Wish It Were Here
January 16, 2024 9:54 AM Subscribe
Wish you could revisit New York's Tower Records circa 2005, or San Francisco's Sutro Baths before it was demolished in 1964? Disappointed Tourist
is a series of paintings by Ellen Harvey depicting places that no longer exist. Some reach as far back as Ireland's prehistoric rainforest or the City of Troy; others are painfully recent. Each painting is nominated by someone who cares about that place.
This project "attempts to honor the trauma underlying the nostalgia that results from our collective and individual losses," beautifully conveying a sense of Solastalgia.
This project "attempts to honor the trauma underlying the nostalgia that results from our collective and individual losses," beautifully conveying a sense of Solastalgia.
Tower Records was great, but across the street was Other Music. That's where the cool kids shopped.
posted by slogger at 10:07 AM on January 16 [4 favorites]
posted by slogger at 10:07 AM on January 16 [4 favorites]
I got to see this project in real life! A friend and I went to Margate on a day trip in 2021, visiting the Turner Contemporary. These paintings covered the whole wall of one gallery. I spent ages reading and identifying each of the locations. I checked my photos of the trip and I took very little in the actual galleries, because I think that it just didn't translate well onto a phone camera. I did happen to get a really good picture of a snail outside on a garden wall.
posted by Monzz at 10:22 AM on January 16 [4 favorites]
posted by Monzz at 10:22 AM on January 16 [4 favorites]
Oh, wow.
These are beautiful, and I'm intrigued by the choice to do them all in monochrome, which does indeed give a wonderful look to the ones I've clicked into so far.
I love the diversity of the kinds of sites - there's one little sequence of four in a row:
Flipper’s Roller Boogie Palace
Glasgow School of Art
Great Synagogue / Wielka Synagoga
Ground Nut Pyramids
So different, and so wonderful.
I have a lot of feelings about lost places. I've spent countless hours photographing buildings in San Francisco for one of my hobby sites (City Seen, second link in my profile), and I love beautiful old buildings with a fierceness and a wistfulness that surprises me. But I feel selfish for loving those old buildings, because we so often have to choose between keeping them or replacing them with higher-density buildings, which we need for both climate emergency and social justice actions. I'm glad that San Francisco has developed such strong protections for historic buildings (thanks to enormous efforts by community organizers, many of them women), and I'm especially glad when a project retains the shell of the old building, even if the results are imperfect, like a project that saved some really great old facades on Pine Street.
I know nothing lasts forever, but I do feel such a connection to places - even places I've only glimpsed, like the Link-Belt building down in Bayview.
I think it's marvelous that Harvey is creating this series (and I love her inviting nominations), and I'm very glad to get to explore it via the web. Thank you so much for posting this, Miko, and for filling me with solastalgia today.
posted by kristi at 11:04 AM on January 16 [4 favorites]
These are beautiful, and I'm intrigued by the choice to do them all in monochrome, which does indeed give a wonderful look to the ones I've clicked into so far.
I love the diversity of the kinds of sites - there's one little sequence of four in a row:
Flipper’s Roller Boogie Palace
Glasgow School of Art
Great Synagogue / Wielka Synagoga
Ground Nut Pyramids
So different, and so wonderful.
I have a lot of feelings about lost places. I've spent countless hours photographing buildings in San Francisco for one of my hobby sites (City Seen, second link in my profile), and I love beautiful old buildings with a fierceness and a wistfulness that surprises me. But I feel selfish for loving those old buildings, because we so often have to choose between keeping them or replacing them with higher-density buildings, which we need for both climate emergency and social justice actions. I'm glad that San Francisco has developed such strong protections for historic buildings (thanks to enormous efforts by community organizers, many of them women), and I'm especially glad when a project retains the shell of the old building, even if the results are imperfect, like a project that saved some really great old facades on Pine Street.
I know nothing lasts forever, but I do feel such a connection to places - even places I've only glimpsed, like the Link-Belt building down in Bayview.
I think it's marvelous that Harvey is creating this series (and I love her inviting nominations), and I'm very glad to get to explore it via the web. Thank you so much for posting this, Miko, and for filling me with solastalgia today.
posted by kristi at 11:04 AM on January 16 [4 favorites]
Anyone in the midwest should not sleep on what THE SUBURBAN is up to. The micro-galleray is now located in Milwaukee, which was where this work was first featured.
posted by zenon at 11:16 AM on January 16 [1 favorite]
posted by zenon at 11:16 AM on January 16 [1 favorite]
Tower Records was great, but across the street was Other Music. That's where the cool kids shopped.
