The County Seat: The World's Largest Rocking Chair of Amity, Indiana

We took a pleasant detour off the Interstate between Indianapolis and Louisville into the pretty little community of Franklin, Indiana. Just south of there is the even smaller village of Amity and, although it's a dinky town, they do have a very big thing to offer. Two big things in fact. Long's Furniture World is home to Big John, the world's largest rocking chair. They also have a very large chest of drawers that serves as their front entrance. Let's see... a big chest and a big seat. I know there's a crude master-of-ceremonies-at-a-bachelor-party joke in there somewhere. As is often the case with declaring your whatever-it-is the "world's largest," this example is not without controversy. Fanning U.S. 66 Outpost & General Store in the Route 66 town of Fanning, Mo., installed a 42-foot-tall rocking chair in 2008. This surpasses Big John by probably 10 feet (I can't seem to find any Big John stats online). But we won't quibble...Big John is the largest chair we've ever seen, and it's especially stark against the flat Indiana farm landscape. We love places like this that get you miles off the highway to see the real America in all its eccentric banality and splendor. Keep on rockin' in the free world, Amity!

Aye carumba! Burritos As Big As Your Head in Chicago

"Can I take your order?"
"Yes, I'd like the burrito as big as my head, with the enchilada as big as my sternum, the chalupa as big as my patella, and a side of the chimichanga as big as my medulla oblongata."

Saw this place out the window of the Untouchables bus tour window in Chicago and had to snap a picture. I love the expression on the lady's face. Looks like the burrito as big as her head she just ate is doing a Mexican hat dance in her stomach right now.

Another Fine Ness: Chicago's Untouchables Tour

Site of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre

Where John Dilliger saw his last movie

The alley where he was shot

One hilarious photo op after another

We haven't had a chance to see the new Johnny Depp movie "Public Enemies" yet, but we did take Chicago's Untouchables Tour recently. It's a two-hour guided bus ride that goes past key sites from the movie and other must-see crime scenes from Chicago's checkered past. Very entertaining too, as led by our two tour guides dolled up in the glad rags of a couple of 1930s tough mugs. They explain what a Chicago overcoat is (a coffin) and a Chicago typewriter (a sub-machine gun) while driving past famous crime scenes such as where the St. Valentine's Day Massacre occurred (an empty lot today). The Biograph Theater, where John Dilliger took in his last picture show before taking a powder courtesy of Uncle Sam in the alley next door, is especially impressive. It has been lovingly and authentically restored to just how it looked in 1934 when Dillinger was given a case of lead poisoning by the G-Men waiting for him, and was used in the Johnny Depp movie. So take it from me, it's a great tour and I won't soft-soap ya for the love of Mike, it's a fine how do you do, you can bet yer bottom dollar, sez who? sez me!

Mortar-fied: Bondurant's Pharmacy of Lexington, Kentucky

Lexington, Kentucky has a lot of pretty horse country with beautiful green fields and white fences. If you're a horse, this is where you want to be. Lexington also has a really great eccentric roadside attraction: a pharmacy in the shape of a giant mortar and pestle. Bondurant's Pharmacy sits in a shopping plaza parking lot and is an oasis from the boring box stores that dot so much of the landscape. It's 30 feet tall and 32 feet in diameter, and the pestle protrudes another 10 feet. Here's what the Bondurant's website has to say about it:

The giant round building with the ball on the top has been helping the residents of Lexington feel better since 1974. Nowadays, Eric Brewer owns and manages Bondurant’s which got its name from Joe Bondurant, a man who loved big ideas. After a trip to Las Vegas, Mr. Bondurant – already a pharmacist – decided to make his dream come true, a pharmacy shaped like a mortar and pestle. Eric and his family also have an earlier role in Bondurant’s history. “My dad built the model of this place using an old Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket.”

The parking lot behind the structure has a few eccentric relics: a drive-in theater-like speaker system where customers would park their cars. The pharmacist would announce when the customers' prescriptions were ready over the intercom. Customers would then come to the pick up window for their drugs. This is curious, since the store also has drive-up windows. Did the speaker system precede the drive-up? Or could you do both? And did they show coming attractions while you were waiting for your Erythromiacin? They stopped using the speaker system in 2000 as the decaying paint job will attest and this just adds to the glorious yesteryear look and feel of the place.

