After all this time!

Who would have thought, after a 5 year drought in activity, this topic resurfaces. A lot has happened in the last 5 years, the Blue won the Stanley Cup, a new Rambo movie is out (praise be to Energor), and I even switched brands for my cycling shoes. Talk about a crazy time. But now there is a development in this domino saga, we have answers!

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/domino-detective-cyclist-spends-years-tracking-mystery-of-spotted-tiles/article_15bdd852-8f64-5360-afdb-4ba837c17b0b.html

What to do now, I am not sure. Without a guiding purpose, I'm no doubt doomed to roam the Earth (or at least the greater Metro StL area), searching fresh asphalt for new dominoes that I know won't be there. The only question remaining, is...

What Now?

#bruh

4 more finds

So I was going to check out a few places that I learned about some golf ball formations, and on the way to check them out, I found more dominoes. The gods must be laughing at me - and let's be honest, they are totally right to do so. I mean, look at what I'm doing here - I'm actually cataloging this fucking bullshit.


In the Lindenwood Park neighborhood, I found a pair of golf balls embedded in new pavement directly behind the Bread Co. on Ivanhoe at Sutherland:



A few blocks away, in front of the post office on Clifton, I found a trio of golf balls that seemed pretty worn down, as if they have been there for quite some time. The pavement didn't seem too recent.


Going down Arsenal, right next to Tower Grove Park at the intersection of Arsenal and Roger, I found a nice, fresh set of dominoes right in the crosswalk:



And then finally, in Benton Park West, I found another domino in a very strange place. At the intersection of Wyoming and California, on the edge of concrete and asphalt, I found a single domino next to a manhole cover. It was actually not even firmly embedded, as I was able to pick it up without any prying. Of course I didn't do that, because that would be an extra jerky thing to do. Regardless, check it:


 -That nice building in the background of the photo was recently renovated, and really highlights the opportunity in that neighborhood. Oooooweee.


More and more, I'm settling on the idea of a city street worker or workers doing this.

Christy Greenway. And the Mississippi Shoreline.

Oh man. So I found another set o' the ole' bones the other day. This time, at Christy Greenway and Terrace Street. I think it was probably laid last fall, but when you really think about it, what the shit do I know. Nothing, that's what.

You'll note that it looks as if they had been smeared with tar or something. Not sure what that means, but I feel as though it supports my theory of these things being laid at the time of paving, by a street department worker. I've lost count of these things.



Another thing I found on the same ride, was closer to the river. Riding along the relatively new asphalt path that runs behind the River City Casino and over to Jefferson Barracks, I happened to notice some stuff on the banks of the river. Since there are no leaves on the trees, it was easier to see through them and onto the shore than it would the rest of the year. Check it out:

Rows upon rows of concrete and woden pylons, sloping into the river. It is clear that whatever they had been supporting earlier in their lives is now long gone, though I suspect it was some sort of a boat launch for some old shipyard.

I am familiar with the location of shipyards that were located nearby, originally owned and operated by none other than James Eads, better known for his bridges. These shipyards built many of the famous "ironclads" that get a lot of attention during the Civil War, but as far as I can tell, they were located upstream, right on the other side of the River Des Peres. (Read more info about them here and here.)

However, those shipyard still existed and were operating under the name "Rohan Boat, Boiler and Tank Co." by the year 1933 when this man purchased them and continued making boat after boat for both the US and the USSR until 1984. So I wonder if the shipyards expanded onto both sides of the River Des Peres of the years. Having just looked at www.historicaerials.com I didn't learn much, only that I wish it the images were higher resolution, and I can't definitively see those pylons until the images taken in the 1990's - and they were clearly not being used by anything at that time.



This is what I love about this town, there are a seemingly endless amount of secrets to be told, if you look closely.

In the Shadow of the Cherokee Indian

Holy Smokes! Strolling down historic Cherokee the other day, having felt a mite peckish, I found myself investigating one of the nearby Mexican food purveyors in order to satiate my growing burgeoning hunger with some Latin comestibles.

Imagine my surprise, post-meal, that upon hoofing it across the street at the intersection of Cherokee and Jefferson, I scoped a couple of dominoes squished into the asphalt. I had to act quickly, however, because the people behind the wheels of all the cars in a 2 block radius were out of their minds, and incapable of making decisions that weren't terrible. Survival was going to be tricky.

Timing my crossing with the stoplight, I had the camera ready, and only had to stop for 4-5 seconds for a snap of the domino in the road.

