If you’re a sucker for old photos of Charlotte (or you like the phallic gallery of new building photos) hop over to CLTblog, and/or to urbanplanet. Folks have posted a number of old photos, postcards and cityscape scenes, many of them from uptown/downtown, shown in varying degrees of glamor.
The photo atop this is of South Tryon Street. It strikes me dumb whenever I see it, that the city allowed that street scene – and all the similar scenes – to simply vanish. It’s more than just a lack of interest in historic preservation, although that’s part of it. It’s a loss of the collective will to create architecture with a human scale, I think. Compare that street scene to the thrusting, oh-so-macho towers depicted in the newer photos.
I’m not saying nothing new should be built. That’s silly. But what would have been wrong with saving a few blocks of buildings that look like this? If you want to see a downtown where some of the old fabric has been saved, visit downtown Raleigh. Its city planning department also has an Urban Design Center right on Fayetteville Street, its main downtown street. Go figure.
Here’s a quick plug, as well, for a great little video-with-music of the new Duke Energy Building with its lights running, a sight I have yet to see although I look out my vintage-’60s gun-slit windows at the Observer building and see the building multiple times a day.
(Just to disclose: The Observer building is NOT one you’ll see many loving photos of in those aforementioned building-photo collections. And it’s as functional as a place to inhabit 10 hours a day as it is delightful as a view.) Here’s the link to the Voltron video. (It’s embedded below.)
If you prefer different music, Justin Ruckman at CLTblog has done a three-movement series of videos, set to Beethoven’s String Quintet in C, op. 29. Check them out here.