I found that Deanne sold the bar shortly after I completed this piece.

For more photos of Bay View's historic taverns visit www.erindorbin.com.

(Interior view of Lee's Luxury Lounge)

Route 20 Documentary!!

America's Mainstreets: Can We Make Travel Part of the Destination Again? from Erin Dorbin on Vimeo.

This documentary is the result of a collaborative student project undertaken by undergraduate and graduate students Erin Dorbin (M.A. History and Media), Eric LaGrange (M.A. Fine Arts), Dale Mattison and Greg Pruden at the University at Albany in the Spring of 2009.

The group set out to explore the histories of routes 20 & 9 in New York state as case studies to explain how America's changing travel patterns in the second half of the 20th century altered the landscapes along the country's two-lane highways. We were also interested in exploring how these changes in travel adversely impacted the small localized economies along these routes that had once been dependent on tourism dollars to sustain themselves.

Erin Dorbin and Eric LaGrange are responsible for the completion of the Route 20 portion of the project, while Dale Mattison and Greg Pruden completed the Route 9/Frontier Town section of the documentary. Erin and Eric also have plans to continue the Route 20 portion of the documentary over the coming year.

This video is our first edit at 22 minutes for the purposes of our final class assignment. Three of us in the group had never worked with Final Cut Pro before and one of us had no idea how to use a video camera, but we figured it out (for the most part) and made it happen! Enjoy!

Howdy Folks! The Story of the Chuck Wagon Diner

Photo copyright Gale Weatherby.

I recently completed a thirty-minute audio documentary on the restoration of the Chuck Wagon Diner in Princetown, NY. I was drawn to the project during our research for our video documentary on the history of travel and tourism along Route 20 in NY state. In the process, I found a newspaper article about a current restoration project headed by Tom Ketchum to reopen the diner on his property along Route 20. I grabbed my recently acquired Zoom H2 and set out to collect the stories of those whose lives became interwoven as a result of this project and to tell the story of this historic American icon. Please take a listen and see how this amazing story unfolded.

Special thanks to Gale Weatherby, Tom Ketchum, John Blatz, Bill and the Miss Albany Diner, JR Cooke and Steve Cadalso for their contributions. They were all just incredible to work with. I wish them the best of luck in seeing this project through to completion.

For more photos of the Chuck Wagon from the 1970s (prior to its initial closing and relocation) please see Gale's photos. You can also see the documentation of her meeting with Tom and Steve when they drove to Chicago to pick up the original Chuck Wagon sign here.

See you at the diner!

Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective

The Sol LeWitt show at Mass-MoCA was less of a museum exhibit, and more of a circus. I admit, my first priority was to see the Anselm Keifer pieces in the adjacent building where I was able to spend the first hour of my visit sitting and contemplating A.E.I.O.U. and turning around to breathe in the space surrounding Narrow Are the Vessels in peace and quiet. Walking through the next room and into the Sol LeWitt exhibit was like walking out of a church and onto a city street.

I was immediately swarmed by children, with one particular little girl running between the bright walls screaming, “Colors! Colors! Colors!” I glanced over the first predictably geometric wall and came around the corner to the next where two middle-aged women turned to me and flashed peace signs with cheesy grins and tie-dye shirts. One woman rambled something off to me about the meaning of life which I don’t quite remember as being anything more than gibberish, but it ended with, “I don’t know what it means, but it means something, right? Ah, you didn’t grow up in the seventies, you wouldn’t understand.” And I didn’t. But I smiled as she turned away, dancing a dance that I’ve seen before which I commonly refer to as “The Hippie Shuffle.” Her friend then shouted joyously, “I didn’t go to work today, I went to MoCA!” I didn’t like the paintings any better, but I suddenly felt like I was a part of something really exciting, and glad to be there.

