Glenn’s Café
Stephen BybeeColumbia, MO1999 In 1999 this neon sign advertising Glenn’s Café was still firmly attached to the southeast corner of the Ballenger Building on the corner of Ninth and Cherry. For some reason I wasn’t as fascinated by this sign as I was by the neon on the Peking restaurant, so I really don’t have…
Peking
Stephen BybeeColumbia, MO1998 Signed Print Available This photograph is the image that I want to say the most about, and it has become the most challenging to write about. The Peking neon sign was a beacon and a waymarker on my nocturnal wanderings in downtown Columbia. The illumination provided by this beautiful sign guided my…
Quinton’s
Stephen BybeeColumbia, MO1998 When it comes to practicing photography, the importance of being an outsider cannot be overstated. When I think of some of the work that inspired me and guided me, the practitioners were outsiders. Not as outside as artists like Henry Darger or Martin Ramirez, not coming from and practicing completely outside the…
Shakespeare’s
Stephen BybeeColumbia, MO1999 This photograph was taken at a time in our local history when Shakespeare’s was a nighttime hub for art majors, painters, musicians, bartenders from Shattered, J-School students, and photographers. It was also a time when “Shakespeare’s” only meant the original Ninth Street Shakespeare’s and there was no confusion about what you meant…
Bull Pen Café
Stephen BybeeColumbia, MO1999 If this photograph were in color, the neon letters on the Bull Pen Café would beckon to us from across an empty parking lot in a beguiling shade of pink. The warm glow of this neon sign illuminated the eastern end of the business loop for more than 50 years, promising delicious…
KOPN
Stephen BybeeColumbia, MO2011 Signed Print Available This photograph is as much about the weather as it is about the glow of the neon letters on the other side of Broadway. This was taken in January, during the magically snowy winter of 2011. This was the second or third in a series of snowstorms that eventually…
Broadway Diner in Snow
Broadway DinerColumbia, MO2011 Stephen BybeeColumbia, MOJanuary, 2011 Signed Print Available I started sequencing the images in my 2023 gallery show at Columbia College beginning with this image of the Broadway Diner…if this show were a book, the Broadway Diner photograph would be the first image in the book. The Broadway Diner is a location that…
Shakespeare’s, Ninth and Elm
Stephen BybeeColumbia, MODecember, 1998 The wonderful thing about posting a photograph of a Columbia institution like Shakespeare’s is that I don’t feel the necessity of supplying an overwhelming amount of descriptive text. Everyone has their own memories of Shakespeare’s; everyone has Shakespeare’s stories and glowing recollections of past and current Shakespeare’s outings. This photograph was…
South Ninth Street in 2011
Stephen BybeeColumbia, MOJanuary, 2011 We are back on Columbia’s South Ninth Street again, during a January snowstorm in 2011. While some of my earlier images of South Ninth Street focused on the east side of the street, this photo gives us a view of the west side of the street, including several retail storefronts and…
Tony’s Pizza Palace, Fifth and Walnut
Stephen BybeeColumbia, MOFebruary, 1998 In the spring semester of 1998, I was taking an Advanced Photography class at MU with Professor Oliver Schuchard. Our class assignment was to produce a book, and the details of this assignment were left open-ended. Various students approached the assignment in various ways, but I had a pretty solid idea…
Quinton’s on a Snowy Night, South Ninth Street
Stephen BybeeColumbia, MO1998 Quinton’s on Ninth Street. I think I only patronized this establishment a rare handful of times…maybe twice. Not that I had any issues with Quinton’s, but it just wasn’t my kind of place. In 1998, when this photo was taken, my kind of place would have been The Heidelberg, Shakespeare’s, or Billiards. …
Continue Reading Quinton’s on a Snowy Night, South Ninth Street
Gerbes, West Broadway
Stephen BybeeColumbia, MO2013 I created this panoramic image of the West Broadway Gerbes in September 2013. At the time, Columbia had three Gerbes grocery store locations, including one on Nifong and one on Paris Road. The West Broadway location was the closest to my home, so I found myself shopping here a lot. This image,…
D & M Sound, Corner of Eighth and Locust
Stephen BybeeColumbia, MO2011 Tracing the available Columbia Sanborn Fire Insurance maps back to 1902, 1908, 1914 and 1925, the southwest corner of Eighth and Locust was a wood frame dwelling until at least 1914. This means the beautiful brick building that houses D & M Sound and occupies this corner with grace and charm was…
Ninth Street in Rain, South Ninth Street
Stephen BybeeColumbia, MO1998 It is an effort to try and remember everything that was located on this beautiful stretch of Columbia’s Ninth Street in the late 1990s…this photograph helps. On the far left was Billiard’s, before it moved to Broadway…next was The Music Café, followed by the restaurant with my favorite neon sign ever to…
815 Business Loop 70 East
Stephen BybeeColumbia, MOJune, 2011 We are leaving the historic brick buildings and romanticized winter views of downtown Columbia and moving to the Business Loop this week and will be exploring a few structures up and down the loop during my next few posts. This decision was made in response to last week’s fire in one…