The New York Times
By Phil Patton
Published: January 21, 2005
If drivers on Pennsylvania highways can see where they're going a little more clearly
these days, they might thank the town of Bergaults.
Except it doesn't exist.
This was one of a number of imaginary place names tested by highway safety engineers
and sign designers in their attempt to develop more legible road signs for America's aging population.
Most drivers read road signs without noticing much about them. They speak with
the mute force of officialdom. Road signs are taken for granted, and their grammar
and vocabulary are so familiar and unchanging that they appear timeless. But road signs do,
in fact, change — slowly and subtly — according to the rules embodied in a volume
known as the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices or M.U.T.C.D. (Amateur road buffs instinctively want to call it the "MUTT-sid," but traffic professionals pronounce each letter.)
The manual, revised periodically since its beginnings in 1935, now fills more than 500 virtual pages online.
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Preservationists Stall Sale of LA Gas Station |
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 20
By NICK MADIGAN
Published: January 21, 2005, The New York TImes
It is perhaps only in car-centric Los Angeles that preservationists and historians could get all riled up over the fate of an old gas station.
The tiny, 81-year-old Canyon Service Station, which closed a few months ago and is now fenced off, its three pumps gone, was always a landmark to its neighbors in Santa Monica Canyon. They considered it a quaint, playful relic of the days before Los Angeles was overrun by freeways, noise and traffic reports beamed from helicopters.
But then the owners, Monica Queen and four of her relatives, decided to sell the station, which her grandfather built on what is now the last piece of once-vast land holdings granted to their ancestors in 1839. |
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Old Diner Car Gets New Lease on Lunch |
Malden, MA
As a child John Harmon dreamed of owning a small business. Last year the 40-year-old CPA finally stopped 15 years of counting beans and started offering them at an old diner most recently called Viv's, and before that Uncle Lester's and The Little Red Diner. The classic car was destined for condemnation by the local board of health until Harmon saved it in March of 2003.
The diner car, made in 1932 at the Worcester Lunch Car and Carriage Manufacturing Company -- famous for the barrel-shaped design of it's car roofs -- was one of only a few hundred manufactured at the plant. Harmon bought the rundown restaurant, and with ownership came rickety stairs, light bulbs that hung outside from old wires, and an inside that looked as if a hurricane had swept through. Even the floor was falling through to the cellar. |
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Lawsuit against drive-in dropped |
A federal lawsuit against Roy's Drive-In has been thrown out because the plaintiff agreed
that his claim for damages became moot after the Salinas eatery's closure.
Attorneys for Jarek Molski, a 35-year-old Southern California man who's paralyzed from
the waist down, asked to have the federal case dismissed in November, acknowledging
that their client's monetary claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act could not be
pursued because the restaurant had closed.
"They threatened to refile in state court, but nothing has happened yet," said Prescott
Kendall, attorney for Roger Patterson, former owner of Roy's Drive-In.
Patterson was forced to close the popular hangout in September, saying he could not
afford to make modifications on a building that he did not own.
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Historic Amusement Park Can Open in Spring |
MEADVILLE, Pa. - A historic amusement park may open this spring as long as it
doesn't borrow money or lease property without court approval, a judge ruled.
Crawford County Judge Anthony Vardaro's ruling is in response to a financial plan for
Conneaut Lake Park that was drawn up by the park's court-appointed board of directors
and chief executive officer. The plan was necessary in order to open the park this season.
Vardaro, who oversees the 113-year-old park's operations, had ordered its leaders to draft
a plan and file it with the county's prothonotary office by the end of the year so that the
public, including the park's creditors, could read it.
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The American roadside (lower case) is a unique place.
Nothing else in the the world looks like it.
Nothing ever will.
The American Roadside (this website) celebrates the roadside with photos, memories, musings and news.
So just turn left at the old coffee pot, take a right at the jackalope and then just drive on.
The road awaits.
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Couple pulls off roadside birth |
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By Jeff Dankert | Winona Daily News
Levi Ryan Carlson could not wait Tuesday morning for mom and dad to get to the hospital.
So his parents pulled their van over on U.S. Highway 61 near Twin Bluffs and let Mother Nature take over.
By the time emergency responders arrived at 7 a.m., 30-year-old Pamela Carlson and her newborn son were doing fine in the front seat of their 1996 Dodge Caravan.
And by 4 p.m. Pamela, her 29-year-old husband, Ryan Carlson, and their 9-pound, 6-ounce son were celebrating the end of an adventurous day from their room at Franciscan Skemp Medical Center in La Crosse, Wis.
"It has been unbelievable," Pamela said. "I would never trade it for anything, but I would never do it again. Ryan is my hero. He is so amazing." |
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