Sixty-five hundred souls and growing. It's been growing since the 40s. It had a population of almost five thousand in the 20s, when a lot of these structures went up.

Our first stop: A handsome building. A bit too much sign, but it looks prosperous, and the massing of the sign plays well with the building.

JOHNSTON.

All attempts to google are founded by the existence of a sportswriter named Garrett Johnston.

You can do a lot of decorating with brick!

It won’t always work out as well as hoped, but you can do a lot!

“No sir. Ain’t goin’, no sir. Ain’t no amount of money make me move.”

The rare two-sided dormer:

A man had to know where he was going, didn’t he.

That barber pole yanks me back 40 years or more. I don’t know why. You know it’ll be there forever, despite the lack of barbering.

Which is better: the mess you get when you hack up the ground floor and stick in photobombing trees, or

The side, where nothing has been done?

I’m not sure I have the answer.

Good LORD that’s a lot of building

Really? For a town this size?

		Perhaps everyone was happy to pop for it out of civic pride.

That’s a hack job. The bricks came long after the block glass, I suspect.

It’s like conjoined twins, but one has a healthier lifestyle.

It was important to note these things.

Two rather idiosyncratic structures. The one on the left seems built to personal specifications; the one on the right had reasons for the window arrangement, but they’re lost to us now.

Sigh

Cinematreasures copy, submitted by a member:

The Silver Screen Cinema was one of the last few remaining single screen theaters in Indiana. It was built around 1939 and opened as the Gala Theatre around October 1939. It was operated like an old fashioned theatre. In 1981 it was renamed Silver Screen Cinema and cccording to the owner Bruce Babbitt, “we don’t take credit or debit cards, and we don’t sell tickets on the Internet. It’s still the old-fashioned first-come-first-serve. We keep it simple.”

Closed.

Uncomfortably scaled cornice.

Looks like someone’s living upstairs.

Why not take an old building and encase it in the architectural equivalent of a bondage mask? Why not?

Our old friend, the Quisling Pig. Don’t eat me! Eat my brethern!

The website doesn’t say which national award they won. You’d think it would.

Something was here once, but it’s been a long time.

It’s like they wanted to leave flowers at its grave.

The scars indicate a larger building was on the site. The walls are still visible on the right, the profile on the left.

Octagonal portholes are never a good replacement for a wall of glass. They’re not “classy.” They’re not “historic.” They just look odd when you know the wall should be a sheet of glass.

Another full-facade facemask. Did this replace another one that fell apart, or did someone decide to do this to a building in the last 20, 30 years?

That said, from a certain angle at sunset, the neon sign, the streetlights, the planter, would make you think:

Nice going, Garrett.