i have taken up a mini-fascination for old ny parking garages lately. feel free to add pics of any interesting old car park garages in your town:

 

 

meatpacking

 

 

west village

 

 

i cant find a pic, but this newish drug store/apt building used to be the dover taxi garage,

a very scenic looking taxi cab stand/garage -- it was the one seen on the tv show "taxi"

& is where andy kaufman, tony danza & the taxi gang hung out  :laugh:

 

village

 

 

 

 

 

 

soho (has the winner!)

   

 

 

 

tribeca

 

 

 

                                                                                                                        this one angles up

 

 

west soho

aka hudson square

 

80's version

in the saatchi & saatchi building

 

lastly, the garage in the massive old

archive building on christopher street

 

*** if anyone is into this let me know & i'll keep an eye out for more old ones.

        i'd like to see some old garages in cinci & elsewhere if you got'em ***

 

I always loved the little random parking garages in the city.  We never really parked in them, though, because of the price.  Thanks for the photos. I miss NYC.

How 'bout this one in Pittsburgh?

 

First municipally-owned parking structure in the United States was built in 1941 in Welch, West Virginia, holding 232 cars. Population 2,600. McDowell county was once teetering a little over 95,000 in 1950 and stands at 24,726 in 2004 (down from 27,000 just four years prior, and 35,000 in 1990).

 

 

 

Land was very compact back then (gosh I need to do a whole thread on this town). Check out this gasoline station!

 

 

^ Totally random but I ran across it tonight.

The one in Pittsburgh is cool as hell, Rob.

There's a (shorter) helix in Williamsport like the one in Rob's photo. I'll try to get a picture of it later today or tomorrow.

Cool thread...there are a couple of interesting ones in Cincy that I'll try to photograph.

I realized a few days ago that one way we can stop SUVs from terrorizing our planet is by making it inconvenient for those who have them. We can start by having unreasonably low clearance on garages (I know, this is very unrealistic in a capitalistic economy). I was walking on campus--and if you've never been to UC, it's a really dense campus with no surface lots minus a few at the edge which serve exclusive purposes. Whenever there are sporting or theatrical events, there seems to be a lot of confusion amongst visitors who drive around aimlessly in the center of campus. For the 5-7th time, I was asked by someone where they could park on campus a few days ago. I said there are a few garages such as the CCM garage and the one below University Park. She said she couldn't get into them due to the low clearance and asked if there was surface parking. I said "I'm sorry but this campus wasn't designed for that, you'll have to park on Calhoun like the others". She may have been able to park in the surface lot by the public safety building but this campus is something people should experience through walking. The idea that the public can literally park right next to a stadium or Corbett theater on a surface lot is absolutely absurd! If everyone could do that, this campus would be chaotic, not to mention the epitome of ugliness.

In downtown Williamsport:

 

 

This is the Third Street Entrance:

 

 

The parking deck is OLD and pretty much falling apart. 

Soon it is going to be demolished and rebuilt to look like this one across the street:

 

^Actually at my alma mater The University of Tennessee, they have a large surface lot right next to 107,000 seat Neyland Stadium but have been for years tearing down homes in surrounding neighborhoods for yet more 6-floor parking garages.  I think the reason why they keep this surface lot is because its so deep within the campus that putting another 1-2,000 cars in the middle of the campus would mean total gridlock getting in and out, not just on game days. 

 

Ironically there is a rail line which runs within 500 feet of the stadium...people actually park across the river and walk across that active railroad bridge over the Tennessee River to get to the games.  So...people illegally walk the track ties across a river but won't actually get on a train.  The south in a nutshell. 

 

Speaking of deterioration, we have some fairly old parking structures here, some 20 to 30 years old. Last summer (or was it 2006?), a panel came lose from a parking garage after a truck nudged it and it fell on a pregnant woman, killing her (obviously). They now have reinforcing anchors holding it in -- whereas it had NONE previously, and was literally hanging on by literally a few screws.

