Spokane Skyline
In which Dan remembers to look up and see the less-seen.
I used to live in Spokane. Cool town.
The town made its money in mining and logging, and that money shows in many of its buildings from that era. A gew are newer but they still do a good job of filling the skyline.
I’ll double-check but most of these buildings are on the Spokane Register of Historic Places. I’m a sucker for places on that list.
Don't forget to look up!
I've told you enough times ..... Look up!
I read something years ago about how we've lost our instinct to look up as we walk. Our evolutionary ancestors would need to scour all angles to be on the lookout for predators. We haven't always been the top of the food chain, ya know. Many of our primate cousins still need to be wary of raptors from the skies coming to swoop them up but the odds of a pterodactyl or harpy swooping from the skies yo swoop up a Texan in the streets of San Antonio is negligible ... so we seem to have stopped looking up.
I've always felt that this was a shame for there's so much to see in the third dimension above us.
I've never known how much planning or design goes into making a building or skyline visually appealing from this angle. Maybe it's simply a positive byproduct of good design.
There's a part of my German, analytical brain that appreciates the symmetry found in these angle yet the artist in me likes the asymmetry, too. How boring if all the angle were the same, the shapes alike.
The foggy weather was a rare blessing. It took some of the crispness out of the uppermost edges of the building and softened the sounds of the city. The mist wasn't thick enough to hide any lurking pumas or saber-toothed cats but still, I walked around looking up most of the time.
No pterodactyl gonna catch me!
A Walk Along St Mary's Ave
You may have noticed that I like to walk a lot.
Perhaps my new friends in San Antonio have noticed that I like to walk and run a lot; to be in motion most of the time. I do so because I have a desire to see the world and experience its flavours and sights. My family emigrated here and I've been back to their homeland on many occasions to see what they saw. I've travelled when and where I could but whether I go to a faraway place like Malta or merely take walk through back alleys of Spokane, I do what I can to "see things".
There is so much colour and history all around us. Countless numbers of folks have walked through the same doorways that we have and have trod the same stairways and sidewalks. As a species, it's in our nature to alter our environment, to add goodness or remove blight, to improve efficiency or size. That's all fine and well but let's not forget that those who came before us did a pretty darn good job of crafting the world in which we live.
My new home is settled in the middle of several cool areas, all historic districts in central San Antonio. Tobin Hill, Olmos Park, Alta Vista and Monte Vista surround me and all have their splendid historical, architectural pieces interspersed with the newer ones and the hints of gentrification. All in all, it's a very pleasing mix and I haven't yet decided which areas I like best yet ... so I'll continue exploring.
For this trip, I decided to pick the low-hanging fruit. I needed to stop at a shop at the far end of N St Mary's St so it was an easy choice. If you click on the names of the shops under the images, you'll see on a Google Map exactly where they sit.
The styles of buildings are so very different than those in Spokane ... really from anywhere I've lived. California has its Spanish-styled buildings but this area seems to have a much deeper well of styles to choose from. This simple service station is an art deco marvel but I'd guess that it was considered quite pedestrian and utilitarian in its prime.
Perhaps the most striking building along the way is this 5-sided marvel. It's a cool pub and live music venue that seems sleepy most of the day then gets insanely busy on weekends. Also, WAY too loud for my taste. I give it a wide berth but do enjoy looking at the way it catches the sun and throws out oddly shaped shadows.
Another service station, this one seems to be much younger and has a more atomic-age feel to it. Superb angles and lines to it, no?
I've saved the best for last! Another 5-sided gem, this shop sits right next to Hi-Tones. If you look at them on the map you'll see that their shapes are a product of the crossing and divergent streets near them. The wonderful "Art Island" sits in the middle of the intersection where Dewey, Josephine and St Mary's meet and this place is just across from that. It was after their normal hours when I captured these images but one of the barbers, Jesse, was still there and we had a nice, quick chat. When I came back the next day, I got the best haircut that I've had in a while. Dude was awesome from start to finish.
Where should I go next? Which part of San Antonio deserves some time and attention. Leave a comment below and tell me your thought.
The Trade Winds Motel
What was once an ultra-cool travel lodge is now, well ..... a sh#thole!
From the Spokesman-Review:
Once a fashionable motel, built when the country loved Tiki-style architecture, the Trade Winds in recent years became a rent-by-the-month apartment complex for Spokane’s hard-luck crowd.
Well, yes. It has become, how should I say this ...... a shithole ..... but it's a shithole with amazing textures and colors to it. In a different world, it should be brought back to its motor-lodge glory and made a hub of hipster coolness. I suspect that's not going to happen, though. Too many strikes against it. Shame. It's cool to look at so I'll enjoy it while I can.
