Guess the City

the picture's above the fold now so i can't verify without loading this insanely huge thread but iirc it sure looks similar to The American Historical Society of Germans From Russia in Lincoln, NE

relinking the first pic:

https://i.ibb.co/M8MfYwJ/cmas.jpg

2nd pic: there's a sign in the distance with a longish word on it but it's too small to read - other than that... No idea? Are all the buildings very low because they're near an airport?

In the first pic I’m looking at the photo of a street scene that seems to be labelled “[-illegible-] music store Santa.” Next
To the music store on one side there is a sign that could say Taft’s and in the other one a sign that might say Kuhn.

There’s an old theatre in Lebanon,OR called Kuhn’s, but there was also a chain of “variety stores” called Kuhn’s that started in Columbia,TN that was a precursor to Big-K so this gets me nowhere.

2nd pic: there's a sign in the distance with a longish word on it but it's too small to read - other than that... No idea? Are all the buildings very low because they're near an airport?

we're on a road that's going up -> a bridge over something that ends in H ?

(nope - the name of the river is on a green sign with white letters in North America)

https://i.ibb.co/zxYxgt8/ara.jpg

Back in the back in the streets

I don't know if this will point the right way but:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/549+N+Harrison+St,+Davenport,+IA+52803,+USA/@41.5251595,-90.5789161,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x87e2349bf7cc63ff:0x1115893076e96c4d!8m2!3d41.5251555!4d-90.5767274

(Davenport, Iowa). Now to find the indoor place...

Aha! https://www.google.com/maps/@41.5214872,-90.583515,3a,75y,172.51h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOPSfvfoeYpRnHe2KiE8vBOZ5nHTVJFetsvuBi4!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOPSfvfoeYpRnHe2KiE8vBOZ5nHTVJFetsvuBi4%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya95.375145-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

yay! nice one

ngl, it has been an ambition of mine to get one of these one day!

How did you find it? Are you familiar with Davenport?

nope, I googled 11'8 bridge and it turns out there's a really famous one in North Carolina, but it's not the one in the picture.
Then I googled "overheight vehicle route" and found a Flickr picture of it! so I got lucky for sure.

An unexpected route to it for sure. Surprised this one took so long!

There are some places that I don't "get" because why would I want to even think about that place, and Davenport, IA, is one of them. What an absolute pit.

well done though

so the sign in the Santa/street/piano picture says "Gifts" - and it's "Schmitt ??? - ??? Santa" - meanwhile, the family pic is "German Family Christmas" and the three landscape/tower drawings aren't labeled.

https://www.google.be/maps/@41.5214872,-90.583515,3a,41.1y,186.89h,76.73t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOPSfvfoeYpRnHe2KiE8vBOZ5nHTVJFetsvuBi4!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOPSfvfoeYpRnHe2KiE8vBOZ5nHTVJFetsvuBi4%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya283.5709-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

and it's a Santa costume, no famous pope/cardinal

Gifts, omg.

This one was wild

how the hell did you end up in a place like this, cherry blossom? :-)

the costume looks more like Saint Nicholas though - who comes with gifts on December 6th here in Belgium and looks/sounds suspiciously like Santa Claus (Sint Nicholas -> Sint Nikolaas -> Sinterklaas / Santa Claus)

https://i.ibb.co/kHjf8zR/orph.jpg

I think the vertical KUM might be EUM as port of RKO Orpheum (which is todays Adler)

Haha I was wrong about more or less everything so I am likely wrong about this too but I’m clinging on to this being Schmitts Music Store Santa.

in July 1913, relocated to 111-113 W. Third St. Schmidt Music Company continued in business in Davenport until 1964.

which is next to the Adler

I was pretty sure that I read "Schmitt Music Store Santa" in that photo caption. I found a Schmitt Music store website with all of their store locations, which are all in the Midwest, and I checked many of them for a historical museum. But they have no current location in Davenport, IA, so I never looked there!

Ok since I guessed one not so long ago, here's today's:

https://i.ibb.co/7yzZ7rW/Screenshot-2021-11-16-at-11-20-39.png

Thinking Israel

All the cars are white. Feels like in Israel they wouldn't all be white, but then it is a small sample size. And it could be near an airport

Black and white striped poles

yeah I was thinking that most of them are taxis perhaps. Airport or big hotel on the right.

Direction signs with blue background and white text: not Israel?

definitely Middle East though

Man is wearing a Kippah I think?

I'm not finding blue traffic signs like that in Israel (or yellow buses) - maybe I'm not looking in the right spots

Thought it might be Tunis, but I did some wandering and didn't find many signs that were similar.

i think it's somewhere moister than that. getting pacific vibes, philippines maybe. can't find those traffic stripes though

those are canary island date palms fwiw so maybe north africa a little more likely that middle east (although obviously they're all over the world at this point)

are we seeing letters on the right? something like FAH ?

I think I found some striped poles

All non-white cars are forbidden in Ashgabat (Turkmenistan) but I don't think this is it

Striped poles for both street signs and lights are very distinctive. Googling around I found striped poles in Kuwait. The blue sign with two indecipherable lines of text - wondering if this is arabic script on top and Roman script underneath

The striped poles I found were in Haifa, near the airport but not had a chance to look properly

I'm not 100% on that cap being a Kippah - could be a Taquiyah or Kufi too?

I see FAH too, and the word underneath looks like "depot."

The area immediately north of Tel Aviv airport is festooned with striped poles. Festooned!

one more before I go to bed:

https://i.ibb.co/gSGGnMf/Screenshot-2021-11-17-at-21-28-33.png

https://www.google.com/maps/@23.5885384,58.3844859,3a,75y,55.9h,77.58t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNkSvNKaYuOdEpeqdGbRz4YjPx4lRkpZhyVUV2q!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNkSvNKaYuOdEpeqdGbRz4YjPx4lRkpZhyVUV2q%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi1.1677419-ya168.24538-ro0.124545805-fo100!7i5760!8i2880

Got him!

O Man!