This is an admirable roadside structure, especially since it's from the '70s and not the '30s, the hey-day for buildings shaped like big things. Even the backyard speaker system was behind the times when they built it, as drive-in theaters were already beginning to fade by then. And my favorite feature about this place is the fact that there is a 2nd-floor apartment for the pharmacist, although it's never been used for that. What pharmacist wouldn't want to live in a giant mortar and pestle?

They say it's your birthday: Louisville, Kentucky's "Happy Birthday To You" song plaque

I'm not sure this is what the Hill sisters had in mind.

Before we leave that great stretch of Louisville, Kentucky's Main Street that has the giant Louisville Slugger and Caufield Novelty Company bat (see previous post), there's one more eccentric roadside attraction nestled in between those two that I don't want to leave out. Underneath the overpass of Interstate 64 and attached to a parking lot sits a plaque in honor of two kindergarten-teaching sisters from Louisville who composed the "Happy Birthday To You" song. Patty and Mildred Hill wrote a tune in 1893 called "Good Morning to All" that was easy for their young students to sing. It had the melody of what later became "Happy Birthday To You," which first appeared as a song in print in 1912. In 1924, "Good Morning to All," with "Happy Birthday to You" printed as an optional second verse, was published. Oddly, the song was copyrighted much later in 1932 but with Preston Ware Orem and Mrs. R.R. Forman as the composers. A third Hill sister, Jessica, believing that Patty and Mildred should have the credit and profit for the now very popular song, fought for and won legal copyright to her sisters for their song, and it was officially published in 1935 as "Happy Birthday." In 1990, Warner Chappell purchased the company owning the copyright for $15 million, with the value of "Happy Birthday" estimated at $5 million. This company charges as much as $10,000 every time the song is used in movies, TV and recordings, or performed live commercially. The current copyright doesn't elapse until 2030. This explains why the waitstaff at TGIFridays doesn't sing the Happy Birthday song but some other tune like Yankee Doodle with birthday lyrics to your Grampa Joe on his big day. I'm not sure why the plaque was placed in such an odd spot. There doesn't seem to be much foot traffic through here and cars driving by will never notice it if they don't know its here already. Perhaps their kindergarten was in this spot all those years ago. So the next time your friends and loved-ones favor you with "Happy Birthday To You," the world's longest song when it's in your honor and you've got nowhere to look but the cake, remember the Hill sisters of Louisville.

Going batty in Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville, Kentucky is home to what all seekers of eccentric roadside attractions love the most, the world's biggest whatever. Actually the world's two biggest whatevers, in this case bats. The baseball kind and the vampire kind. The Hillerich & Bradsby Co. are the proud makers of the Louisville Slugger baseball bat, now in its 125th year. In 1995, they placed the world's biggest baseball bat outside their new company headquarters on Main Street, all 125 feet of it. You don't have to be a baseball fan to see they really knocked it out of the park with this one. It leans surreally against their staid brick building with their burned-in logo on the side of the bat the size of 2 full-grown adults. Inside they have a really big baseball glove, too, but we didn't get a chance to see it as we got there after closing. Next door, the Kentucky Mirror & Plate Glass Company headquarters gets into the act with their rendition of a giant baseball smashing through a window. They go together like peanuts and Cracker Jacks. Less than a mile down the road Caulfield's Novelty Company keeps the bat theme going, albeit in their own kooky Halloween-and-novelty-supply-warehouse way. They're one of the largest theatrical distributors in the nation, actively stocking 1000’s of items including party supplies, hats, wigs, makeup, and, one would assume, fake vomit, too. To compliment the Louisville Slugger down the road, they've got a big scary vampire bat hanging upside down from their spacious headquarters. And bat's the way it is in Louisville.

Holiday Inn's new logo and signage: Inn-excusable

The late, great Holiday Inn sign

Looking out the back of the station wagon with a Holiday Inn sign on the horizon... life is sweet!

The interim sign from the 1980s-2000's: corporate but still a little kitschy.

The new signage (ZZZZzzzzzzz, snore)

Nice motel, really boring signage.

They still had the old logo on their deluxe coffee cups inside, though.

A reworked old gem.

An homage to the master.

