Abandoned Chi-Chis

A Chi-Chi's Mexican Restaurant reduced to a pile of rubble takes on a deeper meaning here in western Pennsylvania. Strolling the circumference of this "terrain vague," one cannot help but wonder at the remnants of faux tex-mex decor and canned southwestern architecture poking out through the debris, layers of disposable building materials with fabricated cultural flourishes in varying shades of rust, salmon and turquoise. If you stand with your back to this heap, you face the exact spot where, as a child, my mom and her cousins used to watch massive trucks dump slag from the Clarion Coke Works. In her words, it was every bit as exciting as a fireworks display. My brain suddenly creates memories of food smells (manufactured in a New Jersey plant?) from an elementary school birthday dinner held at a different Chi-Chi's location nearby. Scroll down for more visuals from this suburban photographic journey...