Wednesday, September 30, 2009

South Calhoun Street, Fort Wayne, Indiana

By special request from Kevin over at Urban Indy, this is a post following South Calhoun Street in Fort Wayne from Rudisill to Murray Street, which is right before the overpass that leads you into downtown. It's an eclectic stretch full of great old buildings and signs and now with a mix of ethnicities breathing life into it. (click photos for larger image)


At 3702 S. Calhoun is Southside Vacuum, in business since 1947!

This building at 2730 S. Calhoun is the Calhoun Street Emporium. We love the top of the building where the name Leland is with 19 and 23 on either side of it.

At the Pontiac and S. Calhoun intersection, we liked the detail at the top of this building.


We couldn't tell what this rusty round thing on the side of the Rialto Theatre was from the street but, from the picture, we see that it reads "police alarm".


The gorgeous Rialto Theatre has had many lives. Right now, a non-profit is in the midst of restoring it into the "Rialto World Cafe and Cultural Center- a gathering place to engage and serve the growing international community".


This is a detail at the top of the building right next to the Rialto which is the store Finders Keepers.

And this is the wide shot of the Finders Keepers building at 2608 S. Calhoun. You can see both eagles at the upper corners.


At 2124 S. Calhoun is the adorable City Glass shop.

At 2302 S. Calhoun is Mannie's Place which Manta.com says was established in 1948.

We loved the look of the Mungovan and Sons Mortuary at 2221 S. Calhoun.

OK, St. Patrick's church is actually on Harrison, not Calhoun, but it was so gorgeous seen from the mortuary parking lot that we had to include a couple of pictures.


Hopefully something will go into this building at the corner of S. Calhoun and W. Masterson.
The Oyster Bar Restaurant building at 1830 S. Calhoun is so cute that we have to show 2 views.




We adore the people behind Calhoun Street Salads and Spirits for making this building look so good!

We had to take a picture of the public phone outside of Saigon Restaurant because they are a rarity now and will probably soon be obsolete.
We love old advertisements painted on the sides of buildings. This one was at Dewald and S. Calhoun.
The gorgeous Troy Laundry building at 1717 S. Calhoun which, according to this site, was built in 1914 and is one of only 3 remaining buildings in Fort Wayne with a glazed terra cotta facade (one of the other ones is the Rialto).

We loved the look of this building at S. Calhoun and Murray Street but had no idea what the HBC at the top meant. It turns out that it stands for Holsum Baking Company.

5 comments:

Kevin said...

Very nice, thank you. I can't believe I've never been down there, but my parents seem content with staying up in the northern burbs.

R. said...

Very nice! I think the "City Glass" sign is my favorite.

WYA! said...

Thanks guys.

AmericanDirt said...

So glad you got to tour this great neighborhood in the Fort. Since you also dabble in ethnic restaurants, did you try the Burmese place in the area?

WYA! said...

The Burmese place has been on our "get to" list for awhile but we haven't made it there yet.