We had a very pleasant stay at a Holiday Inn hotel near Chicago's O'Hare airport recently. Nice room, great service, friendly staff, terrific internet deal on the rate, quiet, clean. No complaints at all. Well... almost. It seems the InterContinental Hotels Group which owns the chain has begun what they call a world-wide relaunch of the brand that includes a redesign of their logo and signage. There are some things that should just never be redesigned. The Mona Lisa. The Taj Mahal. The Holiday Inn sign. When the chain began in the 1950s, road travellers were beckoned by a giant green and yellow gleaming 42-foot tall monolith with a friendly hand-written-looking script typeface and a chaser-bulbed arrow topped with a shining neon star to lead you to to the comfort and luxury of the best motel chain on the open highway. When you saw that sign you just had to ooh and ahh. It was a true American icon blinking you in the face. In the 1980s, they did away with the big signs for a more contemporary backlit box, but they kept that distinctive script, to remind you of those comfortable kitschy American roots. But now it seems even the script is gone, replaced by a bland sans-serif typeface suitable for any generic purpose. Bring it back, oh please bring it back. Doing away with that old logo is Inn-considerate, Inn-correct, Inn-comprehensible, Inn-defensible, and, well, you get the idea.

Steeped in eccentriciTEA: The World's Largest Teapot of Chester, West Virginia

Downtown Chester, West Virginia

If you don't care for tea, there's always The Coffee Pot of Bedford, Pennsylvania

I like states with panhandles. They're kinda kooky. Florida has so much coastline...did they really have to rob more of the Gulf from poor Alabama? And couldn't Oklahoma and Texas have reached some geometric agreement and squared each other off? The goofiest panhandle of all is West Virginia's, though. It's a tall spindly thing that begs the question "What kind of cooking implement has a crazy handle like this?" It's almost as though West Virginia said to eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, "if you two can't get along, I'll separate you, so help me." At the very tip of the West Virginia handle sits the little town of Chester and a truly great eccentric roadside attraction: a wooden structure that bills itself as the World's Largest Teapot. It dates back to 1938 when it was originally an over-sized barrel for a Hire's Root Beer advertising campaign. A fellow named William "Babe" Devon bought it and added the spout and handle to it and used it to promote his pottery store in Chester, selling concessions and souvenirs inside the teapot. It changed hands many times and fell into disrepair and abandonment until a local committee saved it from demolition and began a full-blown restoration in 1987. Red tape persisted for several more years until it was finally completed and returned to its original splendor in 1990 and was moved to a prime spot of real estate at the intersection of Routes 2 and 30 with some lovely landscaping. It got another facelift in 2007 by the Hampton Hotels Save-A-Landmark program. God bless these people for keeping these bits of Americana alive and making a trip down the open road that much more fun. Letting a lovable place like this fade away would be a trageTEA.

Dean Martin's hometown: When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that's Steubenville, Ohio.

The one and only Dino, Steubenville's favorite son

The one and only Dino mural

Conveniently located next to Kroger's Supermarket

There's Dino fun to be had at the Steubenville Visitors Center

You're nobody til Tom Tom loves you

Dean Martin Blvd.

Dean Martin Blvd.

Steubenville has some first-class murals

Nobody was a cooler entertainer than Dean Martin. For decades he was everyone's favorite breezy, tux-wearing, skirt-chasing, pseudo-drunk crooner. He was the guy with the "who cares?" attitude that Frank Sinatra always tried to be like but was too intense a person to pull off. You would have expected him to have been from a swingin' cosmopolitan place like New York or Chicago, but he was born and raised in the unlikely industrial rustbelt town of Steubenville in eastern-most Ohio, not too far from Pittsburgh on the Ohio river. Wikipedia says "During its heyday in the period of the 1940s-60s, Steubenville was popularly known as "Little Chicago," a nickname that, on the one hand, evoked the city's prolific industry and downtown bustle, while on the other hand suggesting Steubenville's reputation for crime, gambling, and corruption." The town today is a hardscrabble yet earnest place, trying to beautify and better itself despite some hard times (and what smells like the fumes from a chemical processing plant in the air). It has Fort Steuben, a strategic camp from the post-Revolutionary era. It also has 25 beautiful murals painted on the outside of downtown buildings. Really nice ones. But Dino is still the main attraction here. His mural is the nicest and it's next to the Kroger's Supermarket, where everybody can see it. And they've renamed a stretch of Rt. 7, the main drag, Dean Martin Boulevard. It doesn't pass by glamorous casinos and nightclubs, though...just smoky power plants and rusty steel bridges, but, hey, they did the best they could. And if you're in the area this Thursday through Sunday (June 18-21), they're having their yearly Dean Martin Festival, which should be a gasser, pallie, a real gasser. Everybody loves somebody sometime.

