Vanishing America: The End of Main Street Diners, Drive-Ins, Donut Shops, and Other Everyday Monuments

ISBN: 0847830403

Author: Eastman, Michael

Condition: New

Think of the quirky buildings you pass every day but whose quiet beauty you take for granted-the moviehouses, juke joints, soda fountains, barbershops, roadside diners, and storefront churches. You dont miss them until theyre gone. As suburban sprawl and strip malls conquer the country, these vestiges of a lost way of life are falling under the wrecking ball. Here the photographer Michael Eastman has made the ultimate road trip, crisscrossing the nation dozens of times, to capture these buildings on film before they vanish. These dreamy images call us to question what we choose to let go in the wake of contemporary life, with a cool melancholy that evokes the work of Edward Hopper, Jack Kerouac, and William Eggleston. There is a wry sense of humor here as well. The book delights in the idiosyncracies of Americas vernacular styles, ranging from Depression Deco to New England clapboard in random juxtapositions that accrue over time in a towns landscape. Countless visual puns arise among the books many detailed images of signs and statuettes. Vanishing America catalogues great everyday American architecture and design. But it also offers a provocative portrait of the silent emptiness that has descended upon vanishing small communities everywhere.