Behold:

This one was smack dab in the center of the crosswalk, halfway across the street. Dude.


Stay tuned, I'm sure we haven't seen the last of these things.

Whoah Mama! 3 more spots.

I've been a tad lazy lately, possibly a result of misanthropy getting the better of me. But after today's find, I've decided to post an update of the recent discoveries.

This morning, a Saturday, I was out for a ride before work started and was just totally reveling in the magnificent autumn weather - it seriously doesn't get much better for fall here in St. Louis. A fucking pumpkin spice latte would have been the frothy yoga-pants-clad cherry on top if I had a blanket and cozy couch on the bay window into which I could snuggle. Anyway, so I was passing through North City in all of it's frustratingly bombed-out glory, when I started passing through one of the bright spots up there - Old North St. Louis. New pavement, clean streets, beautifully restored brick environment, I was loving it. It felt warm. I look down, only to find a fresh domino at the corner of St. Louis Avenue and Blair, less than a block from Crown Candy - home of the best malt you could ever possibly hope to have:

Crown Candy in the background.

I wasn't pressed for time, so I circled a few more blocks, taking in the scenery, and checked a few more intersections of new pavement - but to no avail.


Next up on our tour, is another set that I found near Francis Park - a much different place than Old North, for sure. I'm surprised I've only now found this one at the corner of Donovan and Loran:

Francis Park right across the street.

The final spot that I have today I discovered at the behest of a reader, via the comment section. It is at one of the busiest intersections, I think, in the city - Skinker and Forest Park Parkway - directly across from Kayaks Coffee:

I believe that I noticed a second casino token smashed into the pavement downtown somewhere along Washington, though it'll take me a while to get my ever-expanding turd-of-an-ass to go check it out. But then again, what the shit else do I have going on? Nothing. That's what.

Til next time, Hold onto your butts.

You've got to be kidding me.

Rode over to the Target at Hampton and Chippewa today, and as I'm rolling out, I notice another block of brand new asphalt right behind the building. I don't in The Hills, but I figured I'd take a circuitous route before crossing back over Hampton. The new asphalt is not a surprise, as there seems to be shitloads of newly paved blocks in my neck of the woods these days. So naturally I glance down to see if I notice any bright white dominoes or golf balls contrasting against the black pavement, and what do I see?

This is what I freaking see at Clifton and Bancroft:

Now, I make it a point to not gamble. Which is why I don't know the logos of different casinos on their playing chips/tokens. However, I know that those ARE game pieces, much like the dominoes and golf balls. And they were pretty firmly stuck. Someone out there is bound to know to which casinos they are connected.

At this point, those chips could very well have been dropped there accidentally. Next to each other. At the time of paving. But I doubt it. So now I suppose we have three different mediums through which the alien lizard people are trying to communicate to us - dominoes, golf balls, and casino chips.


Speaking of dominoes, there is a set at the other end of that same block - Chippewa and Clifton:

Arsenal and Hampton

Whoah, nelly! Has there been a lot of off-the-wall, crazy activity lately with new dominoes and golf balls, or what! It might be a little too much for me to handle. I mean this is getting out of hand. 

Thanks to the recent Reddit post, I have become privy to 2 more locations of dominoes. I managed to check the first one out today,  at Arsenal and Hampton, technically within the Clifton Heights neighborhood. If you've ever had your hair done did at Lords and Ladies Hair Salon at this corner, you should go back there and look right in front of the front door, because there it is:

These have the colored dots, so whatever that means.

I've also learned that there may be another set at Forest Park Parkway and Skinker, which should be easy for me to verify, as I pass through that intersection on my way to work every day. I would not be surprised, since FP Parkway had been re-paved last week from Des Peres Road all the way to Skinker - and there is a golf ball at Des Peres Road. Talk about crazy.

Additionally, today on the same ride where I found the Arsenal and Hampton domino, I also noticed that pair of dominoes I had found just a couple blocks away at 59th and Southwest, in front of Jimmy Mack's Bar and Grill, is now missing one of the two. I would bet it just got jostled loose and knocked away. You can still see the depression left in the asphalt where the second domino once was.

Stay tuned, as I must now ponder the greater implications that all of this has on the world situation.

Compton and Washington, my theory, and Reddit

Greetings, others who have little else to occupy their brain.



Found this set about a week ago, at Compton and Washington.