Camping along the Ohio River: The scenery is here, wish you were beautiful

We took a long drive on Route 7 along the Ohio River near the West Virginia panhandle, where one side of the river is West Virginia and the other side is Ohio. The mighty Ohio is a pretty river dotted with some decidedly unpretty coal and nuclear power plants. I'd never driven past a nuke plant before and somehow never imaged they'd be right by the side of the road, belching God knows what into the air. And in a scene right out of The Simpsons, there were a smattering of campers and RVs parked along the Ohio, overlooking the 3-Mile Island-like view on the West Virginia side. Happy campers, all.

I got you Abe: Souvenirs from the Land-O-Lincoln

Abe's head on a stick, anyone?

Lincoln beard (no shaving required)

Lincoln mask (fool your friends!)

Who wants nuts?

Technically, these aren't Lincoln souvenirs,

but Civil War knickknacks don't come any creepier.

Lincoln and a big fan.

The sticker on the plate reads "Note for Food Use: Food Consumed from this Vessel May Be Harmful". In other words, it's for lookin', not cookin'.

Abe-pod.

What friend or loved-one wouldn't want one of the fine Abraham Lincoln mementos offered by the splendid gift and souvenir emporiums of Springfield, Illinois?

A fading ad sampler

Times Square

Chicago

Dwight, Illinois

Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville, Kentucky

New York City

Akron, Ohio

Odeon, Illinois

Akron, Ohio

I've been following Frank Jump's excellent Fading Ad Blog for some time now and it inspired me to shoot some buildings with signs painted on them in various states of repair on our last road trip. There's something very nostalgic and melancholy about a painted sign on a brick building. Even a recently painted one looks a little lonely in today's hi-def high-tech world. I'll take lo-tech any day.

Dog Day Afternoon: Three Wienermobiles in Times Square, New York

George Molchan as Little Oscar in the 1950s.

The first Wienermobile, 1936.

New York City's Times Square is a too-much-is-never-enough kind of place and one of the few places where an Oscar Mayer Wienermobile seems small. What's a luncheon meat marketing department to do? Park three of them there! Among the towering neon and hustle and bustle of tourists and grifters, we spotted "Our Dog" and "Big Bun," two traditional Wienermobiles, and "Lil Link," a Mini Cooper adapted into a much smaller version of the classic hot dog vehicle. They were a little hard to photograph because the place is so thick with Wienermobile-loving people flocking to get their photo opportunity with an oversized motorized frankfurter. Oscar Mayer premiered the Wiernermobile in 1936 and has updated the design several times since then, although today's models still have a certain swoopy Jetsons design quality about them. For three decades, they employed height-challenged actor George Molchan, dressed as a chef, to portray Little Oscar, the company mascot, and travel the country in the Wienermobile spreading company recognition and bologna-friendly goodwill (when he died, 50 mourners sang a chorus of the Oscar Mayer jingle at his burial as the Wienermobile was parked nearby). I'll be frank with you, it was a thrill to see those Wienermobiles, and that's no baloney.

Rocket Man: Wilmington, Illinois' Launching Pad Restaurant and the Gemini Giant

I want to live in that house!

The tuna salad is, you guessed it... out of this world!

We've had the pleasure of seeing a few Muffler Men in our travels, but I think my favorite so far has to be the Gemini Giant of the sleepy town of Wilmington, Illinois, an hour or so south of Chicago. A Route 66 icon, he stands watch over the Launching Pad, a pleasant eatery and a favorite among locals and Route 66 nuts alike. Done up in futuristic (for the 1960s) green, wearing a space helmet and holding a rocket ship with jaunty "Launching Pad" script on it, he is arguably the most altered of all the surviving Muffler Men that grace our fair land. And he evokes a special time in America, when everybody cared about the space program and satellites and rocket ships were going to prevent wars, disease, and poverty. We had some nice sandwiches and french fries here on a lovely spring day. Do the locals know how lucky they are to be in the midst of eccentric roadside royalty every day?, I wonder. And how does the homeowner next door like looking out on the Giant's backside? If I lived there I'd cherish every moment. The "Pad" started out as a dairy bar in 1960 and acquired the Giant and a space-aged identity some time later. I noticed on the Internet that it had been up for sale in 2006, but it seemed to be alive and well just recently. Let's hope they keep boldly going where no (muffler) man has gone before.

