Open Walls Baltimore

Located in the Station North neighborhood of Baltimore, Open Walls Baltimore is a collection of about two dozen public murals by street artists from around the world, curated by Gaia.

Off the Wall in Baltimore

Shipwreck in a Storm by Willen van Diest

Off the Wall is a series of temporary installations in public spaces throughout Baltimore, initiated as an outreach effort by the Walters Art Museum. Reproductions of paintings from the museum’s permanent collection are on view through the end of 2013, including Shipwreck in a Storm by Willen van Diest at 200 East Pratt St.

Lion Brothers Co. Inc. Ghost Sign in Baltimore

Located at 875 Hollins St. in Baltimore, the old Lion Brothers Co. Inc. building is on the National Historic Register. The company, established in 1899, was once the world’s largest manufacturer of embroidered emblems and insignia. It still exists and is now headquartered in nearby Owings Mills.

Hee Haw Carry Out Ghost Sign in Baltimore

The ghost sign for Hee Haw Carry Out is located on the corner of Schroeder and Baltimore Sts. in Baltimore. Subs, sandwiches, seafood, pizza… What more could you want?

Elsewhere

2012 Charley Harper Open House: tomorrow is the annual celebration of the life and work of the late, great Cincinnati Modern illustrator Charley Harper.

Little Green Gift Guide: the Park + Vine gift guide includes our City Critters Housewarming Kit as part of an awesome roundup photographed right here in Over-the-Rhine.

Photo Tour of the Old SCPA / Historic Woodward High School: see the incredible interior of this old school in Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati, which will hopefully be put to use again soon.

Doug and Mike Starn’s South Ferry Mosaics Survive Sandy: the subway station installation See It Split, See It Change is thankfully not among Sandy’s casualties.

Jailed and Jailers Pitched in Help After Storm: NYC got lots of help from Rikers Island after Sandy.

A New Life for Old Breweries: the former American Brewery in Baltimore is sick.

Detroit — America’s Whipping Boy: just that.

Elsewhere

Holiday Gift Guide: Goody Two-Shoes: our seed bombs in Foam Magazine.

Vine Street Circa 1973: courtesy of Fuck Yeah Cincinnati.

Mercer Commons Design Gets Thumbs Down: the struggle to add appropriate infill to the historic Over-the-Rhine neighborhood in Cincinnati.

What’s Your State Good at?: Ohio “currently ranks first in the production of Swiss cheese.” Who knew?

It’s a Google Streetmap of History: How Our Famous Landmarks Looked Up to 170 Years Ago: British streetscapes, now and then.

A Hope VI Gallery: examples from Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Atlanta, Seattle, Philadelphia, Knoxville, Portland, San Francisco, and St. Louis.

Swedish Treehouse Hotel Imitates Shapes Both Real and Imagined: bizarre but respectful architecture suspended among trees in the Swedish village of Hrads.

Elsewhere

The Peters Cartridge Factory: a look at a cool old building in Mason, just outside of Cincinnati.

Future City ‘Spectacular’: self-taught architect and urban planner Orville Simpson II and his plan for Victory City, first dreamed up when he was 13 years old, and soon to be archived at the University of Cincinnati.

Bryan Patrick Todd: Highlands Mural: a cool new typographic mural just went up in Louisville.

Archive Gallery: The Futuristic Glories of Old New York: truth and fantasy from the olden days.

Agri Culture: architecture porn just outside of Baltimore, courtesy of our talented friends at Manifold Design.

The Kaufmann House: architecture porn in Palm Springs, courtesy of the great Richard Neutra.

9 of the Most Polluted Places in the World: prepare to become depressed.

Photorealistic Paintings by John Salt

Parked Riviera by John Salt

Painter John Salt is considered one of the pioneers of Photorealism. Born and raised in Birmingham and educated in Baltimore, his work focuses on dilapidated, mostly rural spaces [although the painting above looks like it could be the Lower East Side in the 70s or early 80s].

No Sleep ’till Hamtramck

Every time I go to Detroit, I make my customary stop in Hamtramck, the small city within Detroit that’s historically been a Polish and Polish-American community [it's now increasingly a mixture of Yemeni, Albanian, Bangladeshi, and Polish]. I always do the same things — pick up some Krówki at the Polish Art Center and pierogi and kabanosy at Srodek’s, and usually also some things in jars, like żurek and gooseberry jam. Then, a meal has to be eaten at Under the Eagle. It’s my food pilgrimage, you could say.

VisuaLingual Seed Bombs All Over

seed bombs in Cincinnati

This post could be called Our Friends in Far-Flung Places Have an Almost Infinite Capacity to Humor My Ridiculous Requests. When I asked people we know to stop by their local Anthropologie stores and take photos of the seed bomb displays, I got replies from all over the US! Above is what we saw at our local Anthropologie here in Cincinnati.