You say that, but Tower was where I saw They Might Be Giants do a midnight mini-concert and release of Mink Car, which was at 12:01AM on September 11, 2001. Yep.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 11:24 AM on January 16 [11 favorites]
You say that, but Tower was where I saw They Might Be Giants do a midnight mini-concert and release of Mink Car, which was at 12:01AM on September 11, 2001. Yep.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 11:24 AM on January 16 [11 favorites]
You say that, but Tower was where I saw They Might Be Giants...
Let's just say that there's cool kids, and there's cool kids...
posted by kaibutsu at 11:56 AM on January 16 [1 favorite]
Let's just say that there's cool kids, and there's cool kids...
posted by kaibutsu at 11:56 AM on January 16 [1 favorite]
Neat.
I remember being in the Tower Records here in Seattle, over by the Seattle Center, when who walks in with his entourage? Gary fucking Payton...
posted by Windopaene at 12:03 PM on January 16
I remember being in the Tower Records here in Seattle, over by the Seattle Center, when who walks in with his entourage? Gary fucking Payton...
posted by Windopaene at 12:03 PM on January 16
My 17 year old son feels that for Borders Bookshops. We had one in New Zealand in Auckland and it lost millions of dollars.
posted by Narrative_Historian at 12:04 PM on January 16 [2 favorites]
posted by Narrative_Historian at 12:04 PM on January 16 [2 favorites]
Damn the man.
posted by credulous at 12:13 PM on January 16 [3 favorites]
posted by credulous at 12:13 PM on January 16 [3 favorites]
I'm especially glad when a project retains the shell of the old building, even if the results are imperfect
An example of this in Washington DC: 2000 Pennsylvania Avenue. In an interesting convergence of other elements of this thread, the newer construction was the location of DC's Tower Records for many years.
posted by Rash at 12:29 PM on January 16
An example of this in Washington DC: 2000 Pennsylvania Avenue. In an interesting convergence of other elements of this thread, the newer construction was the location of DC's Tower Records for many years.
posted by Rash at 12:29 PM on January 16
Tower Records
I've told the story before, but I unwittingly hit on the singer Tiffany in the Bellevue, WA, Tower Records. Surprisingly, she was not interested. Actually, that probably requires initial caps and bold, definitely Not Interested.
posted by maxwelton at 1:10 PM on January 16 [3 favorites]
I've told the story before, but I unwittingly hit on the singer Tiffany in the Bellevue, WA, Tower Records. Surprisingly, she was not interested. Actually, that probably requires initial caps and bold, definitely Not Interested.
posted by maxwelton at 1:10 PM on January 16 [3 favorites]
Are these all based on one photo or on a multitude of photos?
posted by Ideefixe at 1:29 PM on January 16
posted by Ideefixe at 1:29 PM on January 16
I've told the story before, but I unwittingly hit on the singer Tiffany in the Bellevue, WA, Tower Records.
Penn Jillette once stepped on my toe in an HMV in Toronto. Of course, at TIFF one time I was making my way down a crowded row of seats and I trod on David Schwimmer’s foot, so there is at least a small chance I am part of a weird chain of some sort.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:39 PM on January 16 [5 favorites]
Penn Jillette once stepped on my toe in an HMV in Toronto. Of course, at TIFF one time I was making my way down a crowded row of seats and I trod on David Schwimmer’s foot, so there is at least a small chance I am part of a weird chain of some sort.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:39 PM on January 16 [5 favorites]
Seattle is a goldmine of lost places. I don't even live there, but I still mourn the loss of the Hurricane. I think it's Google Tower Number Z now or something on that lot.
posted by hippybear at 1:57 PM on January 16 [1 favorite]
posted by hippybear at 1:57 PM on January 16 [1 favorite]
I lived in Kyoto, Japan, about 20 years ago and I will go back to visit every couple of years. One might think that in a city famed for centuries old buildings that nothing much would change, and it is true that all of those buildings are still there, but the more recent ones, the ones where people actually go about their lives are surprisingly transient.
I left Kyoto in 2005, when I visited again in 2008 I found out that the house I had most recently lived in was demolished along with all the neighbouring ones. I also visited the previous house I lived in where I rented a room from an eccentric elderly man and found out through a neighbour that he had passed away although the 100+ year-old house was still there. Also a large multi-storey department store I used to shop at quite a bit (Kintetsu Platz) had been demolished as well. There was a fishmonger that had a stall in a local grocery store and he spoke a bit of English and we'd chat because there weren't many foreigners that lived in the area. The first couple of times I came back he was still there and I'd say hi, but then when I visited in 2015 the grocery store was gone.
