Peter Behrens's Blog, page 440

1972 Volvo 145

The car was in the last stages of a total restoration at Alan's Auto in Portland, Maine.

Montreal Noir: Station 10

There's a lot of talk, and useful venting, about police and policing this month. Just heard the Brooklyn Borough President (and former cop) talking on NPR about being beaten and kicked by cops when he was a young African-American guy.
Many thanks to Coolopolis for the heads-up on Station 10, director Michael Scott's remarkable National Film Board insider documentary on the cops at Station 10, Montreal's tough downtown precinct. It was filmed in 1971 so it is also a vivid portrait of that era. Stoned Israeli hippies, a sick lion, cops hassling blacks, a horrifying biker gang rape scene....the Naked City, vraiment. This is Montreal before Cirque de Soleil.

Esther Bubley photograph: Car Hop, Keemah, Texas. 1945

Esther Bubley was one of the great American documentary photographers of the era.

The Open Road: Photography and the American Road Trip

Autoliterates: I think you oughta zoom down to your neighbo(u)rhood bookstore post haste, and pick up a copy of Open Road: Photography and the American Road Trip. David Campany has chosen iconographic images wisely and well. What the road means to us is a mystery.

French barn finds: Ferraris & a Bugatti Type 57

thanks to James Rodewald for the heads-up on this:
"The forgotten Baillon Collection will be auctioned at the annual Retromobile event in Paris next February. The lots include some of the most desirable Ferraris and Bugatti models and is sure to provide a talking point for the classic car market for years to come.This particular barn find is billed as one of the greatest, an probably the last, to have been seen in recent years. The cars were originally owned by Roger Baillon, owner of French transportation company Transports Baillon. Baillon amassed a collection of cars with the intention of forming a museum. Before his dream could be realised, his business took a turn for the worse and Baillon was forced to sell his collection...(which) includes a rare Bugatti Type 57 Ventoux, a Delahaye Coupé Chauffeur, a series 1 Facel Vega Excellence, a Hispano Suiza H6B cabriolet Millon-Guiet, a Maserati A6G 2000 Gran Sport Frua, a Panhard-Levassor Dynamic coupé X76, a Talbot Lago T26 cabriolet Saoutchik ex-Roi Farouk and a Talbot Lago T26 Grand Sport coupé Saoutchik among others."http://www.gtspirit.com/2014/12/06/artcurial-to-auction-60-barn-find-classics-from-forgotten-baillon-collection/

American Houses: Brunswick, Maine, fanlights, & Van Morrison "Cleaning Windows"

I've been spending time In Brunswick this fall, working out of the library at Bowdoin College. The first cotton mill in Maine was in Brunswick. The textile industry produced much of the wealth that went into these mostly nineteenth-century houses on Federal Street, Cleaveland Street, and Park Row. Bowdoin College is a big factor in the town's history, and I plan a separate post on the campus architecture.








Train service from Brunswick to Boston was restarted a few years back on the old Boston & Maine line and has been reasonably successful but this portion of line ,looking north from Brunswick station, is still defunct.
That's the old mill complex, on the Androscoggin River, at the end of Maine Street. The problem with most main streets in Maine---and BTW, in Brunswick, it's Maine Street--is too much traffic. The road ends up feeling like a highway, and pedestrians are intimidated--it just doesn't feel good to be there. Brunswick's downtown is livelier than most but it still doesn't compare to the urban bustle you'd find in a town this size in Western Europe, where planning tends to manage traffic better, and keeping towns alive as civic space is a widely-shared value.  The fact that Maine Street is lined with three and four story 19th century commercial buildings is a problem that Main Streets all across America have to deal with. People don't want to walk up flights of stairs to visit say, the dentist, or a lawyer.  Maine Street doesn't have the exhuberance built into Main Streets of prosperous Kansas towns in the last ninetieth century--check this post on Ottawa, Kansas. The19th office space above the storefronts is hard to adapt to the way we live now. Downtowns need a mix of new lively modern architecture with the older street front for civic life to prosper in our 19th century townscapes. They can't all be "Arts Districts" and tourist zones.     early 19th c. Federalist



 Maine houses grow and grow, with ells and summer kitchens stretching out toward the barn.

This is the house where Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin.   I like these row houses, late 19th c. Rare in Maine, outside Portland's West End


19th c. multi-units, probably housing for factory "hands" then, students now.







With standardized lumber--4x4s and 2x4s, it was easy and relatively cheap to expand Maine houses.
Those Federalist (Georgian in UK and Ireland) fanlights...listen to Van Morrison "Cleaning Windows"!
ex-fanlight. Too bad.

Swift Current, Saskatchewan (1965 Ford F-100 Custom Cab)

  from Alex Emond: "This red and white combination is repainted but in keeping with its original scheme. I'll bet that missing piece of trim is driving the obviously meticulous owner crazy ... because it is otherwise in splendid shape . It has a softer ride than its earlier versions , with the new " twin I beam " suspension . This truck was in Swift Current . That's " Speedy Creek " to you . Actually , folks close to Swift Current just call it "Swift". Cheers "--AE

1959 Rambler American Super

They have a thing for all things Nash at Motorland.


 

fromage de Chevrolet

"Is this what your truck is named after?"--Don Green Culbertson

Freeport Maine: The Sparkle Parade Chevy

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