Those tiles look like they had asphalt kinda smeared over them, as if it they had been smeared at the time of paving. I don't think asphalt will smear once it's set. This leads me to lean more towards believing the theory that a Street Dept. worker is behind this. I feel somewhat certain that this stuff can only be laid at the time of paving.


Speaking of paving, there seems to have been a shitload of new pavement being laid all throughout South City lately. In the process of riding around, I have found many more golf balls. I am too lazy to grab photos of all of them and upload them today, but I can tell you I've found them at Forest Park Parkway and Des Peres Road, along Eichelberger where it intersects both Wherry AND Macklind (and there is already a domino at Macklind and Eichelberger!) Not to mention that huge stretches of Manchester, Arsenal, and Chippewa have all been repaved, and I bet there is tons more buried treasure to be found.

I was passing by Eichelberger and Wherry the other day while the Street Dept. was in the process of striping the newly paved stretch - had any of them been standing around instead of actually working, I would have inquired about what the shit this is all about. But sure enough, fresh golf balls in the pavement the same day or day after that stretch was paved, and a golf ball found in the asphalt the DAY AFTER Forest Park Parkway was repaved. It HAS to be a City Street worker.

Which kinda makes me wonder if the golf ball thing is like some apprentice person who is copy-catting the domino guy. Do they know each other? Are they related? Is one guy taking over for the domino guy? WHAT THE SHIT


Onto other news, It looks like I'm (or rather, this phenomenon) is Reddit-famous:
http://www.reddit.com/r/StLouis/comments/1ms942/new_pavement_at_grand_and_washington_means_new/

Be sure to chime in.

Another location, and another related mystery.

I've been pretty lazy to post things up lately. It's part of a greater initiative I have to be lazy in general. That being said, some new developments have come up in the category of "Shit that is embedded in St. Louis City Pavement."

First off, a friend and trusted reconnaissance expert has spied another set downtown at Market and 11th. Interesting to note here is that this set is in fresh asphalt (as usual) but it is just a patch of asphalt - not the whole block. So, that's a first.

I also recently spied a single domino at Washington and Compton, but wasn't able to stop and snap a photo. I'll have to get over there to check it out, and maybe do some more recon up and down Washington, as that road was recently repaved.


Now, onto the next item of business. And I am almost a little leery to even bring this up, because I feel like it will make me look even MORE nuts/paranoid/obsessive than I already am. So up until recently, I've found only dominoes embedded like this. Well, it doesn't seem to just be limited to dominoes any longer. I've found golf balls.

Yep, I said golf balls. And they are embedded in new pavement the same way the dominoes are. And they don't seem to be random - they seem to be arranged very similarly to the dominoes. I wouldn't bring it up if I didn't have evidence of the weirdness:

These are at Russell and Grand, in fresh asphalt.

These are at Sublette and Magnolia, next to Cunetto's Pasta.

This is on Holly Hills Blvd at the northeast corner of Carondolet Park, by Grand Ave.

This is at Holly Hills and Morganford.

What the hell, man? What's next - cue balls, dice and jacks? Is it being done by the same people/person? Are their patterns interconnected?

Am I nuts?

The Hill, and CWE

Ahoy, ahoy. Over this past weekend, some friends and I rode an overnight century (the exploits of which you can read here) where we started at 10PM and ended around 7AM. Totally sweet. As we were rolling west through the CWE on Laclede Ave, I *happened* to glance down as we were passing through the deserted intersection at Euclid, and magically noticed a pair of blank dominoes, right in the middle. I didn't have time to stop and take photos then and there, as we were all super hungry, but I did come back the next day.

Laclede and Euclid

I don't often ride through this intersection, so this was a very fortuitous find.

The next day when I hopped on my wheel and rode down to snap some photos of the CWE location, I took a slightly less flatter route down Brannon when I normally would stick to Macklind. This was also very lucky, as I noticed ANOTHER set mere blocks away from two more locations on the same stretch of road. I can't believe I've never noticed them before! The interesting thing about this is that this single domino looks like it had most definitely been part of a pair - you can see the domino-sized/shaped cut-out directly adjacent to the remaining one. This is at Brannon and Parker, on the east side of the intersection:

notice that piece of straw sitting in the cut-out.

Brannon and Parker

Strange how when I go look for one, another pops up. Perhaps this is all a conspiracy by PuzzleWarehouse in Kirkwood.


