Friday, July 24, 2009

decrepit building of the week


I've had my eye on these four buildings for a while, which I suppose is odd because they're easy to miss. With exception to the third one down, they look fairly unremarkable. One thing I go back and forth with is how buildings here for some reason or another have been radically altered for no particularly good reason. You see this most often in downtown -- alot of businesses only have any real income potential from the bottom floor and so property owners have taken heart to completely forgetting the rest of the building to the point of bricking/concreting/removing all detail on the upper floors. I've never understood this but it is what it is.. These commercial buildings are actually victorian. Two italiante, a romanesque, and a queen anne to be exact. Look a little closer.

This one right here I'm particularly interested in. Mostly because it still retains the majority of its detail with exception to the bricked in windows and paint scheme. It has a high style victorian look that I just adore. I have dreams of buying this building and doing a complete restoration. I'd live in the top floor of course..


The corner building is the queen anne. Don't see it? Note the steel girders running along the clipped edge. That was the previous home of a turret my friends. The windows have been possibly shortened and the entire building is covered in concrete (stucco?), further obscuring the original detail underneath. This would be an awesome project, but I wouldn't want to think what it would cost to restore this one properly. The turret alone would be ridiculously expensive to recreate.


Here's an old picture I found from the public library archives (aultman collection). If you look lower right you'll see the buildings in question. Well you mostly see the corner turret building, but you get the idea. How times have changed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is a wonderful building in a small Iowa town near where I grew up that echoes in style the corner building--turret, three stories of tall, narrow windows, and cast iron facade. It looks pretty much the same today as it did 120 years ago except that the windows are boarded up and the building has been vacant for years. I've always dreamed of owning it and restoring it to its original splendor. So I guess I'm not as crazy as I once thought...

Also, did you notice that the First National Bank's Surplus and Deposits must have been fairly static since they were painted on the side of the building? Somehow I doubt that someone shinnied up there every other week to update them. :-)

Omar said...

Hi there -- I tell you if I had me the money I'd buy, rehab, repeat till I died. I don't think you'd ever run out of new challenges. I'd like to try something crazy like that at least once in my life -- rehabbing a large commercial building I mean. You only live once right? :)

I had to squint at the old pic to see what you were talking about -- good eye!