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7no drugstores, shoe stores, or hardware stores. They%u2019ve been replaced with offices, antique and gift emporiums, and a few up-scale eateries and coffee shops. And Bower%u2019s of Market Square no longer exists.In Lafayette, as in other cities and towns, most of the retail, factory, and office buildings erected in recent decades are the same clones you see everywhere%u2014sterile, nondescript concreteblock rectangles, with a little low-cost glitz and glamour added. The trademarked color schemes and graphic logos are the marks of faceless global corporations. I doubt anyone will admire these cookie-cutter buildings in the future, and feel compelled to say, %u201cSave these for posterity!%u201d While many of today%u2019s businesses offer convenience and celebrity endorsements, they lack the unique character of those places I knew as a kid. I miss the squeaky wooden floors of the dime store and the elevator operator in the Lafayette Life Building who would ask what floor I wanted. I miss the old theatres%u2014The Luna, The Main, and The State%u2014that have been replaced by multiplexes. And, I miss seeing my neighbors%u2019 names on business signs, and the personal attention they so readily gave all their customers.So, for this book, I decided to focus my camera on those empty, sometimes eccentric, old buildings where Hoosiers used to earn their livings%u2014places that had been proud, filled with energy, bristling with hustle and bustle, but now sit idle and forlorn. Some of these businesses have been closed for only a short time, others for as many as 50 years%u2014or more. Each is still, quiet%u2014yet they all have stories to tell.On the following pages, are portraits of a variety of former workplaces%u2014factories, mills, shops, offices, and stores. They are where we, our parents, and our grandparents once toiled, sometimes happily, sometimes enduringly%u2014then walked away from, never to return. Some of these now desolate buildings will, in time, be fixed up or restored and have a new life, a new purpose. Others will eventually be torn down and cease to be. My photographs are images of temporary, ephemeral places%u2014caught on film between what they were and what they will eventually become. Most of these tired and worn edifices were erected years ago%u2014in some cases back in the 19th century, well before my time. Back then, commercial buildings were designed to last for 100 years or more%u2014not just the 20 or 30 years of today%u2019s modern boxes. Many are still stately and solid, built of Indiana limestone or of bricks fired in nearby kilns, with lumber sawn in local mills, by workmen from the surrounding area. Exuberant gingerbread exteriors displaying a family name, and interiors with elaborate tin ceilings, flamboyantly reflect the personalities and status of sole proprietors. Because these buildings are so infused with pride, they radiate an emotional, as well as a visual, attraction to me. They have served us well over the decades, and they need to be paid attention to, respected, honored, and treasured. I feel this very strongly%u2014they are an endangered, yet integral, part of our history, of Indiana%u2019s cultural and economic heritage.For me, the past really comes alive when I set up my tripod in front of a boarded-up, small-town store. I think about the people who interacted there in its heyday. I wonder about the original owner who, like Dad or Uncle Conrad, grew up a few miles away, went to the local high school, started the business on a shoestring, and slowly built up a clientele. He (occasionally, she) was responsible for unlocking the door in the morning, working long hours, waiting on customers, taking inventory, kibitzing with traveling salesmen, placing special orders, handling the inevitable complaints, sweeping the floors, and keeping the