This will be the first of many posts where I’ll share the “news” from all the Google Street View Maps at my website. For those of you that might be new to this, I’ll include my photos and a snippet of whatever happened from the GSVM. I start with the small sections and work up to the mega sections (e.g., eateries, gas stations, signs, and midcentury modern buildings) at the end. I have powered through 341 pages so far. These sections are done: Paul Bunyans, Statue Collections, Tiki Buildings, Teepee Buildings, Egyptian Revival Buildings, Bottling Plants, and Fairy Tale & Santa Parks. There was, miraculously, nothing noteworthy enough to report from those sections. But I do have some things to report from some other sections.

From the Giant Containers section, here are some changes worth including. The former Grain Belt Beer bottle in St. Paul, MN was installed many decades ago and looked like this since at least the early 2000s:

From the 2024 StreetView: the bottle was repainted for the Clutch Brewing Co. It didn’t have the water droplets or three-dimensionality but it’s nice to see it got some love. The Clutch brewery opened in 2019 and closed in 2023. So, maybe this bottle will, too, become equally faded over the next many years:

This former Perky’s Espresso chain building in Lakewood, WA has been remodeled into a boring box with no coffee pot features. Here it is in 2016:

It’s been a bad year for milk cartons. This one in Mount Airy, NC is gone now:

And so is this one in Jacksonville, NC:

And so is this one Portland, OR:

And this one in Grand Forks, ND — also gone:

A couple of sad things to mention from the Bus Stations section. This building in Detroit, MI was demolished last year:

This former bus station in Lubbock, TX is now housing The City Church and this sign has been removed:

From the Drive-in Movie Theatre section: the screen tower at the Spud Drive-in in Driggs, ID was destroyed by a storm in 2022. However, there are still plans to rebuild and reopen later this year. I’m sure the screen tower won’t be this lovely old wooden structure though. The truck with the potatoes, missing from the property right now, will be restored.

This former drive-in sign was installed on private property in Miles City, MT when I shot it in 2022. It’s now gone. Maybe it was sold to someone else and will reappear someday:

Moving on to the Giant Food section. This apple in Winchester, VA might have been moved somewhere else in town:

This apple in Bayfield, WI is also missing:

This giant burger in Suring, WI is gone:

This Twistee Treat building in Bellaire, TX…:

… has been remodeled for a burger place:

From the Tire Store section: this sign in Russellville, AR is gone:

The former Firestone in Oakland, CA was adapted for a CVS drug store in 2015 and then closed in 2022:

It’s boarded up now and covered with graffiti:

Similarly, the boarded-up former Firestone in Toledo, OH looks like this now:

The former Firestone scaffold sign in Miami, FL is missing. Here’s the original sign:

When Walgreens moved into the building in 2001, they replaced the letters with their own:

StreetView shows the sign missing entirely. I’ve done much internet prowling but I haven’t been able to find out what happened. An internet friend suggested it might have been damaged during Hurricane Irma and removed. But Irma happened in 2017 and the sign on the roof still looked fine in 2023. I strongly doubt that it will be replaced:

Both of these neon Firestone signs in Minot, ND are gone now:

The Firestone Building in Albuquerque, NM has been adapted for the Ex Novo Brewing Co. which opened last year. Here’s one of my photos from 2021:

Street View doesn’t show the end result yet but the photos I’ve seen look much like this schematic:

And lastly: the Firestone neon scaffold sign in Akron, OH was removed in 2020 before the building was demolished:

It wound up moving about a block away at the “Advanced Tire Production Center” in town but it’s now LED and it just doesn’t have the elegance without the scaffolding:

There are still about 3,000 pages to go. So, there will be many, many posts to come. I’m hoping to be done with this project by the summer trip but maybe not.

Happy Trails,
dj & the dogs

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