Especially if your city is Atlanta.
Ok. That’s not fair, really. Because I think the houses in Midtown are beautiful, and I do like the skyline at night quite a bit. But otherwise, utter crap. Anyway…
Above, a few buildings from my hometown, Cincinnati, OH. (My approximate hometown, really. The nearest town to the little place without a zipcode of its own where I actually grew up.) In terms of architeture, there’s something oh so historical, but incredibly sad about the fact that Atlanta burned to the ground all those years ago - and even more sad that many of the subsequent grand old buildings (the Loew’s theater, the mansions on Peachtree, etc) were later summarily razed in the name of laquer-black skyscrapers and windowless 70’s office towers.
Fortunately, much of midwestern architecture has remained untouched over the decades, even though a lot of it (especially in the third and fourth tier cities like Cincy) is going unused, and crumbling to dust. Which is sad too. And makes me want to move back there and buy a building.
Anyway, since today is a bit crazy, I’ll forego any more commentary and just let you look at the pictures. #1, 2 and 3 are buildings in the center of the downtown area, around Race and Vine streets. #4 is probably my favorite building of all time, Union Terminal (and, for the record, I didn’t take that picture. I’ve borrowed it from
here .) And #5 is detail of the old
Shillito’s Department Store, an incredible block of art-deco goodness that housed detailed storefront animitronic Christmas scenes for more than 100 years. It’s currently under redevelopment as lofts. Which makes me happy.