Every time I go back something else is gone, replaced with something new, and it isn't even that the place that is gone was anything great or special, just that it was a connection to a past life, a past me, and confirmation that I can't go back again. When I last went back in 2022 I didn't even go to my old neighbourhoods because to me they don't exist any more and my plan for that visit was to get a rail pass and see stuff outside of Kyoto that I didn't get a chance to before. On my last full day we were meeting up with people around the main train station and after that I stuck around to get some souvenirs while my family went back to my in-laws' place and that little bit of walking through the shopping arcades and department stores, even if the shops weren't the same ones they weren't different either, made me wish that for my next trip back I could just spend a couple of days wandering around the city but I'm pretty sure my kids would mutiny after the first half-hour.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:00 PM on January 16 [6 favorites]
I left Kyoto in 2005, when I visited again in 2008 I found out that the house I had most recently lived in was demolished along with all the neighbouring ones. I also visited the previous house I lived in where I rented a room from an eccentric elderly man and found out through a neighbour that he had passed away although the 100+ year-old house was still there. Also a large multi-storey department store I used to shop at quite a bit (Kintetsu Platz) had been demolished as well. There was a fishmonger that had a stall in a local grocery store and he spoke a bit of English and we'd chat because there weren't many foreigners that lived in the area. The first couple of times I came back he was still there and I'd say hi, but then when I visited in 2015 the grocery store was gone.
Every time I go back something else is gone, replaced with something new, and it isn't even that the place that is gone was anything great or special, just that it was a connection to a past life, a past me, and confirmation that I can't go back again. When I last went back in 2022 I didn't even go to my old neighbourhoods because to me they don't exist any more and my plan for that visit was to get a rail pass and see stuff outside of Kyoto that I didn't get a chance to before. On my last full day we were meeting up with people around the main train station and after that I stuck around to get some souvenirs while my family went back to my in-laws' place and that little bit of walking through the shopping arcades and department stores, even if the shops weren't the same ones they weren't different either, made me wish that for my next trip back I could just spend a couple of days wandering around the city but I'm pretty sure my kids would mutiny after the first half-hour.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:00 PM on January 16 [6 favorites]
I found that if you use Zillow to explore places you used to live you can often see interior photos of homes from the last time they were on the MLS. It's amusing (and occasionally horrifying) to look at the inside of places you haven't seen since you were 10 and see how they've changed. (Or not. Sometimes it's not the place that has changed, it's you.)
posted by maxwelton at 2:06 PM on January 16 [2 favorites]
posted by maxwelton at 2:06 PM on January 16 [2 favorites]
On the Japan theme, I went back to Japan last year after 20+ years away.
The Akihabara I saw in the 90s has basically disappeared, it's fitting that the old T-Zone store (back in the late 90s they had an entire floor set up to support DIY PC building a la Fry's) is now a Don Quijote.
Speaking of which, pour out one for your favorite Fry's! Prior to Newegg / Amazon expanding to electronics, that was my jam.
posted by torokunai at 2:17 PM on January 16
The Akihabara I saw in the 90s has basically disappeared, it's fitting that the old T-Zone store (back in the late 90s they had an entire floor set up to support DIY PC building a la Fry's) is now a Don Quijote.
Speaking of which, pour out one for your favorite Fry's! Prior to Newegg / Amazon expanding to electronics, that was my jam.
posted by torokunai at 2:17 PM on January 16
Penn Jillette once stepped on my toe in an HMV in Toronto. Of course, at TIFF one time I was making my way down a crowded row of seats and I trod on David Schwimmer’s foot, so there is at least a small chance I am part of a weird chain of some sort.
Tarantino will want in on this.
posted by maxwelton at 2:56 PM on January 16 [2 favorites]
Tarantino will want in on this.
posted by maxwelton at 2:56 PM on January 16 [2 favorites]
My last visit to Japan was in 2004. We stayed at the Sofitel near Ueno Park, which was demolished 2 years later, only 12 years after its completion.
I live in Las Vegas, where the temporary nature of places/architecture is on full display.
But the place I would go back to, given the chance, is my grandmother's house.
posted by bgrebs at 3:27 PM on January 16 [1 favorite]
I live in Las Vegas, where the temporary nature of places/architecture is on full display.
