August 25, 2005
Façe
East End Movie Theater
By the post office, North Twenty-fifth Street, between Clay and Marshall
Today I got a shot of the front of the East End theater (which would still prefer to be a movie theater). It's currently being remodeled, you can see the pile of rubble and junk, including old refrigerators and mattresses, to the right of the theater. The façe may have looked really cool once upon a time, sort of a low budget art deco. The lower part of the façe was completely ripped off and the upper part is covered with peeling paint. Four tall, narrow windows are covered up with plywood. The top part of the outermost winglets has the zigzag form which appears on a small commercial building further down the block and on West Hospital across the Shockoe Valley.
So, here's the "before" picture. Eventually, I'll get an "after" picture and we can compare.
In other observations of the day, I note that today is the first day of classes at the university. For the first time in a very long time, I'm not there! And I didn't spend the last couple weeks having nightmares about showing up to class on the wrong day, at the wrong time, in the wrong room. It's cool to be out of school. This was also the second day in a row of unseasonably gorgeous weather. While weeding the yard with much less than the usual August misery, I found incriminating claw marks on my crepe myrtle. My prime suspect is the drooling tabby (we call him "Drooly"). I was still marveling about the low humidity and lack of haze when I went out for a walk this evening. From Libby Hill Park I could see out over the river valley for miles. Without the usual summer haze white-out, the trees were this rich, dark green and the river was all green tree and sky reflections. Wow! If it were like this all summer, we'd be overrun by Californians and totally priced out of our houses.
341 words | August 25, 2005 08:54 PM | Ghost signs