Quote:
Originally Posted by Beaudry
The site of "N-Alley" now? You wouldn't even know:
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But I do see yet another parking lot. It's little short of astonishing, the ability they had to put parking lots in every conceivable spot in the area. We bemoan the lost of our architectural history because it's almost all lost--and they utterly ignored the value of what they had because they needed parking lots.
The consolation is that by the time we get to about 1925 or so, we find that hundreds of buildings from that time, both residential and commercial are still to be found all over the city, but particularly in the older districts surrounding downtown proper. In the 1970s, when I became interested in this, many of demolished or soon-to-be demolished buildings around the Plaza and Bunker Hill, were or would have been no older than the "hundreds of buildings" are now, to which I alluded to above. And it seems likely these buildings will remain, because the forces which led to all the demolitions and the exodus from downtown have largely abated, if not reversed.
And, of course, another bright spot is the Old Bank District (TM), which largely escaped the notice and destructive zeal of the CRA, and is still there today.