Month: April 2017

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Atrium Love, And Selfie Photo Booth Elevators

We stayed at the Marriott Marquis in downtown Atlanta so the boys could get a good look at its fabulous atrium — when the hotel was completed in 1985, it had the highest atrium in the world at 470 feet (there are 52 stories). That record was only surpassed when the Burj in Dubai was built.

Marriott Marquis, Atlanta Georgia//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

They *loved* it (but they think that as far as hotels with great atriums go, the Hyatt Regency in New Orleans has them beat because of their ‘magic’ elevators (Schindler’s PORT system)).

The rooms are pretty standard-issue Marriott. The only difference, I think, between a Marquis Marriott and standard are that Marquis are exceptionally, perhaps 1k+ room, large properties.
Marriott Marquis, Atlanta Georgia//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Our view

Marriott Marquis, Atlanta Georgia

The hotel’s architect, John Portman, was featured in an Atlantic piece from two years ago called How 1980s Atlanta Became the Backdrop for the Future.
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Marriott’s new Moxy brand received a Boutique Design award for up-and-coming hotelier (there’s a new Moxy in New Orleans I’m hoping to check out in the next month or two) but what I found most interesting was Marriott’s description of some of Moxy’s features:

Moxy Hotels fully embraces today’s fun-hunting traveler with smartly designed tech-enabled rooms featuring motion sensor lighting; internet TV in-room featuring Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, Pandora and Crackle; selfie photo booth elevators; Moxy Digital Guestbook; abundant power and USB outlets; furiously fast and free Wi-Fi for ultimate connectivity; and Moxy ‘B and F’ (beverage and food) strategy that offers 24/7 self-service to give guests access to what they want, when they want it.

I wonder if the boys will forget the Regency’s ‘magic elevators’ once they check out the Moxy’s selfie photo booth ones.

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International Spam And Blackmarket Moon Pies

First, a moment of pause for the the monumental bounty that is the international SPAM section at (truly, I mean this) Atlanta’s best grocery store: the Buford Highway Farmer’s Market.

International SPAM//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

International SPAM//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

International SPAM//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

International SPAM//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

International SPAM//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Actually I don’t eat it but just *wow* at the selection.

I think Buford is actually better than Your Dekalb, though they do have such great flowers and breads there.

At Buford Highway the employees are super, super nice.

The selection of just about everything here is amazing — it’s from all over the world. And beyond the fresh staples of produce and meat, there’s so much to admire in the packaging designs, pastries…and the clientele is not like one’s neighborhood Publix or Whole Foods — it’s something like the international concourse from a giant airport somewhere in the world was beamed in, and ta-da, we’re all hungry Atlantans here. It’s a beautiful thing.

Food at Buford Highway Farmer's Market, Atlanta GA//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Food at Buford Highway Farmer's Market, Atlanta GA//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Food at Buford Highway Farmer's Market, Atlanta GA//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Food at Buford Highway Farmer's Market, Atlanta GA//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

They had Choco-Pie here. It was in the news a couple of years ago as a black market opened in North Korea for them, and Pyongyang was forced to start making their own version to shut things down. In response, people from South Korea loaded balloons up with real Choco-Pies and flew them over the border in goodwill. The allure of the Moon Pie is strong.
Food at Buford Highway Farmer's Market, Atlanta GA//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

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More fab grocery packaging pics, especially retro drinks, from Jungle Jim’s outside Cincinnati.

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Outside at Buford Highway Farmers Market, someone had a #parkingfail:
Buggy Return Fail, Buford Highway Farmer's Market, Atlanta GA//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

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The Original For Original, Igloos From McRib Boxes, And Itinerant Scoundrels With Two Cents

On our way back from Cincinnati, we were passing by Corbin, Kentucky, which is the home of the original Sanders Cafe (well, I guess second since the first was destroyed in a fire in the late 1930s) — where Harland Sanders first fried chicken. At his first restaurant across the street, he figured chicken took too long to cook and stuck to ham and steak. This building serves as museum of the original compound with the restaurant and motel as well as…a regular KFC.

