The Rise & Fall of the Salem Mall Area

...in diagrammtic maps:






....more detail here.

Drexel Dave is back!

...back to taking snapshots of Dayton street life, that is:...and back on the blogroll. DD is the most accurate commentator on the state of affairs in old Dayton, and does it in pix, not so much words (though his words are a hoot).

So far three new adds for y'all to get yer Dayton online fix:

Photos From the Streets of Dayton

It's Great N' Dayton

Polishing the Gem City with an Old T-Shirt

Another Dayton Blog

...and that's a good thing!

polishing the gem city with a old T-shirt

This blog has been around since April 2007, based on the post history. This is a very good example of a solid, basic city/region blog with quick to-the-point commentary on community things.




(...& deffo ad to the blogroll)

City of Cheapskates II

I stand by my comments about el-cheapo Dayton folk. In fact my opinion was confirmed yet again last evening.

The time: Friday evening. The place: Cold Beer and Cheesburgers on Jefferson Street, downtown.

I and my partner decided to get some munchies after cocktails, and CB&C is good for that (great concept, too...Cold Beer + Cheesburgers..even though we had iced tea). Next to us was a party of 6 + one preschooler.

My partner overhead them discussing the tip, discussing whether or not to even leave a tip.

And they didn't. Stiffed the waitstaff (and they were being waited on by two).

Looking at them when they were leaving, well dressed, and half the party got into an SUV. I know the downtown CB&C gets a more urban and maybe lower income crowd..it's not an upscale place...but this party looked like they could afford a tip.

I guess they needed the money to put gas in that SUV.

Moraine Assembly

Moraine Assemblies' announced closure is yet another opportunity for some vicious schadenfreude and dark sarcasm at the DDN comments section. Yet some good people are speaking out , too , calling out the haters and offering empathy for the soon-to-be unemployed.

I don't know what annoys me more, the glee and sastisfaction in seeing people lose their jobs, or using this as an opportunity for political and ideological axe-grinding, both from a certain type of bitter conservatism one often see's here, and from a left POV that is a bit rarer in online discourse.

The inevetible union bashing is pretty inane given the history of the plant. The place probably had a 20-25 year life extension due to union agreements to a multi-tiered wage scale and flexible job assignements as part of the deal to get GM to retool the old fridge plant to make vehicles. Of course this history means not a thing to soreheads blinded by right wing ideology.

So, now the long rung of Morain is over the plant will stand empty. Probably less to do with unions and more to do with overall declining market share. Note that GM is not considering re-tooling to non SUV or truck production here or at the other places, so this is a cut in excess capacity since they apparently dont expect improve market share with new products, or not enough to warrant these plants to stay open.

Old Sacramento Skyscrapers

Old Sacramento must have been like a smaller Southern city, with an economy based on regional trade and ag production. Like smaller Southern citys (Lexington and Macon come to mind) it had some older skyscrapers, just two in this case. About as many as nearby Stockton.

But they were great urban set-pieces, dominating J Street, the main drag east out of downtown (K Street was the main shopping street, but this led out beyond the old city, through the Forties, eventually to Folsom (the "Waynesville" of Sacramento) and into the Sierra Nevada foothills.


The one closer was the Elks Building, maybe with the lodge hall on the top floor?...architecturally some sort of take on English classical of the Colonial Williamsburg/Christopher Wren/Mount Vernon variety.

It doesn't look as good from the ground up as it does from afar, where it looks great, due to the good design development of the top stories. But the other building, an insurance company building, was pretty impressive all around. Especially with that big hip roof on top. Since it was across the street from Plaza Park you could get a good view of the whole building.
In the background one gets a glimpse of the low-mid rise modernist development along Capital Avneue, which continues the pattern seen in the prewar pix below (looking east). Note that the mountains don't seem to be visible here, which is usually the case. Though closer to the Sierra Nevada the Coast Ranges (and the unique Sutter Buttes) are more visible.
A fairly decent collection of buildings above 7 storys, but not much more. One can also see, in the background, the Cathederal and the Senator Hotel. In the forground I think the Travellers Hotel is still there, as is the Hotel Ramona just beyond, with the arched windows and hip roof. We are close to Union Station, so hotels are expected. Though I recall some of these were single room occupancy places. Sacto had a sort of transient older singles population.

This Sacratomato virtual visit will continue with a look at Tower Bridge & "Old Sacramento", then at some vintage residential architecture and local parks.

California Vanity Post

Yer humble host usually posts about Louisville, but for a change of pace here is one about California.

