Booze + Broads

From Dave Brigham:

In early February , I picked up a framed print I had on display as part of the Small Stones Festival of the Arts in Grafton, Mass. Before swinging by the Brigham Hill Community Barn to retrieve my work, I drove somewhat aimlessly through the neighboring towns of Worcester and Auburn, looking for things to shoot with my camera.

OK, my drive wasn't completely haphazard; I've had Lamplighter II, a shuttered strip club in Worcester, on my radar ever since I began compiling potential sites for my series on New England's second-largest city (see this post from last September, which includes links to eight prior installments about Worcester).

Along with diners, movie theaters and bowling alleys, gentlemen's clubs are vestiges of a dingier past, and that's the sort of stuff I find image-worthy. I've featured strip clubs before on the blog - see this post about the vestiges of Boston's Combat Zone; this post about a former club in Chelsea, Mass.; check out this installment of my Worcester series, which leads off with mention of Hurricane Betty's; and this post about Springfield, Mass.

After circling around for a while, I came upon Chieftain Liquors along Route 12 in Auburn, and slammed on the brakes in a way that I absolutely do not recommend.

I'm not sure how long Chieftain has been in business, but it's long enough that the store once had a neon sign. According to Roadside Architecture, the neon was replaced with backlit plastic several years ago.

There you go - booze + broads, in reverse order.

As a friend said when I posted these photos on Facebook, "You go to all the best places!"