My own KFC story is that I worked at one for a couple of years in high school and college, and I chose to work there specifically because I figured everybody from school was too ‘cool’ to ever be seen in a KFC (my tender teenage ego wasn’t prepared to have to ask a classmate ‘original or extra crispy?’). And my plan worked: not once in those two years did I ever see a classmate. Seriously.

Ah, here are some other KFC stories:
Our busiest day was always Mother’s Day.
Working drive-thru was more fun than the counter for some reason.
The gentleman who owned our franchise looked like Colonel Sanders and would dress like him sometimes to the delight of…only the older customers.
Now that I’m grown up, we have friends who own Popeye’s restaurants.

Ah. Oh wait I have another couple of restaurant-working stories.
When I was 15, before the gleaming spinning bucket of KFC lured me away from the golden arches, I worked at McDonald’s (thankfully never saw anyone I knew there either) and fell when I was getting french fries out of the walk-in freezer — counter service there was in charge of fries. Because the bottom of my shoes were so slippery and the door closed behind me, for two seconds I planned out how I could survive before freezing. Igloo from McRib boxes?

I worked as a hostess at a Cracker Barrel for a few months right before my college internship which righted my course to the delights of office life. So I went from saying ten thousand times a day: “original or extra tasty crispy?” to “smoking or non?”. Also: occasionally people from outside the South would come in thinking they were going to have some sort of weird authentic cultural experience (y’all. please.) from dining at a Cracker Barrel (again. please.), and as part of that would ask me to say something so they could revel in my accent. I beseech thee: never be that kind of person.

And always, always be kind to everyone you meet and especially kind to people who work in the service industry.

William Faulkner famously quit the Oxford post office and in that letter:
As long as I live under the capitalistic system, I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp.

This, sir, is my resignation.

Harland Sanders Cafe and Museum, Corbin KY

It isn’t the typical museum, but there are some pieces, like this 1960s weathervane from a Shelbyville, Tennessee Kentucky Fried Chicken

This restored highway sign was once used roadside in North Carolina

Here, a recreation of the old kitchen
Harland Sanders Cafe and Museum, Corbin KY//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Harland Sanders Cafe and Museum, Corbin KY

Since we were here…

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21c Museum Hotel in Cincinnati, Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse, And Finally Some Graeter’s

The last night of our Kentucky/Ohio trip, we stayed at the 21c Museum Hotel in Cincinnati. Like the 21c in Louisville, this one is also downtown. Out front, this Werner Reiterer brass chandelier:

Inside, like the other 21Cs that we’ve been to, there’s lots of artspace to explore. this is the Norbert Brunner ‘You are Enchanting’
Norbert Brunner, You Are Enchanting, 21c Museum Hotel, Cincinnati OH//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Grimanesa Amoros’ Uros
Grimanesa Amoros, Uros, 21c Museum Hotel, Cincinnati OH//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Astrid Korgh’s Lightmail
Astrid Krogh, Lightmail, 21c Museum Hotel, Cincinnati OH//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Astrid Krogh, Lightmail, 21c Museum Hotel, Cincinnati OH//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Paul Rucker’s September 15, 1963 Birmingham, Alabama
Paul Rucker, September 15 1963 Birmingham Alabama, 21c Museum Hotel, Cincinnati OH//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Paul Rucker, September 15 1963 Birmingham Alabama, 21c Museum Hotel, Cincinnati OH//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Walter Oltmann’s Shel
Walter Oltmann, Shel, 21c Museum Hotel, Cincinnati OH//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Brian Knep’s Healing Tiles were fun to walk on to see the shapes morph
Brian Knep, Healing Tiles, 21c Museum Hotel, Cincinnati OH//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Our room — like the other 21Cs, it was rather plain and functional — not especially luxurious
Hotel Room, 21c Museum Hotel, Cincinnati OH//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Hotel Room, 21c Museum Hotel, Cincinnati OH//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Bathroom, 21c Museum Hotel, Cincinnati OH//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

the shower had body-part tiles
Bathroom, 21c Museum Hotel, Cincinnati OH//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

