Robert Pence

Beautiful shots. Kentucky has some of the best scenic places in this part of the country.

Excellent photos; the area looks colorful despite the winter overcast. Not long ago I rode the 4-Cottage Grove bus from 58th to the Loop. It passed through some parts of the South Side that didn't look nearly that good -- downright scary, in fact.

Not a bad-looking downtown. The park makes a nice centerpiece. A pox on window air conditioners, though. Some of those handsome buildings would benefit by having central air, and getting rid of the tumors growing from their window openings.

I wish I lived closer!

You're not alone in admiring it. I know other skyscraper enthusiasts, some from bigger cities, that really like it. It took a while, but it finall grew on me and now I'm an admirer. In certain kinds of light it's rather dramatic. It's so much taller than anything around it that it's sort of out of context in Fort Wayne, but I guess that helps it stand out and attract attention. The original design and renderings called for it to be sheathed in mirror tiles, but change orders and construction delays pushed things out so far that there was danger of missing the occupancy date required to lock in the financing rate, and the mirror tiles went by the wayside. The last time I looked, Emporis said it was a steel-framed structure. That's not right; it's poured-in-place reinforced concrete. Bunch more downtown photos here.

That's must be what they mean by gracious living. Gorgeous homes!

I worked on the top floor of that building about 1985-1988, and got up on the roof a few times. I have lots of photos of the entire complex, enough for a full thread by itself when I find time to digitize them. That facility dates from the 1880s up through 1915 or thereabouts, although most of the original buildings burned around 1895. The plant covers several city blocks and is mostly inactive now, although I've heard that GE plans to invest in a major R&D center on the site. I've read that at its peak during WWII it employed about 5,000 people; when I started there as an apprentice machinist-toolmaker in 1958, about 3,000 people worked there. GE made specialty electric motors and power-distribution transformers at that site. Renderings and other info are here: http://www.cityoffortwayne.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1049&Itemid=1168

It's wonderful to see that neighborhood making a comeback; there are a lot of potentially attractive properties in the photos. The infill houses might not look so bad in a few years if they get some landscaping and trees. At least they don't have huge subdivision-style garage doors opening onto the street.

Quite a mixed bag. Overall, not bad.

Not much of value. The two businesses that I considered viable were Belmont Liquors and Bill's Palace, a pretty good restaurant that was a lunchtime sanctuary for the smokers from Lincoln Financial. Mostly, it was Lincoln Financial's employee parking lots, some buyer-beware used-car lots and auto repair places, and quite a lot of low-to-marginal quality housing, mostly rentals owned by absentee landlords. I took photos before and during site-clearing; when I find time, I'll get them up as part of a complete thread. The redevelopment includes public space, a ball park, a Courtyards by Marriott hotel and parking garage, and sixty-some condominiums with a ball-park view and street-level retail space. The condos are being grabbed up pre-construction pretty briskly; I think more than 40 have been spoken for already.

This morning I took a walk downtown to shake off cabin fever and check out progress on Harrison Square construction. I grabbed a couple of shots that caught my eye along the way. New copper shingles for Trinity English Lutheran. Them ain't cheap! Allen County Public Library west entrance Allen County Public Library plaza entrance Not a lot going on with Harrison Square today because of the mud from the sudden thaw and heavy rains. Some work was going on around the periphery of the site, but anything that had tried to drive on the construction roads would have gotten mired immediately. I found a gap in the barricades big enough for my skinny ass to slip through. What I thought was a crushed-stone surface turned out to be a thin layer of stone over deep, sticky, sucking mud. I 'bout lost my shoes! Sloppy tinkering with Photoshop How 'bout some more water? We're runnin' out of mud over here!

Sweet-looking town, excellent photos!

Great photos! :clap:

The Hilltopper (R.I.P about 1979, I think) was another West Virginia Amtrak train that should have qualified as an essential service. As I recall, it ran from Kenova (near Huntington) to Washington, D.C., where it picked up a sleeper and became an overnight train to NY (Nightowl?). I rode it near its end. An F40 locomotive pulled two Amfleet coaches and the train was pretty well filled most of the way, although few passengers were going the whole distance. There was a lot of family travel going on between towns maybe 30 - 50 miles apart. It really provided a service for local people. The track was good, the train ran on-time, and the scenery was splendid.

Good views. Baltimore has lots of interesting stuff!

Good stuff! 15 years ago and more, I used to visit a friend who lived in a 4th-floor walkup at 62nd Street & 1st Avenue. We could see the tram from his window. One time when we rode it, a maintenance guy got on with a ladder, and while the tram was crossing, he climbed out through a hatch in the roof to inspect or work on something. He must have had a heck of a view from up there. Back then, someone was promoting a plan to put a market in the space under the bridge approach on the Manhattan side. Did anything ever come of that?

How long would it be before anyone missed him, if ... ?

You really got around in '07! Neat stuff!

Cute town. The church in the first photo is pretty interesting.

Neat photos!

Beautiful set!

Kinda nice; some pleasant residential and handsome churches.

Neat stuff! It's amazing how Roosevelt Island is so near Manhattan and yet retains a unique identity.

Nice!

Montpelier is a railroad town; big NS yard (former Wabash RR) there.