In LeWitt’s defense, I don’t believe that he intended his work to be a mystical journey into the unknown, leading us to a higher plane of existence to discover the meaning of life. I think his ideas were more influenced by mathematical logic, and finding any way of making some sense of the big, flat, open spaces we call “walls.” They’re not much more than simple geometric experiments, finding all possible ways of combining vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines, or blocks of color. These ideas, I’m sure, have been discussed and illustrated in mathematical literature dating well before LeWitt’s time. I suppose that taking those ideas and combining them with the tradition of mural painting is the original idea. It definitely has its place in the broader scope of art history as a response to abstract expressionism in the minimalist tradition. 

Their value may also lie in the simple pleasure of communicating a set of instructions, and seeing how well those instructions are carried out by others. In my mind, LeWitt lies parallel to my ideas about the programmers of the first computers, creating codes for execution that can be used anywhere. But these codes are awfully simple. Early computers and Sol LeWitts seem dated in a world of high-definition video games and intricate paint-by-numbers. And that seems like a terribly sick pleasure. I imagine LeWitt getting the same satisfaction and sense of power that Jim Jones had as he watched his followers carry out his idea of revolutionary suicide. Better to paint it on the wall, I suppose. I would have been more interested in a show of the first personal computers. (I actually saw a shop along the road on the way to the museum that had many very old computers in the storefront window, aptly named, “Computers.” I should have stopped.)

As I worked my way through the second floor, I decided to follow discreetly behind some fellow viewers and eavesdrop on their reactions, which became the most enjoyable experience of the show. Two distinct reactions prevailed. In all cases, people seemed lost, either in joy or in fear. Expressions of childlike glee were contrasted with awkward attempts to find something intelligent to say for fear of losing their reputation as an intellectual.  

I stopped to watch the film in the second floor reading room, which documented the process of creating the retrospective. Two more elderly women watched joyously at the craftsmen, draftsmen, painters and scribblers duteously carrying out LeWitt’s master plans. As the film concluded, the ladies seemed enthusiastic and inspired. “That looks like a fun art project!” And it did. I found that LeWitt’s art seems most easily accessible to elderly women, young children, or other subscribers to Arts and Crafts magazine. They seemed to be the only ones who were able to enjoy it for what it is, bright colors painted on a wall, which I say with the highest respect for them as the most honest, unpretentious viewers. 

Continuing through the exhibit, I found myself turning my gaze more and more toward the brick walls of the old mill building instead of the freshly painted walls of LeWitt. At some point I stopped, after a quick glance at a wall covered in pencil lines, and turned my back to it, to stare at the peeling paint and stains on the bricks left from an old staircase no longer there. I began to see the LeWitt walls as mere contrast, the backdrop to the art that is Mass-MoCA Building #7. I was also thankful for the windows. By the time I reached the third floor, my eyes were exhausted, and coming around that last wall in the back corner to finish the show with the bang of Loopy Doopy (orange and green,) it was a relief to turn away from the retina-burning colors, and peer out the window to the gray sky and snow covered grounds of the old mill.

 LeWitt’s work might have been the exception to the rule that one must see a work in person to fully appreciate it. Flat shapes and lines on a wall don’t provide much more to enjoy than a photograph of them, other than mere scale. We don’t even get to leave with the satisfaction that we’ve seen the hand of the artist. I admit, however, that it was a pleasure to be surrounded by them, feeling like a child in a funhouse. Perhaps this is the only way of truly appreciating LeWitt. It was also satisfying to experience the work as a chronological progression which, from the nineteen-sixties to the early twenty-first century, is so consistently steady, that it seems as though his entire artistic career was planned out from beginning to end. And perhaps it was. Maybe one day we’ll find a set of detailed instructions for a lifelong career as an artist that LeWitt brilliantly carried out over the course of his lifetime with exact precision.
 As the museum was about to close and I began making my way for the exit, I crossed paths again with my new hippie friends, flowing gently between two colorful walls. One was still dancing, the other exclaiming freely, “This is groovy! This is Austin Powers!”
 LeWitt’s work is something you’ll either love or hate, and those who love it, REALLY love it. As for myself, I left with the desperation of someone trying to find his way out of a hall of mirrors. My only regret is not having access to the rest of the Mass-MoCA complex. The buildings are easy to fall in love with, and in a show of wall paintings, the time-worn and stained bricks of Building #7 stole the show.

