Vincent_G

Thanks, Jeffrey. This post is both compelling and sad. Almost every American city has one or more similar lost areas. I hope we have learned from the Urban Renewal debacle.

That is a heartbreaking loss.

The church in No. 8 is the former First Baptist Church. The upper two floors of the building comprised the Mizpah Hotel. The really successful part of downtown right now is Armory Square, which is on the west end. It is doing very well. Franklin Square, a former industrial district, is northwest of downtown. It is an office and residential district, with a few places to eat or drop off your dry cleaning. It doesn't have the retail or restaurant activity of Armory Square, but it is a remarkable example of adaptive reuse.

I love the Central Terminal just for what it is as well as for its metaphorical value. When it was at its worst, it symbolized a city that had reached a nadir. Now, as it gradually claws its way back to life, it symbolizes a city that I have good reason to hope is doing the same. It's hard to know what could ultimately happen at the terminal, but I don't see why it would not be suited for passenger service for at least one of its functions, and it has proved popular as a location for large public gatherings. The views from the upper floors would be interesting, I'm sure, whether toward the surreal and flat landscape of Buffalo itself and the waters beyond or toward the beautiful hilly countryside that fans out beyond the city from southwest to east. The neighborhood around the terminal is in rough condition, but, on the other hand, Buffalo has had success with off-downtown office development in the Larkin District, and the tower would be a great candidate for residential use if it were downtown or in one of many other neighborhoods. I'd love to see an East Side extension of the Metro Rail line that could pass through Larkin and by the Central Terminal on its way out to the airport or wherever.

Thanks for this post. It is easy to forget, partly because you don't hear much about it, that Chicago has vast stretches of desolate, poverty-stricken neighborhoods and many more that are merely rundown.

Wow. I sometimes forget what a beautiful city we live in-- but usually I don't.

I like the Columbus Dispatch sign.

I can't imagine ever having been to Toronto and then saying it's boring, but I guess it depends on what you find interesting.

I think above-ground utilities are fine. It's a much better arrangement for the squirrels. I do love the look of those Cincinnati commercial districts. A streetcar line, with overhead wires and all, would double the appeal of any one of those districts.

Very nice post. I love to watch the sunset from that spot in Edgewater where you took your pictures from.

The decision to close St. Colman's has apparently been reversed.

Nice pictures. I have only driven through Hartford on the interstate, so I don't really know much about it. It does have an impressive skyline, and these pictures make it seem more vibrant than we are usually led to believer.

Indy has a great downtown and it also has some great neighborhoods. I love Mass. Ave., Lockerbie Square, and Broad Ripple. I wish it had better public transportation, but I am always happy to have the chance to spend some time in that place.

Thanks for the information and link, Living in Cin.

I have always wondered how much work was done on the Cincinnati subway before it was abandoned. From these pictures, I see that work was well advanced. It's sad to think about what could have been. Of course there is nothing in the US like the NYC subway system, but I love the subway lines in the smaller cities, such as Pittsburgh and Buffalo, where you would not expect to find trains running underground. Oh well. Cincinnati is still a great place, even without its subway, and its best days, I'm sure, are yet ahead.

Thanks for these pictures. I've always been curious about Bayonne.

Very interesting. I have always been curious about New Center.

I have to say that I just love Indianapolis to death, and thanks for these two sets of pictures. Indianapolis is proof that you can build a fabulous city really in the middle of nowhere. It's true that downtown seems a bit sanitized, but I love the vibrant commerce and the grandness of the circle, and, even though downtown is almost so tidy that it could be in a Canadian city, there is a lot of grit in Indianapolis. Also, there are a lot of interesting neighborhoods off downtown-- Lockerbie Square, Massachusetts Avenue, and Broad Ripple, for example. The one drawback Indy has for me is its dismal public transportation system. I do think that Indianapolis and Columbus have a lot in common. They have similar histories and both have those giant circumferential highways, and I think German Village and Lockerbie Square are a lot like each other. Nothing against Columbus-- it's also a great place-- but I think downtown Columbus has a way to go to match downtown Indy. I also love Cincinnati-- how could you not love such a beautiful place-- but Indy and Columbus seem to be more free of that tight-assed attitude that Cincinnati sort of still has. You have to admit that it does.