 

They have been shoring up all of our other parking garages as a result. Even fairly new structures that are 15 years old were in pretty poor condition, with a lot of surface deterioration and some rebar exposure.

If downtown Williamsport wasn't involved in a revitalization project, I would wonder what the fate of that garage would be.  It was opened in 1966 and I haven't been in it, but it seems pretty ratty.  I talked to the county planning board reps and they said it is literally falling apart.  The new one is great, being that it's only 9 years old (opened in '99).  I'm going to miss that helix though, because I had memories of it when I would visit family when I was little.

Not sure if this thread (http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,15030.msg248474.html#msg248474) inspired you to start this one mrnyc, but I thought I'd repost my intro message from it...

 

 

I don't remember this automated parking facility, even though I was 17 years old when it was demolished about 1984 for the Central Market Domed Stadium (!). The parking facility is at the corner of Huron and Ontario -- where the main entrance of Quicken Loans Arena is today. These pictures were taken by Clay Herrick and is in his collection posted at ClevelandMemory.com.

 

In 1979, notice the brick wall of one of the Tower City Center buildings where Nike's Lebron mural hangs today:

 

In 1966, looking generally north:

 

In 1963, with Ontario Street in the foreground:

 

In 1962, again looking generally north, but the metal skin of the structure hadn't been added yet:

That's so odd. The parking structure is still surrounded by surface parking. *vomits* lol

Very interesting to see though.

Cincinnati had one of those automated garages on the north side of 9th Street between Vine and Race.  It was torn down 10 years or so ago.  Did every larger town have one as a novelty?

I realized a few days ago that one way we can stop SUVs from terrorizing our planet is by making it inconvenient for those who have them. We can start by having unreasonably low clearance on garages (I know, this is very unrealistic in a capitalistic economy).

 

Reminded me of a time actually saw a van lose its roof on a concrete beam in a parking structure.  Ceiling height is less about cars and more about people in parking structures these days.  They have to be designed so that people can't hit their heads on the light fixtures.  Not to mention, people feel more secure in higher ceiling-airy garages You resolve that, you can fit a lot of SUV's

No Ian, just make the entrance have a low clearance ;)

I see people hit the signage in the Fountain Square garage all the time in their large SUVs.  It makes me chuckle.

I know, it's hilarious! What now, neo-cons!

Here's one from Dayton...

 

The terra cotta facade in the Dayton one is really excellent.  I think ColDayMan (or was it you) had a close up of the "Ohmer" sign up on the cornice.  That was the site of the old Ohmer furniture factory. 

 

There are two or three other pre-war ones downtown disguised as commercial buildings.

the nytimes had something on this topic:

 

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?p=287556#post287556

 

Cincinnati had one of those automated garages on the north side of 9th Street between Vine and Race.  It was torn down 10 years or so ago.  Did every larger town have one as a novelty?

 

The Carew Tower complex once had an early example of an automated garage; it was the third-tallest portion of the complex after the office tower and the Netherland Plaza hotel. At some point it was torn down, and the Tower Place mall occupies the site now. Unfortunately, photos of this structure seem pretty hard to come by; I'm not sure when it was demolished.

 

The helix ramp shown above reminds me of the parking entrance to the John Hancock Center garage in Chicago (actually a double helix):

 

 

Paul Rudolph designed a pretty trippy parking garage in New Haven, CT not far from the Yale University campus:

 

 

 

The Carew Tower complex once had an early example of an automated garage; it was the third-tallest portion of the complex after the office tower and the Netherland Plaza hotel. At some point it was torn down, and the Tower Place mall occupies the site now. Unfortunately, photos of this structure seem pretty hard to come by; I'm not sure when it was demolished.

 

It was an unplanned demolishing during the construction of Tower Place.  I don't know what the issue was, but it was originally supposed to stay in place.

Here is a link showing the Carew Tower garage....

 

http://cincinnativiews.net/images-3/Buildings.jpg

That photo is from either 1971 or 1972.