But the place I would go back to, given the chance, is my grandmother's house.
posted by bgrebs at 3:27 PM on January 16 [1 favorite]
across the street was Other Music. That's where the cool kids shopped.
Other Music
posted by Miko at 3:46 PM on January 16 [4 favorites]
Other Music
posted by Miko at 3:46 PM on January 16 [4 favorites]
Nice bgrebs. One of my grandparents house is still there. My house got McMansioned.
posted by Windopaene at 7:11 PM on January 16
posted by Windopaene at 7:11 PM on January 16
Penn Jillette once stepped on my toe in an HMV in Toronto.
His hair was perfect.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:38 PM on January 16 [7 favorites]
His hair was perfect.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:38 PM on January 16 [7 favorites]
One of these, Kim's Video, has a happy ending!
Harvey says in the end of her story about Kim's that "the current whereabouts of the video collection is unknown". Not true - the collection was taken over by the Lower Manhattan branch of Alamo Drafthouse, and is back to being available for rent.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:58 PM on January 16 [1 favorite]
Harvey says in the end of her story about Kim's that "the current whereabouts of the video collection is unknown". Not true - the collection was taken over by the Lower Manhattan branch of Alamo Drafthouse, and is back to being available for rent.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:58 PM on January 16 [1 favorite]
The wikipedia article on solastalgia fittingly links to this place where both past and future went up in smoke, leaving only a liminal present. It remains unnerving to miss a turn where the landmarks are gone and find yourself somewhere incomprehensible, where you know you've been except here isn't here anymore. To answer the artist's query, the Florence Styles room in the genealogical library, a sort of View-Master for all that came before.
More personally, my corner of these woods circa 1940, the gold miner's home, his godson's cabin, the hill behind me before it was subdivided, above and across from me before they were harvested. To better understand and steward this ground I walk, that this remnant of ancestral forest carries on.
posted by backwoods at 9:23 PM on January 16 [1 favorite]
More personally, my corner of these woods circa 1940, the gold miner's home, his godson's cabin, the hill behind me before it was subdivided, above and across from me before they were harvested. To better understand and steward this ground I walk, that this remnant of ancestral forest carries on.
posted by backwoods at 9:23 PM on January 16 [1 favorite]
Hippybear: I still mourn that the Hurricane used to be the Dog House. So many late, late (late!) nights and early mornings spent there.
posted by pdb at 9:33 PM on January 16 [2 favorites]
posted by pdb at 9:33 PM on January 16 [2 favorites]
I first had a look at this site on my phone, but, it's really worthwhile to check it out on a bigger screen. Beautiful paintings especially when viewed "full size" and the painting descriptions are fascinating.
disappointedtourist.org/ukraine/ Requested by so many people verbally. No one could decide on any one location. In the context of the other works, it struck me as a stark reminder of the ongoing destruction of that country's built culture.
posted by UN at 12:39 AM on January 17
disappointedtourist.org/ukraine/ Requested by so many people verbally. No one could decide on any one location. In the context of the other works, it struck me as a stark reminder of the ongoing destruction of that country's built culture.
posted by UN at 12:39 AM on January 17
No one could decide on any one location.
Surely it would have to be the theatre in Mariupol.
posted by rory at 2:18 AM on January 17
Surely it would have to be the theatre in Mariupol.
posted by rory at 2:18 AM on January 17
Great project, and a great word in solastalgia. A few years ago I spent a lot of time scanning my old 35mm negatives from the 1980s and 1990s and turning them into web galleries, and man was the solastalgia strong. All of those buildings and landmarks and places—and cars and fashions and faces—trapped in their time, never to be seen again; but by turning them into photographic time capsules I could revisit them whenever I wanted. The ability to revisit them has been welcome, but making the galleries was intense.
The solastalgia was especially strong looking at photos of Christchurch NZ pre-earthquakes and London before most of its skyscrapers went up, but also for the little places: the streets in cities I've lived in that look different now, and the house I grew up in that was surrounded with fields at the time and is now surrounded by houses. Everything around us changes, but we carry its history within us.
posted by rory at 2:35 AM on January 17 [2 favorites]
The solastalgia was especially strong looking at photos of Christchurch NZ pre-earthquakes and London before most of its skyscrapers went up, but also for the little places: the streets in cities I've lived in that look different now, and the house I grew up in that was surrounded with fields at the time and is now surrounded by houses. Everything around us changes, but we carry its history within us.
posted by rory at 2:35 AM on January 17 [2 favorites]
Wow, that turned into a time suck as bad as TV Tropes. I was disappointed when it occurred to me and that the content was finite. Saving some for later.
posted by Mitheral at 5:30 AM on January 17
posted by Mitheral at 5:30 AM on January 17
Penn Jillette once stepped on my toe in an HMV in Toronto.
