[Suburbia Lost] Buffet Style Restaurant - Sharonville
America has a love affair with buffet style restaurants, but who can blame us? One flat fee, all the delicious food you can eat, subtle elevator music to set the mood, and all under the veil of an authentic cultural experience. You can find buffets everywhere in suburbia, even when they're abandoned.
[Suburbia Lost] Porsche Dealership - Springdale
This past Sunday I was driving home from work. As I merged onto the highway, my 1996 Geo Prizm known as the "Mean 'Geo' Okerlund" started making a strange vibrating noise.
Enemy of the State?
Given the places I've been to and photographed, does that make me an enemy of the state?
The "Ghost Ship"
The slow, choppy waters erratically splash up against the obstruction, banging an offbeat rhythm onto an island of rusted steel. As the Ohio River flows toward the Mississippi, its waters make their way through the American Midwest. Roughly 25 miles downstream from Cincinnati, some of the water diverts to a gap on the southern shore into a creek and up against a ship that seems to have docked for the last time. It's a vessel that fought in two World Wars, served as a yacht, set the scene in a pop star's music video, carried one of the world's greatest minds, and shuttled tourists around the nation's largest city - all before it found itself left to be forgotten by time and history in the murky waters.
[Suburbia Lost] Captain D's - Sharonville
The people of this nation deserve "freshly prepared seafood at reasonable prices," or so goes the credo on Captain D's website. Unfortunately for those who live near this former seafood eatery on Chester Rd. in Sharonville, they'll have to travel the seven seas a little further these days to get the captain's freshest catch and his corporate branding.
Stabbed With a Fork Near What Used to be Sea World
This Golden Corral was the most depressing restaurant I had ever been in.
Film: Seriously, It's Not Hard
I'm new here at QCD, and you may have noticed my photos have been shot on film. People talk about shooting film like it's coke habit. Expensive, unpredictable and harmful to your libido. I beg to differ.
Lockland and Seth Foster
Let's start at the beginning. In 1830, the automobile hadn't been invented, steam locomotives were just taking hold on the East Coast, and the first electric motor was only ten years old. So presumably on a horse or on foot, a 16-year-old Seth Foster left Boone County, Kentucky to come to Cincinnati. In 1830, our fair city was home to around 24,000 people according the census and the population was exploding.
Tower Place Mall: An Ugly View of Commerce With a Great View of the City
If you've ever seen the 1978 horror classic Dawn of the Dead, then you'll feel right at home in Tower Place Mall.
[Suburbia Lost] What Shit Will We Put On Our Walls?
For some reason, we as a culture like it when restaurants put shit all over their walls.
A Tree Grows in Chippewa Lake Amusement Park
The small village and lake have more in common than just a name.
Portrait of a Man I Met Yesterday: Charles of Walnut Hills
Yesterday as I walked out of a restaurant in Walnut Hills, this man happened to be passing right in front of me.
[Suburbia Lost] Burger King - Jordan's Crossing + Introducing: Cameron Knight
North of downtown Cincinnati, along an intercity that predates the interstate highway system, sits an abandoned Arby's fast food restaurant. The latest abandonment in a sprawling suburban shopping area.
[Suburbia Lost] Pizza Hut - West Side of Cincinnati
The red roof may as well be the "golden arches" of pizza joints.
[Suburbia Lost] You Can Tell Area Businesses Used To Be Wendy's
Fast food architecture has become iconic along American interstate routes and in neighborhoods all across the country. Branding is important to corporations - it creates a recognizable image of your product. So while the design of fast food buildings has changed over time, the rapid expansion of these eateries into the suburban landscape has created easily recognizable buildings.
The Interurban Routes We Wander
On a recent urban exploration trip to Northeast, Ohio we came across some abandoned rail cars with a peculiar history. Where did they come from? Where were they used? Crumbling on a rail line near I-71in Seville, Ohio these cars offer a glimpse into the history of we used to get around.
[Suburbia Lost] Shell Station - Symmes Township
An abandoned Shell gasoline station off of Montgomery Rd. in Symmes Township, near Loveland and Mason.