Springfield, Illinois' Tomb of Mr. Accordion, where you can pay your respects accordionly

That's Lincoln's Tomb in the distance.

You can't help but think that Lincoln would have been amused.

Seems like every town in Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana has an Abraham Lincoln claim-to-fame, but nowhere is more Lincoln-centric than Springfield, Illinois. The city's pretty Oak Ridge Cemetery is where Lincoln's vast tomb is located... a hallowed, sacred place. It is also the location of a tomb of a more eccentric nature. Roy Bertelli, aka "Mr. Accordion," has the primest piece of cemetery real estate, excluding Old Abe's, of course. In a triangular plot at the cemetery's entrance sits his tomb with its large crypt and granite tablet depicting an accordion playing a happy tune. There is a back story to all of this reverence, however. Seems after Mr. Bertelli bought his plot, the cemetery informed him it was sold to him by mistake. They then threatened to take him to court if he did not give it up. This got Mr. Bertelli's Irish up. As a World War veteran he felt disrespected and decided to build his tomb above ground. Upon its completion, he would stand on top of it and serenade cemetery visitors with accordion pieces from time to time before descending up to that big Polkabration in the sky in 2003. It's quite a sight to see and adds an unexpected bit of whimsy to a very serious place. Nobody pulls a squeeze play on Mr. Accordion. Nobody.

Chicago's 25-foot American Gothic Sculpture: When you come to pitchfork in the road, take it!

Who doesn't like having their picture taken in front of a 25-foot replica of a Grant Wood painting?

Baby got back!

Chicago is a city laden with great outdoor artworks, not the least of which is this 25-foot interpretation of Grant Wood's famous (and often parodied) painting American Gothic by renown sculptor (and Johnson & Johnson heir) J. Seward Johnson. The original painting resides just down the road at the outstanding Chicago Institute of Art, so who better to host this eccentric eye-catcher, which rests along the city's Magnificent Mile at 401 Michigan Avenue. It's awesome in its incongruity: earnest farm folk among gleaming skyscrapers, the Midwest's salt of the earth among the Midwest's most sophisticated urban backdrop, humble farmers blown up to giant urban dwellers. It's also awesome in its execution as a really faithful and really beautiful work of art in its own right. And its just plain fun to walk around, gawk at, and have your picture taken in front of, as any really big thing ought to be. I'm not quite sure what the suitcase signifies... perhaps the sculptor is imagining the farmers are visiting the city for the weekend and are looking for their hotel. In any event, you can't miss it, nor should you. It's pitchfork perfect.

Atlanta, Illinois' door to nowhere: I hear you knockin' but you can't come in

Before we leave the pleasant burg of Atlanta, Illinois, I would be remiss if I didn't mention one of the better unintentional eccentric roadside attractions we've stumbled upon. The town inhabits a free-standing framed door on a lot. No house, no building, just a door. While photographing the beautiful hand-painted building murals in town (see previous post), I did a double-take at this odd sight. It sits on Route 25 near the intersection of SW 1st Street, across the street from Chubby's Bar & Grill. As we were investigating, a nice chap from Chubby's told us the story. Apparently, several years ago, there was a fellow who wanted to build a house on this plot of land. His wished to build the house with its side facing the street. The town informed him of an ordinance that stated a house must have a door facing the street of its address. So this fellow built his house the way he wanted to and built a free-standing door facing the street. And there it remains. What makes it even funnier is the fact that the door has a screen/storm door attached. Who says you can't fight City Hall?