And what a beautiful park it is.

MayDay, first of all, the city is not going to clean up the spray-painted commentary on this bridge in Tremont. It's been there for months and is not really hurting anyone. If the city were to clean it up, I doubt the funds used to clean it up would be reallocated from the helping-the-poor fund. Tremont is one of my favorite neighborhoods anywhere. I'm happy for the gentrification that has transformed the neighborhood but am also happy that the forces of gentrification in Cleveland are not strong enough to rip the soul out of a neighborhood overnight. The crunchy dried-up activists you refer to can certainly be a pain in the ass, but their presence is one of the reasons that life is good here. The hipsters are nice to have around, but they can get out of hand too. Some of them are little bit vapid. Have you noticed that?

I made it to the tail end of the Waterloo festival today. Some of the art was good, a lot of it not that great, but Waterloo Rd. is an interesting scene. There are many outside influences on its fragile revival, of course, but I love that it's a piece of Cleveland. It's not a place where people rhapsodize about how it seems like it could be in Chicago or New York or wherever. It's hard to pigeonhole, maybe because it somehow has pulled in some creative locals with divergent visions on what the neighborhood should be and what the purposes of art and music are.

Wow. That's really a shame. Those are some beautiful buildings.

That's impressive. It seems there are many viable businesses and that many have not disregarded the upper floors when designing their facades. I like that there is new construction and that it's being built to the sidewalk. I hope the new building will not look like a suburban house.

Not to go on and on about it, but, yes, I agree, that New Orleans may be limited in its ability to supply a visitor with an urbane city experience, and I absolutely agree that so much-- maybe almost all-- of what has been built in the city in the past 50 years, including in the French Quarter and CBD, is just awful at worst or nondescript at best. The Lakeview neighborhood is one example. It was a middle-class neighborhood for the most part, I think, and mostly postwar, and, when I was looking at the neighborhood one year after Katrina, it was not the destroyed architecture that was chilling. What really got to me was all the evidence of neighborhood life that had just been brought to a halt. It was just an everyday kind of place, like Cleveland's West Park or something, that was of no interest to outsiders like me until after disaster struck. And then of course there are all the cultural overlays and undercurrents that set New Orleans apart, and their stories go so much deeper than their presentations in the tourist zones. Much of the spectacle that tourists see during Mardi Gras or at other times is rooted in and still generated in those rundown parts of town. There's a line in an Adrienne Rich poem that goes something like "Yes, poets are born in wasted tracts like these," and I have always liked that line because it could apply to the worst poverty-stricken ghetto or to the most garish well-off suburban subdivision. In defense of New Orleans, I do think that, despite its many, many woes and shortcomings, you really do get a feeling that it has the ability to generate poets and musicians and other kinds of artists. I also don't mean to say that I think the poverty of New Orleans is charming or irreversible. It's just part of the long story of the place, and I think that New Orleans provides clear evidence that a lot of the important work over time has been done by people who don't have much to go on materially.

I can see how some people would not find NO endlessly interesting, but there is certainly much to see outside the French Quarter. In fact, I would say that the FQ is not the most interesting part of New Orleans. I am no NO expert but know enough to recommend long walks on Magazine St. or St. Charles Ave. or visits to the big parks or unusual cemeteries. Since it's still partly shut down (and since it's not summer), you can't do it now, but I'd also recommend riding the St. Charles streetcar from the end of the line all the way into the middle of town on a summer night. There are also some really impressive off-Quarter neighborhoods. Two I have walked around in a lot are the Marigny and the Garden District. Even the beat-down parts of New Orleans and its elaborate drainage facilities are interesting, though, and the more you know about its nearly 300-year history, the more interesting you will find the place to be, because, in this place, the stories of the place almost outdo the place itself. It is also strange to be in a city whose existence was all but suspended for more than a month only a few years ago.