…and we got to play with the penguins, which in Cincinnati are yellow
Shugie and Me and Yellow Penguin, 21c Museum Hotel, Cincinnati OH//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Shugie and Yellow Penguin, 21c Museum Hotel, Cincinnati OH//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Now that we’ve stayed at the Bentonville, Lexington, and Cincinnati 21c hotels, we’d like to visit the others — Durham, Louisville, OKC, Nashville (the newest), and soon, Kansas City. 
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We had something to celebrate, so we went to supper at Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse, which is very close to the hotel. It’s ‘modeled after the 1940’s-era French Art Deco Steakhouses of New York City‘ and there was someone singing in the bar area. We were seated in this area:

Jeff Ruby's Steakhouse, Cincinnati OH//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

butter, and truffle garlic butter for the bread

Shugie had the crab bisque, which he loved

Av had a perfect, perfect, perfect steak
Steak, Jeff Ruby's Steakhouse, Cincinnati OH//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

We all shared the Potatoes Anna which is absolutely so pretty (so pretty that we saw it served at another table and had to ask what it was so we could have one)
Potatoes Anna at Jeff Ruby's Steakhouse, Cincinnati OH//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

I just wasn’t in the mood for a steak or salad, so had a hamburger (which I rarely order anywhere) which was so incredibly good
Hamburger and French Fries, chJeff Ruby's Steakhouse, Cincinnati OH//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

We had just a lovely, lovely supper and walked back to the hotel to take in more art before bed.

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Oh — and since we were in Cincinnati, we found a Graeter’s for a little ice cream the next day

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Back to the hotel: Pableaux Johnson wrote for the NYT Come for the Guest Rooms. Stay for the Art Galleries. about the small 21c hotel collection:


 The multiple locations significantly increase operational complexity, because different historic venues impose structural limitations on which works can be shown, and exhibitions are often reinterpreted as they move between locations. A show that works well on the former factory floor in Oklahoma City might not lend itself to Lexington’s taller spaces.

 Mr. Wilson, Ms. Brown and Ms. Stites also travel with acquisition in mind; exhibition inventories frequently change, and the collection evolves. “We’re always on the lookout for new work that will welcome, intrigue and inspire,” Ms. Stites said. “Contemporary art is getting more global in nature, and we want to find a way to integrate it into daily life. We can’t really understand our times until we look back, so we need artists to help us look ahead.”

 …and Conde Nast Traveler on Why Nashville’s Hotel Scene Is Hotter Than Ever mentions the new 21c there *and* another I’d really like to give a try: the Thompson

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Christenberry’s Coca-Cola Mural, Commissioning Water Tower, And Hot/Cold

One of William Christenberry‘s most iconic images is of this Coca-Cola 5 cent mural in Demopolis, Alabama — this is as I photographed it last month

As it appeared in Christenberry’s photograph in 1976 (the HC that’s visible in that date is a Sinclair Gasoline HC mural)
1978.
Again, in 1980.

Further up, to the left: “Relieves Fatigue. Sold Everywhere 5c”:

5 cent Coca-Cola Mural, Demopolis AL//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

The Coca-Cola mural is on the Rosenbush warehouse — it’s behind the Rosenbush Furniture Company building, both which Bert and Mary Louise gave to the city several years ago. I think the furniture store part used as some sort of museum and event space now.
Rosenbaum Building, Demopolis AL//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

The other side of the building shows the Owl Cigar mural, and all the way to the end, a very faint Bull Durham Tobacco mural. Above the word ‘cigar’ here, where it reads ‘the old reliable’ — that’s also part of the Bill Durham mural. This is one of the tobacco murals that’s easier to read.
Owl Cigar Mural, Rosenbaum Building, Demopolis AL//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

One other thing that can be seen from the Rosenbush buildings is this old water tower, which doesn’t seem particularly remarkable…

…but someone commissioned an artist to make this of it, which looks rather elegant.

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That’s the shape water tower that used to serve as a wayfinder in Merigold, Mississippi to get to McCarty Pottery, but it isn’t there anymore.

…and my favorite water towers in Ruleville, Mississippi

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