Old gas stations

Rob

 

That's a battle of neon rooftop signs going on right there. MINE'S BRIGHTER THAN YOURS.

 

And how absolutely iconic looking is that pickup truck.

 

Pity Conoco doesn't sell around here. I would like to try that "50,000 mile" motor oil.

 

Here is the Texaco in downtown Bennington back in 1930. This is a parking lot now.



And a Tydol not far away from my home in Pownal, which is now a private residence.

 

There is a crossroads in Fairfax City, Virginia, where there are two gas stations across the street from one another, same brand of gasoline.

The photo just above puts me in mind of a hot and lazy (and hazy) Sunday afternoon, the sort of day when you might have taken a "Sunday drive," up to the top of the mountain were there was a lookout (See four states!). Looking at a gas station like that, your first impression might be that it had seen better days but you would have been wrong. But it wouldn't see any better days ahead, either.

 

Rob

 

Not sure if the oil is still available, but the signs are easy to come by!

 

Are they suggesting you go 50,000 miles without an oil change?

You may not like cars today because they're expensive, complicated, lack power, are too big, are too small, and so on. But my father once commented that getting 75,000 miles out of an engine was something of an achievement.

 

Rob

 

One in middle in "as is" original condition.
Paid $30.

The one on the left and the right was told
that they were vintage "cookie-cutters" @ $5 each at an antique shop.

Tried to explain what they were but was
cut off and told..... "take it or leave it!"
So I got them.
I restored the one on the right.
The other, I'm keeping "as-is".

 

"Cookie cutters", lol.

Rob

 

He's just a little Art Deco gem form the lettering, the "box" shape to the wrap-around window.

Oh, and gotta love, what I assume is, the laundry line in the upper left - it's perfect.

 

Conoco's (or rather, ConocoPhillips's) current line of lubricants are sold under the "76" trademark, though "Super" is still a part of the name. It appears straight 30-weight is still available in the 76 Super line.

 

So far, this has been one of my favorite station photos.

Rob

 

It's an absolute gem - I'm with you.

 

As much as I love them, I wouldn't want
to live that close to one.

 

I love it for its iconography, but it doesn't bother me in real life either. We live in the not-rich-person's part of the Upper East Side of NYC and we still see a few clothing lines with clothes drying on them from our windows. For me, it's a fun throwback that actually makes me feel good in the same way the old water towers I see make me feel good - they are all a touch to the GE / to the past / to old New York.

I'm always thrown whey you change your avatar because, then, sometimes I forget it is you posting since I'm so used to you using your prior one.

 

I rather identify, if that's the word, with the one underneath (Bodfish store) as well as a couple of other ones. It speaks of a time before interstate highways and when there was more going on, so to speak, in the more rural parts of our country. These days, however, except within commuting distance of the larger cities, the countryside has become depopulated and the small stores that used to be found here and there have closed up shop. But it may be that such places have disappeared for other reasons, such as the lack of traffic. The population of the country is greater than ever, so the people most be living somewhere. But you see evidence of what I'm speaking of everywhere, including in places that have even a great increase in population. Tiny gas stations, general stores, "tourist camps," and old farms with a tumble down barn and silo, even an old school building here and there. I could even add abandoned company stores, mining tipples, railroad tracks that haven't had a railroad car pass by in decades, the remains of company camps with only the foundations of the houses remaining among the weeds, if you know where to look, abandoned factories, old car dealerships for cars that haven't been manufactured in 50 years, abandoned roadside attractions, overgrown "waysides," motels and restaurants that have been bypassed when the interstate was finished.

Modern times.