On an slightly-unrelated note, a fascination I have is the remaining vestiges of our city's old street-rails and the vast streetcar network we used to have. These lines were completely gone by the mid '60s. Having spent much more time riding around the city the last few years, I've started noticing that the old rails are still there, they have just been paved over. And if you pay attention, you noticed where they are poking back out. Like when position myself to check out the domino at the Laclede/Euclid intersection, I noticed a rail that has completely surfaced - and you can follow the cracks in the pavement for the length of the block where it wants to bust through:

Much like the dominoes, these rails pop up everywhere, so you might start to see me post more of these up.

A 3rd location in Forest Park

My network of super-double-secret spies continues to grow each day. Just the other day in fact, I was alerted via my version of the Bat-Phone (a phone shaped like a domino, to which calls are made relaying information about new dominoes) by an one of my eyes-and-ears on the street, a man we'll call "P-Weezy." He turned me onto a domino embedded in the gravelly footpath in Forest Park, that he came upon while on foot, on the path.

The location is on specifically on the gravelly footpath (not the asphalt bike path - yes, they are different) and is directly across the street from the 625 South Skinker high rise apartment building at Skinker and Northwoods. It is a very easy domino to miss, considering the white domino blending in very easily to the white-gray-ish color of the footpath surface. Normally, they can stand out pretty well as a white rectangle against a black asphalt street surface.

all photos courtesy of P-Weezy.

So as you can see, it is either a 4-1 or a 4-0 tile. It is hard to know for sure, though I could probably go there and chip away at that little piece of asphalt schmutz that is obscuring the true identity of one-half of the tile. It is worth noting that the tile sits at a "random" angle to the pathway. it isn't laying parallel to the path or perpendicular to it either. Which kind of makes me think that the orientation of these fucking things doesn't mean a whole lot, but rather it's just the location.

This path isn't quite gravel, nor is it asphalt. It's really more of a chip and seal. I may have been more loose gravel at one point, but had been oiled over or something like that. And that is a huge departure from up-until-now always being found in asphalt, and always being on actual roadways.  All I know is that if I now have to start wondering if these goddamned things are on all the bike and footpaths AS WELL AS every street in the city, then I'm going to have to get a bigger budget.

With this kind of upheaval of general conventions, what will be next, a domino sewn into the carpet in the Arch viewing deck?

Two-Fer Update

On a ride the other day, I found 2 sets.

One set, at Macklind and Bancroft, is like 3 blocks from my house AND is an intersection that I ride through damn near every day. How could I have missed it? Either way, this isn't the first set on Macklind, nor is it the first set on Bancroft. Only took me two+ years of living at this house to finally notice it. makes me wonder about almost every other intersection in the city, that I've carelessly overlooked tons more.  Check it:

The other set is a little further northeast of the last one, at a fairly large intersection of Chouteau and Compton. Not too surprising, as the Compton bridge that extends north from that intersection has recently been re-paved, so it was ripe for some dominoes:

There you have it.

Now, on another topic, I hate to do bring this up, but I think I may have also stumbled onto another set of objects being stamped into streets. Don't know what the story is yet, but I'll keep you informed once I gather enough evidence to make an initial presentation. Think golf balls.

Another in kinda-sorta North City

If you define North City to be "anything north of the great dividing line of Delmar Blvd" then yes, this is technically in North City, as it is just a few blocks north of Delmar. Hamilton and Clemens has a pair of dominoes (with colored dots, no less) in the fresh pavement that extends down Clemens. (Clemens has some once-beautiful houses by the way.)

Behold:

They were clear as day, too - should you decide to take a stroll. These dominoes have to be all over North City, I reckon. (spare me the bullshit, racist, prejudicial and deconstructive comments towards North City.) I wonder if we'll hit the 100 mark?

Stay tuned, brah.

Hampton and Bancroft, revisited

Yet another interesting development.

I have been through the intersection countless times, and have actually ALREADY found a domino embedded here. And yet, the pavement gods have seen fit to confound me further by allowing me to find another set in the very same intersection, though a different corner.

The first set, if you check the locations page at the top, is on the east side of Hampton, and south of Bancroft. Or in layman's terms, the "southeast corner." This newest set is on the southWEST corner, in front of the bank, only about a foot from the sidewalk.

This is only the second intersection that I have found to have more than one location - the first being at Arsenal and Kingshighway, where there are 3. WTF.

The fresh pavement extends into the StL Hills neighborhood as far back as I could see, so I'll have to do a little stealthy recon in the near future.

Also, stay tuned, as I may have learned about another set downtown, though I have yet to verify it - same goes for the location at Lindell and Grand. I'll keep you posted, so you should literally not move from your computer screen until further notice.