Charley, West

 

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Great pics!!  Charleston is really a nice looking town!

 

I love Interstate 64/77 through Charleston. Impressive viaducts through the center of the city, including a tri-level interchange with piers inside buildings; the Fort Hill interchange (US 119) that was one of the largest earthmoving projects in the U.S. when it was built; four Kanawha River crossings on Interstate 64, including the longest steel-girder bridge in the world (at the time) and what will be the longest segmental concrete bridge in the world (IIRC, let me check this later); cantilevered interstate highway segments near the Capitol...

 

The Charleston Town Center, when it was built in the early 1980s, was the largest indoor urban mall in the U.S. Three levels with two huge parking structures, and an attached hotel and enterainment complex. Their downtown is adjacent and is quite nice. There are a lot of quaint, narrow streets filled with stores and restaurants, although the mall has kind of sapped out some of the energy from that.

 

One of my favorite urban cities!

Great city!

Charleston is a real surprise.  My parents used to go there once in a while and always said what a nice place it was.  Looks much larger than it is, and the downtown would certainly give a city two or three times its size a run for the money.  Plus, the capitol is a beauty.  The mountains don't hurt either.

I've always like it however I always thought it was weird the Capitol was outside of downtown and at the edge of a residential neighborhood.  I understand why they did that . . but you would have thought they could have found enough land closer to downtown.

Awesome bridge shots!

I've always like it however I always thought it was weird the Capitol was outside of downtown and at the edge of a residential neighborhood.  I understand why they did that . . but you would have thought they could have found enough land closer to downtown.

 

The original capitol was closer to downtown, although it burned.

A beautiful city in a great setting, with a handsome state capitol.

 

Wonderful West Virginia -- there's a lot to love about that state. The scenery is magnificent, the state parks are gorgeous and impeccably cared for, and folks there are hospitable.

 

Excellent aerial photo tour.

What is the football stadium home to right off the highway?

I believe it is the West Virginia Chaos - Soccer USL Premier Development League Schoenbaum Field

 

What is the football stadium home to right off the highway?

Laidley Field. It was built as the local  school system's football field and used for HS football, soccer, track and field (and even monster trucks!) for many years. In 2003, the University of Charleston football program was revived after many years, bringing more money for upkeep. And soccer's WV Chaos play there as well.

Parkersburg went the route of mass "urban renewal" and nothing materialized -- at least, anything significant. They are receiving a nice new office/retail structure in downtown, but that's it.

 

Charleston's "urban renewal" was the Charleston Town Center, the largest indoor, urban mall in the United States... complete with Charleston Symphony performances, two hotels and three parking garages.

 

Huntington has a large downtown, and only five blocks north of 3rd Avenue to Veterans Memorial Blvd. (US 60 bypass) (one block deep) was leveled. An apartment tower and two chains were constructed on one block; the civic center on another; a hotel on another, followed up by Pullman Square. There are very few vacant parcels in downtown today.

I love Charleston's urban fabric. Downtown is huge for a city its size. It's by far West Virginia's best city in terms of its downtown. It's also the healthiest too and more intact. Huntington and Parkersburg have leveled like 2/3's or 3/4's of their downtowns. Charleston has preserved much more.

 

The only thing I hate are the drivers in winter. People in West Virginia generally just don't slow down for snowstorms. It scared the hell out of me, especially on the mountain highways with all the semi trucks.

 

Spoken like a true Slowhioan. West Virginians drive fasssst all the time.

When I drove past Charleston for the first time i was surprised at how big downtown was. I especially wasn't excpecting a skyline of that size. I havent had the chance to actually go and explore but i will when I catch a WV Power game someday.

Y'all are picking up on this in the aerials, but it feels the same way on the ground, that this is a very dense downtown for a city its size.  Another thing that creates a very built-up, intimate feel is that the downtown streets are narrow, and some of them run at an angle, closing off vistas. 

 

There are some nice areas up in the hills overlooking town, too.  One I recall driving through was Loudon.

Great photos, but my wife saw the picture of the big gold state capital dome and said, "Eww, I can see it from all the way across the room!"  Every time we've driven past it we've had to poke fun at the gaudiest state capitol ever.  To each their own.  :)