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

by Michael Eastman, William H. Gass, Douglas Brinkley (Introduction)

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 don’t miss them until they’re 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 America’s vernacular styles, ranging from Depression Deco to New England clapboard in random juxtapositions that accrue over time in a town’s landscape. Countless visual puns arise among the book’s 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.

Genres: Photography, Nonfiction, Architecture, Art, Travel, American

192 pages, Hardcover

First published April 29, 2008

Reviews

[Sheri · Rating 2 out of 5]

Images of Americana before it was replaced by modern design and a technology-driven society. Rarely nostalgic, these everyday scenes showcase forgotten details and are more of a look at how far we've come in style, taste, and money.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Photographer Michael Eastman crisscrossed America taking pictures of buildings falling into ruin. Published in 2008, the evocative pictures showcase declining downtowns with businesses that have been abandoned, but remnants of their former glory remain. The locations are listed alongside the photo, with a few sidenotes if the building has since been demolished or in New Orleans if the picture was taken before or after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The photographs are grouped into categories, with an opening essay for each chapter- theatres, churches, hangouts, doors, signs, stores, automobiles, hotels and restaurants.

My favs- art deco 355 sign, couches at Paramount Theatre, rainbow building in Ft. Wayne IN (have passed this building visiting my in-laws), many of the care-worn building murals, cabin motels in Idaho, Burlesque at the Beach in Coney Island, and Hilltop Grocery in CA.

CNN Money featured Eastman's book and eleven of his photos at: https://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/...

[David Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still lifes, without people, of charming and/or decrepit storefronts from around America, especially the photographer's native St. Louis. You'll know from the description whether that appeals to you. I liked it. Not high art, but not gimmicky -- just a sober meditation on America, commerce and transience.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

an anthology of America's loneliness, cobwebbed symbols of our small town past, I've been to towns like these and seen these abandoned Main streets and store fronts and something about it is magical and so utterly depressing and melancholy at the same time.

[DoctorM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely, haunting photographs from dying or abandoned businesses and towns all across America. Eastman's photos call up so many road trips from my youth, so many memories of back roads and out of the way towns. Wonderfully evocative book.

[Kirsten Hively · Rating 5 out of 5]

the photos in this book are amazing and inspirational--more like portraits of buildings and rooms than standard architectural photos. people are entirely absent, which lends the photos even more of a melancholy air than the peeling paint and faded carpets.

the photos are organized by typologies: theaters, churches, hangouts, doors, signs, stores, services, automobiles, hotels, and restaurants, which highlights variations on the themes as well as the themes themselves, and helps the feeling of narrative that is strong despite the lack of text (other than a short forward and location captions).

small quibble: I wish they had left white space between the smaller photos--jamming them up against each other is confusing and doesn't do them justice. some of the photos are more compelling than others, but overall this is a book I'm going to return to over and over.

[Angie McCrae · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vanishing America is a beautifully illustrated book depicting photographs by Michael Eastman of a diminishing America. Eastman traveled the country capturing the architecture and design of small-town America as it surrenders to suburban growth and outlet malls. This look back in time documents the way of life once lived and the sign of times ahead.

Among the photographs are diners, drive-in theaters, movie houses, mom and pop general stores, roadside diners, barbershops, bowling alleys, bars, recording studios, churches, schools, hotels, restaurants, gas stations, vintage signs and advertisement statuettes, some forlorn and deserted but still operating; most abandoned and left to crumble with passage of time or the work of a wrecking ball.

[Neo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I may have to spend more time with the book and reconsider this rating. I like the subject matter, of course, but I feel that while the images here are good, they somehow don't hit me the way I expected them to. Almost as if they are too predictable, or too obviously composed, or something.

[Jolie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent visual road trip through rural Americana.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating. Awesome pictures and brief set-up stories.

[Katherine]

THIS. IS. AMAZING. All my Flickr friends will want this, it's just the kind of stuff we're into.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Photography books do not really sell so the quality of the paper and binding are sub-standard.

[Marissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subjects far and away outshine the photographs for the most part in this book, but it's always interesting to have a window into the beautiful dying buildings of America.

[Kelley Tackett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love big picture books. Great pictures.

[Mike Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and haunting book - full review here

http://0651frombrighton.blogspot.co.u...

[Scott Wood · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't find the photos particularly inspiring, and the commentary, as is typical of these sorts of works, is overly cynical and haughty.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neat photography book - pictures of parts of America that are disappearing.