His hair was perfect.
Oh, far from it; this was like 1989 or so. It was the old Forehead Puff/Ponytail Mullet deal.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:45 AM on January 17
His hair was perfect.
Oh, far from it; this was like 1989 or so. It was the old Forehead Puff/Ponytail Mullet deal.
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posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:45 AM on January 17
It's amusing (and occasionally horrifying) to look at the inside of places you haven't seen since you were 10 and see how they've changed.
Doesn't even need to be that long. I experienced this with the house I grew up in, which my parents kept living in until they downsized when I was in my thirties. The new owners went to town on the interiors and flipped it a couple of years later, and when it was for sale I saw the realtor's photos on the web. Some friends asked me what it was like, seeing my old (century-old) home with garish mid-2000s decor. After a moment's thought, I replied, "Like seeing an old family dog after the kids have played dress-ups with it."
posted by rory at 7:14 AM on January 17
Doesn't even need to be that long. I experienced this with the house I grew up in, which my parents kept living in until they downsized when I was in my thirties. The new owners went to town on the interiors and flipped it a couple of years later, and when it was for sale I saw the realtor's photos on the web. Some friends asked me what it was like, seeing my old (century-old) home with garish mid-2000s decor. After a moment's thought, I replied, "Like seeing an old family dog after the kids have played dress-ups with it."
posted by rory at 7:14 AM on January 17
Mine is the Albion Hotel in Guelph, Ontario, which was in continuous business serving beer from 1867 to 2020. The hotel part of it upstairs lasted until the 1990s. That was my local watering hole during the decade I lived in Guelph. A week didn't go by that I wasn't at the Albion at least once.
In 2020 it was bought bought by a guy with dreams of turning it into a "speakeasy" that serves fancy expensive cocktails, and it has been closed for "renovations" ever since. He killed a tavern that was always packed and was so beloved it was locally referred to as the "centre of the universe". The latest news is the guy now plans to turn it into a combination Arthurian-themed board game café and speakeasy.
Bah.
Just give me back my crusty old tavern.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:47 AM on January 17 [2 favorites]
In 2020 it was bought bought by a guy with dreams of turning it into a "speakeasy" that serves fancy expensive cocktails, and it has been closed for "renovations" ever since. He killed a tavern that was always packed and was so beloved it was locally referred to as the "centre of the universe". The latest news is the guy now plans to turn it into a combination Arthurian-themed board game café and speakeasy.
Bah.
Just give me back my crusty old tavern.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:47 AM on January 17 [2 favorites]
Is there still a Tower Records in Dublin? Is that the last Tower Records store?
posted by thivaia at 9:40 AM on January 17
posted by thivaia at 9:40 AM on January 17
In 2020 it was bought bought by a guy with dreams of turning it into a "speakeasy" that serves fancy expensive cocktails, and it has been closed for "renovations" ever since.
The nature of the pandemic means a lot of curiously extended “renovations” are happening or have happened. The erstwhile Victorian-era Spadina Hotel in Toronto, latterly a youth hostel hight Global Village, and most recently a coffee shop — the lobby area, at least — has had signs up in the windows for some time announcing they will finish the renovations and look forward to serving you again in May of 2020. Er…
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:26 AM on January 17
The nature of the pandemic means a lot of curiously extended “renovations” are happening or have happened. The erstwhile Victorian-era Spadina Hotel in Toronto, latterly a youth hostel hight Global Village, and most recently a coffee shop — the lobby area, at least — has had signs up in the windows for some time announcing they will finish the renovations and look forward to serving you again in May of 2020. Er…
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:26 AM on January 17
Yeah. That guy is regularly in the local news saying he is making such great headway on his renos and will open sometime soon, any day now, 2024 fer sure.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:15 AM on January 17
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:15 AM on January 17
Is that the last Tower Records store?
No, one of the first things Tower did when they started losing money was spin off their Japanese operation. This 2020 Mixmag article says there's 85 Tower Records stores there.
posted by Rash at 11:25 AM on January 17
No, one of the first things Tower did when they started losing money was spin off their Japanese operation. This 2020 Mixmag article says there's 85 Tower Records stores there.
posted by Rash at 11:25 AM on January 17
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posted by queensissy at 10:07 AM on January 16 [1 favorite]