Tupperware Lake, and Other Upstate New York Adventures

Erin and I recently took a trip 4 hours north to the small town of Canton, NY. We had an exciting visit with Varick Chittenden, the creator and operator of TAUNY, Traditional Arts of Upstate New York, discussing their operation, history, and possible volunteer opportunities. We passed through many small towns along the way, and the drive was beautiful.

At some point we came to a place called Tupper Lake. (Also known to us as Tupperware Lake, the supposed birthplace of the Tupperware party.) We were running late to our appointment with Varick, but we couldn't resist stopping to photograph this little independent theater called the State. Erin and I see a lot of theaters, and are always excited to see a little gem like this one, but this one caught our eye for the unusual statement on the marquee: "Open Everyday, Religulous." We pulled over hysterically, thinking that it was a misspelling, which we later learned was not true. In any case, we snapped a Polaroid and went on our way.

Our visit at TAUNY was very informative, and Varick welcomed us immediately as friends. He obviously was prepared for our visit because we didn't even have to ask any questions before he began his speech and tour of the facility. An exhibit was up about "Hippie Houses" and other primitive dwellings of the North Country. I wish we'd had more time to explore the exhibit and take in all the various things that TAUNY had to offer. Varick had much to talk about though, and Erin and I left educated and happy.

We got some recommendations from our new friend for some interesting food spots in the area, other than the McDonald's conveniently located across the street from TAUNY. Unfortunately we were disappointed to find that everything outside the golden arches had already closed for the evening.

So we started our journey home through the beautiful countryside again, though unable to see it now in the dark. The quiet drive was beginning to get on our nerves though, as well as the lack of food in our bellies. Nothing seemed to be open along this route for some reason, until we finally found the Adirondack Hotel.

We were excited to sit down in the warmth, and the rustic timber-frame structure was a comforting mountain oasis. The obligatory deer heads on the walls were a bit discomforting, but we stuck around to be seated ... and we sat ... and sat. The waitress seemed happy to help the other diners, refilling their drinks and offering desserts, but was apparently not so interested in our being there.

We finally did get to order some food and wine. It came after Erin had gone to the restroom, and the waitress kindly scolded her for letting her food sit and get cold. Our pissy moods were intensified and it made the food difficult to enjoy, especially after being severely misinformed about how they make their pizza, which was basically just sauce and cheese on a tortilla. Regardless, we filled our bellies out of sheer hunger.

After another long wait to get our check, we finally made our way to the register to pay our bill. Erin had picked up some Adirondack Life magazines which also needed to be purchased. The waitress figured our bill to be around $10 more than we were expecting, so we asked her to ring up the magazines again to make sure she got it right, when we realized that she was adding the Canadian prices instead of the U.S.A. ones. She was obviously frustrated at our attempts to pay the proper amount, and resisted a third time to add the proper amounts after we had told her of her mistake. Finally she added the U.S. prices and this time the register rang up about $50 more than we were expecting. It was apparent that she hadn't voided the previous amount and doubled our bill. Erin and I were stunned as she announced our owed amount as if there was no problem at all. We just looked at her with jaws opened wide wondering if she was really that ignorant, or if she was just really eager to piss us off at that point. "Um, yeah, that can't be right." was all I could mutter. The lady then had the audacity to look straight back at me and sternly state, "The machine don't lie!" Wow. The machine might not lie, but she didn't know how to add. One more attempt, and our bill was finally as close to correct as it was going to get, and we paid without leaving her anything for her trouble. I think she should have left us a tip.

We eventually made it home in one piece, but the our trip to Canton will live on as yet another strange New York experience.

painting of state theater by eric lagrange