Greetings from Atlanta (Illinois, that is): A peach of a town on Route 66

There is a great stretch of Route 66 that runs through Illinois and we were fortunate enough to drive down a good chunk of it recently. The tiny town of Atlanta sits at the halfway point on 66 between Chicago and St. Louis and it is wonderful. Not only does it host a terrific Muffler Man holding a hot dog, but there are some beautifully painted murals on building sides. The Muffler Man started as a likeness of Paul Bunyan and was purchased by a Mr. H.A. Stevens and placed in front of his restaurant, Bunyon's, in Cicero, Illinois, in 1965. Mr. Stevens replaced the statue's original axe with a hot dog because he sold wieners, not sharp tree-cutting implements. The statue stood proudly in that spot until 2003 when the property was sold and the owners were persuaded to donated the statue to its spot in Atlanta so it could remain a Route 66 icon. The murals were painted in the last 10 years or so and are the work of The Letterheads, a group of generous and free-spirited sign-painters from the U.S. and Canada interested in preserving the art of outdoor signs and murals. Their work is magnificent and they really brighten up this little once-bustling, now all-too-quiet Route 66 town. Atlanta sports another great eccentric roadside attraction, a smiley-faced water tower, but it was too foggy when we were there for me to get a good picture. That's okay, though, because even though I would like to go back to Atlanta again some day, now it's mandatory. Here's their website: http://www.atlantaillinois.org/

Ernest Borgnine: Hamden, Connecticut's hometown hero

Ernie's Hamden park is in the Stop & Shop parking lot.

I grew up in the town of Hamden, Connecticut, a suburb to the north of New Haven. It was a nice place to be a kid and has a lot going for it as a town. A few famous people are from Hamden, including Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin, and Thornton Wilder, author of Our Town. And Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson went to elementary and junior high school in Hamden. But I'd like to focus on my favorite Hamden native, Oscar-winning actor Ernest Borgnine. Ernie, as his friends know him and who isn't a friend of Ernest Borgnine, was born in 1917 and lived in Hamden, North Haven and New Haven, Connecticut before serving in the Navy for 10 years and then hitting it big in show biz, first with a supporting role in From Here To Eternity and then starring in Marty, his Academy Award winning performance. He's played hundreds of parts but is perhaps best known as lovable Commander Quentin McHale in TV's McHale's Navy. Ernie never forgot where he came from and makes frequent trips back to his home town. He's 92 but looks and acts like he's in his 60s. Hamden honored him in 2005 with a small piece of land in the corner of a shopping plaza parking lot. Ernest Borgnine Park sits at the intersection of busy Dixwell and Putnam Avenues, and while it's nice, it would be even nicer if they had a statue or some sort of explanation as to who Ernie is (although, I suppose, if you're Ernest Borgnine, you don't need an introduction). I read that there was a path somewhere in town with a sign calling it Ernest Borgnine Way but it was later replaced with a sign that says "Please clean up after your dog."

The Borgnine Wall of Fame at New York City's Tortilla Flats

The Borgnine Booth

Patron artwork of Ernie

It's a nice place to get a burrito, too.

They're crazy about Ernie at a Mexican restaurant in New York City, too. Tortilla Flats, on Washington Street near West 12th, has a shrine to Ernie around the fabled Borgnine booth, where Ernie has sat. Once a year they have an Ernie festival, where contestants compete in a Marty line-reading contest (a pair of English twins won one year). Why they are so wild about Ernie isn't exactly clear except, well, why not? Ernie is a living legend and a real nice guy. Check out this segment CBS Sunday Morning did about it:



Also, check out the Tortilla Flats website: http://www.tortillaflatsnyc.com/index_home.html and always remember the importance of being Ernest.

The Leaning Tower of Niles, Illinois: Mamma Mia!

You can grab a hot dog from Papa Chris's across the street and make a day of it.

Niles, Illinois is a suburb of Chicago close to O'Hare airport with a terrific eccentric roadside attraction: a half-size replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in front of a YMCA. As you tool past motels, light industries and old strip malls on West Toughy Avenue, it appears like a beacon and it's surprisingly large and not tacky. Incongruous, maybe, but not tacky. In fact, it's quite beautiful. It was built in 1934 by industrialist Robert Ilg as part of a recreation park for employees of the Ilg Hot Air Electric Ventilating Company of Chicago. It was also is an elaborately decorative water storage tower for outdoor recreational swimming pools. In the early 1960s Ilg's family donated the land so the YMCA could be built and in 1991, the city of Niles established sister-city status with Pisa and spiffed up the place with fountains and nicer landscaping. I hope to make it to Pisa some day, but until I do I've got the next best thing to hold me over. Bravo, Niles! Bello!