Even those of you who don’t feel as strongly about your morning cup of joe as I do can understand why this photograph would catch my eye!
Bedford Coffee Pot, Bedford, PA. HAER Photo by Joseph Elliott, 1999. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.pa3962/photos.202872p
Just imagine the thousands of cups of coffee it could hold! The Bedford Coffee Pot no longer dishes out coffee along the Lincoln Highway in Pennsylvania, but it certainly makes me crave a cup. (Happily, the unique structure, shown in hard times in the above photo, has been restored and moved to the Bedford County Fairgrounds.)
Scattered throughout the holdings of the Prints and Photographs Division are more examples of what is called programmatic or mimetic architecture, where the shape of the building is often the clue to what is sold inside. Need a donut to go with that cup of coffee? Drive through the The Donut Hole in La Puente, California. (Still satisfying L.A. County’s sweet tooth today!)
The Donut Hole drive-through stand in La Puenta, Ca. Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, between 1980 and 2006. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/highsm.15467
Mimetic architecture is all about catching the eye of a person driving down the highway and bringing in business, so it’s no surprise photos of these structures are so engaging. Check out a few other examples from our collections below, some of which are still in operation today while others exist only in memory. Feel free to share your own favorites in the comments!
Do you need:
- Postage stamps? In 1961, you could step up to the giant mailbox in Times Square! (I’m sure we would all send more mail if we could visit one of these to do it.)
- A cup of lemonade? Visit the Jumbo Lemon Booth of 1925.
- Slice of watermelon? The Melon Patch could help you in 1930.
- Glass of milk or a scoop of ice cream? The structure now known as the Hood Milk Bottle sells ice cream outside Boston Children’s Museum now, much as it did for many years in its original home in Taunton, Mass.
- Fried clams? Stop by the Clam Box Restaurant in Ipswich, Mass., shaped like its namesake.
- Cup of tea? Going further back, the 1907 Jamestown Exposition featured the ‘biggest tea-pot on earth’, where tea was served to visitors.