April 2014

April 6, 2014May 1, 2014

Preservation Homework: Churches & Cemeteries

Dr. Katy Beebe invited me to speak to her historical preservation class at Southeast Missouri State University last year. Dr. Lily Santora asked if I would come back April 8 to meet with her class.

Dr. Beebe’s class was researching Main Street, so I put together a list of the stories I had done about downtown. Dr. Santora gave her class a wide variety of local landmarks. I’ll spend the next couple of days helping her students by posting links to stories I’ve done about their topics. I’m going to concentrate on churches and cemeteries today. (Maybe I can make up for all those assignments I didn’t turn in when I was a student.)

[Hint to students: don’t just read what I’ve written. The comments are generally more interesting than my copy. Feel free to post questions and comments of your own. My readers are a friendly group who love to share Cape’s history. Click on the photos to make them larger.]

First Presbyterian Church

St. Mary’s Cathedral

Main Street Improvements

After all the stories I did about the building at 101 North Main Street being condemned and looking like the front wall could come down at any minute, I never thought it would ever be fixed up and occupied again.

Here’s what it looked like on April 2, 2014. The downstairs is occupied by the “prom superstore.” (Click on the photo to make it large enough to pick out your prom dress.)

The building had an interesting history with all kinds of local ties.
Even the alley behind the building was worth a story.
It was showing signs of improvement last August.

The Hecht’s Building

There was some work going on in front of the old Hecht’s building, but I don’t think it’s going to bring back “the grand lady of fashion” it had been for 86 years, making it the second oldest business on Main Street when it closed in 2004.

Here is a story and photos from 2010, including the topless ladies in the ceiling of the lobby.
We even found out where “Poof” ended up.

April 4, 2014

915 Broadway

Mother and I did a quick loop around Cape on Wednesday. I was surprised at how many changes had occurred since I was here last fall. The economy must be picking up because there we spotted construction trucks parked all around town.

This small building at 915 Broadway, west of Pacific and next door to Burrito-Ville, was one being worked over. I thought the orange stripe around it might have indicated that it was a Gulf station at one time. Click on the photos to make them larger.

Brennecke’s 66 Service

A 2011 Fred Lynch blog shows the station when it was the Brennecke’s 66 Service. Like in this photo, the Medical Arts Building is shown in the background.

Building had many owners

The 915 address was mentioned is several business and crime reports over the years.

A 2004 review of 2003 business stories noted that the Mr. Tire opened at that address on September 29, 2003. It was next to the Dairy Queen and was owned by David McCormick.
In 1988, Orville and Jay Grim, a father-son team opened the Phillips 66 Service Station and Garage at 915 Broadway.
American Motors appeared frequently in The Missourian’s police report column: February 22, 2013, a theft from American Motors; October 12, 2012, currency was reported stolen; May 2, 2013, two suspects were charged with tampering with a vehicle and trespassing; January 4, 2006, and a license plate was reported stolen May 13, 2011.
Renaissance Auto reported a CD player stolen, a vehicle fender damaged and damaged vehicle doors on January 4, 2006.

Shooting What You See

The rain was just slacking off when I got out of a meeting Wednesday night, so I decided to take a run downtown to see if there was any wet street art to be made. I saw something promising on Main Street, but couldn’t find a parking spot nearby. I decided to go down Water Street and make another pass at it.

When I got to the intersection with Independence, the stop sign glared back at me. Nothing unusual about that, it’s supposed to reflect light when your headlights hit it at night.

That’s when I saw the reflection of the street sign and the stop sign in the water on the wet street. Fortunately, nobody was behind me, so I put it in back-up and angled into a parking space.

I got out of the car and slogged through the water until I thought I had the right angle.

The picture was gone

I’ve talked before about how you have to shoot as soon as you see a picture: if you don’t the magic might leak out. I figured that’s what had happened here: that in the 30 seconds it took for me to get out of the car, grab the camera and find the angle, maybe enough water had drained from the street to lose the reflection.

That’s when it dawned on me: REFLECTION. What had changed was that my headights were no longer hitting the signs, hence, there was no light to be reflected.

I got back in the car and changed from angle parking to aiming my lights down the street. I didn’t want to block the street, so I was still well off to the side. It was close, but not what I saw the first time.

There are no cars out

That’s when I realized that this is CAPE. There ARE no cars out on a rainy Wednesday night. I positioned my car in the travel lane and fired away. NOW I was seeing what I had seen behind the wheel.

This was one of the situations where the photo probably would have been better if I had gone the HDR route, which takes multiple exposures, then combines them into one frame. There were several reasons why I didn’t do that:

So, why didn’t I use HDR?

I don’t use HDR enough to be comfortable to setting the camera in the dark.
It required me to drag my tripod out.
My tummy was growling.
It was still sprinkling. Those last three things violate my Retirement Contract where I don’t (A) Go hungry; (B) Get wet or (C) Lift heavy objects.

Other night weather photos

I’m a child of the night. I loved roaming the streets and alleys of towns after dark. After every cop in town had stopped my at least once, they tended to leave me alone.

Want to know why most car ads are shot with streets that have been sprayed with water? It makes them look cool. Here are a some of collections of night weather pictures.

Month: April 2014

Preservation Homework: Churches & Cemeteries

First Presbyterian Church

St. Mary’s Cathedral

Christ Episcopal Church

Evangelical United Church of Christ

St. James AME Church

Fairmount Cemetery

St. Mary’s Cemetery