© Frank H. Jump
Telephone Exchange: Clarendon-8
Photography
Fading Ad Visits Target Flatbush Sunday Evening – Happy Shoppers Amidst the Opening Week Chaos
Bharata & Jean
Joseph & Christy
Melissa
© Frank H. Jump
Brooklyn Junction visited earlier this weekend when it was a bit tidier.
Sunday's Feature Fade: The Despair of Port Arthur, Texas – Robert Baptista
Port Arthur, Texas is a gritty, oil refinery town best known as the place where Janis Joplin grew up. The Procter Street downtown business area has sadly faded away along with Janis’ powerful voice. I hadn’t visited downtown in years, so I went there on February 11th with my Nikon N-90 film camera and three rolls of film.
These scenes convey the despair of downtown Port Arthur – which once thrived with department stores, office buildings, hotels, restaurants and night clubs. The area comes to life once a year for Mardi Gras weekend and then returns to its vacant ambiance. In the early 1990s, elaborate murals of historic scenes were painted on building walls, but these too are disappearing due to the relentless sun and rains of southeast Texas.
But some hope of economic redevelopment is stirring. The World Trade Building on Austin Avenue, an impressive structure built in 1928 with fine architectural details, is slated for conversion to a 170 unit apartment complex. And the Hotel Batiste is being considered for an adaptive reuse such as a school. The refineries in town have announced several billion dollars of expansions which will create jobs and give the local economy a boost. The gasoline you use in New York is most likely refined here.
– Robert Baptista (www.colorantshistory.org)
Civil War Wall Mural – Racial Harmony – Pt. Arthur, TX
Civil War Mural – Robert E. Lee – Pt. Arthur TX
Port Arthur City Limits – Kress Building – Proctor Street
Coca-Cola, Proctor Street
Derelict Hotel Batiste
Golden Light Social Club – Houston Avenue
Derelict Golden Steer Restaurant – Houston Avenue
Derelict Hotel Sabine – Proctor Street
Jet Taxi – Houston Avenue
Loans – Proctor Street
Meat & Bait – Ripped Apart by Hurricane Rita
Reckless Driving Billboard – Proctor Street
Texaco Station – Proctor Street
Verna’s Club – Proctor Street
World Trade Building c. 1928 – Austin Avenue
© Robert Baptista
Flatbush Gardener & Sustainable Flatbush @ Imagine Flatbush 2030's Final Planning Meeting
Cris Kressling (Flatbush Gardener) & Anne Pope (Sustainable Flatbush)
Eve Baron – Municipal Art Society
© Frank H. Jump
I had to leave before the meeting ended due to illness, but last Wednesday was the final planning meeting of Imagine Flatbush 2030, hosted by the Municipal Art Society of NY and the Flatbush Development Corp. Establishing measurable goals and tracking methods for Flatbush’s present & future sustainability was the intended task. This is just a beginning, but a hopeful sign that this community has committed member who will work hard at making Flatbush a place where many talented young and mature people, of all walks of life, will want to stay.
Hello Dolly Backdrop – Design & Internet Research by Art Yelton – Photoshop Design & Layout – Frank H. Jump
© Frank H. Jump
This collage was used as a backdrop for a revival of Hello Dolly in 2001. My dear friend Art Yelton was the director and musical director. Yelton found all of the source images on the Internet, printed them out, and designed the basic cut and paste layout by hand (and fortunately saved all of the URLs). After receiving the prototype, I downloaded all of the digital files (mostly from the Library of Congress website) and created a digital version on Photoshop. This job was done during the time I was undergoing chemo and radiation therapies and kept me out of trouble. It was a labor of love. Enjoy. The reproduction for the backdrop was twenty by forty feet. Click on the image above for a close-up view.
Sunday's Feature Fade: Miss Heather's Greenpoint Ads
Syrup of Figs – Franklin Street & Greenpoint Avenue
Men’s Clothes – “119-125 Walker Street” – Hannes Taylor Advertising – Manhattan Avenue
“Warner…Floor Lamps – Silk Shades” – Commercial Street © Miss Heather, newyorkshitty.com
Miss Heather publishes the wildy eclectic and brilliantly excretory Greenpoint blog New York Shitty. Miss Heather sent me some of these images of fading ads she took when she wasn’t aiming down. Keep looking up Miss Heather!
Sean Strub Stirs Up a Cultural Phenomenon in NEPA @ Hotel Fauchére – Milford, PA
Sean Strub – activist, humanitarian, publisher, real estate developer, patron of the arts, and hotelier & restaurateur – creates a cultural vortex in Northeastern PA.
Last week I had the pleasure of stopping by my old friend Sean’s restaurant for lunch. We’ve been meaning to get there for some time, but boy are we glad we finally did. Anyone who appreciates fine dining in a pastoral and historical setting will be truly thrilled at their visit at the historic Hotel Fauchére.
The hotel’s namesake Louis Fauchére , will have his 185th birthday celebrated on March 4. Here is a brief history of this famous chef taken from the Fauchére website:
Louis Fauchère was born March 4, 1823, in Verbey, Switzerland, one of thirteen children. He began his apprenticeship as a cook, at the age of fifteen, being afterward employed in various prominent hotels in Switzerland. He married Rosalie Perrochet, in Switzerland, on November 16, 1846 and they had one daughter, Marie, who was born May 4, 1848. Louis ultimately emigrated to the US in 1851 where he soon found employment as a Master Chef at New York’s famous Delmonico’s Restaurant. In his early career in the US, he also worked (probably in the summertime) at Delavan House in Albany and at the Fort William Henry Hotel on Lake George.
There are regularly scheduled cultural events at the hotel ranging from chamber music concerts, live jazz, and other culinary and arts events. The hotel is beautifully decorated and houses a fine collection of Hudson River School paintings.
Bar Louis
The Lobby
Formal Dining
The Lounge & Sun Room
The Rooms
Ample Parking
© Frank H. Jump
Sean Strub
Sean Strub is as an activist, writer, fundraiser and publisher who has been involved in GLBT community activism for more than 30 years.
Strub founded POZ magazine, for people impacted by HIV/AIDS, in 1994. Strub’s companies also launched POZ en Espanol, Mamm (for women impacted by breast cancer), Real Health (a health title for the African-American community) and Milford Magazine (a regional title distributed in the Delaware River Highlands area of northeast Pennsylvania).
In recent years, Strub has been involved in a community redevelopment project in Milford, Pennsylvania, involving investment in public infrastructure, launching cultural festivals, private sector historic preservation efforts and renovation and reopening of the Hotel Fauchére, an historic boutique hotel and culinary destination which Strub owns with a partner.
A native Iowan, Strub attended a Jesuit boarding school in Wisconsin, then Georgetown and Columbia Universities. He lives in Milford, Pennsylvania and New York City.
Other reviews: Fauchére Press Page: Chowhound; Historic Hotels; Narrowsburg NY’s River Reporter.
Hotel Fauchére, 401 Broad Street, Milford PA 18337 USA, 570.409.1212, info@hotelfauchere.com