Ay Califas! How I miss you sometimes! Specifically the urban life I lead in the heart of Sacramento. The biggest US city you never heard of. A nondescript place that was about as big as Canton or Springfield in 1940, is today the size of metropolitan Cincinnati

(mouse over this and the other images, click, and they will enlarge)

Closing in on the older parts of town, the grid of the old city is becoming visible. There are two rivers, the Sacramento being navigable (and actually tidal even this far inland). This was the original route of the Delta Queen. The Delta Queen is now docked in Old Sact, on the "embarcadero". Of the features on the map, "The Forties" is Sacramento's
"Oakwood".
Zooming in on the old city, AKA "Midtown", the relentless, Manhattenesque street grid is quite visible, a checkerboard of perfectly square blocks. One of the few interruptions is Sutters Fort, which is a park as well as a historic site, surrounded by an upscale Grafton-Hill esque neighborhood, including a high rise apartments.

Alkalai Flat is an old blue collar area for railroad workers (the yards and shops are awaiting redevelopment), now a Mexican barrio, as is Southside Park neighborhood.

Lavender Heights was the gay district, in the heart of Midtown, and walking distance from my place in Capital Park, my neighborhood.
Zooming in even closer, Capital Park works a bit like Central Park in NYC, breaking the grid, but having the captial builidng as the centerpiece. North of the park is the tail end of downtown, which is expanding eastward. K Street was the old shopping street, but now is a transit mall for the light rail, which also ran close to my place, with a station at the state archives.
Enlarging the yellow box, my immediate neighborhood. This was sort of a cool place as there were little grocerys and sidewalk cafe restaurants nearby, though parking was a real hassle, you just parked and walked places, not relying on the car that much. Famous former resident was Jerry Brown, who lived a zen-spartan existence in a little apartment nearby while governor.
And zooming in even closer, my apartment, top floor, with kitchen facing the light well and living/dining and bedroom facing the hotel/senior housing to the right (east). Actually no view but suprisingly light and airy. The senior housing was a high-rise, with a bunch of telecom/cable TV stuff on top.
This was a very interesting place. My landlady was this lefty Southern belle from Valdosta, GA who was a photographer. The place was really half offices for lobbyists and half residents. My next door neighbor was a security gaurd at the capital, and across the hall was the Sierra Club and some sort of offshore oil producers PAC. At the end, facing the park, was a suite held by the California Republican Party. Below them was an interior decorator and two punk rockers.
The entry. Good place to hang out. This apartment was my trick pad...I would cruise Lavender Heights and bring my tricks here as it was close, walking distance. There were a lot of little buildings like this "on the grid", though mine wasn't a pink fairy palace as some of the others. Casa de Rey was notorious. We nicknamed it Casa de Reynas, House of the Queens.

The nice lobby area.
And a hallway. There was one of these phone-booth size elevators ith a wire accordian cage door that you used to go up. Three stories but tall. Ten foot ceilings on my floor. You can sort of see the light coming in from the light wells here, into the hallway.
And some other views. Fremont Park was one of the few parks here..every so often a block or square would be developed as a park. In the case of Fremont Park there was a community garden across the street where I had a small plot (red box is my apartment).
And a view of the part of downtown across from my apartment. I went to mass every so often in the Cathederal. Bishop Quinn was pretty cool. The Elks Building and the older hip roofed building near City Hall Plaza were the tallest in town for decades as an unofficial rule kept high rises below the Capital dome. Thus Sacto had a dense, but low rise thing going on, almost like a provincial European city.

Sacto folks have a cute habit of nicknaming their high rises (the firt big ones)...in this case the Darth Vader Buidling (AKA The Ratchet Wrench Building). There was also the "Miami Vice Building", as it looked like something from that TV show. All of these high rises are after my time (except the Darth Vader building).

J Street was the site of the raucous, Mardi-Gras -esque StPatricks Day parade, which packed downtown with throngs of revelers drinking on the street. City Hall Plaza is another one of those block parks, like Fremont Park, but focuses on City Hall.
And another view and another nicknamed high-rise (Ban Roll-On building). The Crest was a place for rock/folk shows and retro old movies. Next door (but now gone) was Club Can't Tell, punk/new wave venue (saw Los Lobos there).

The Senator was a grand old hotel, like the Biltmore. Now offices, it was recreated as a Marriott just down the street. State Supreme Court and State Library have locally well known mottos carved into their piedments: "Into the Highlands of the Mind Let Me Climb", and "Bring Me Men to Match My Mountains", which local wags assert is a reference to the rather buxom allegorical figure of Calfiornia in the frieze.

So a quicky tour of El Sacra Centro using found google images (Cool that I could find my old apartment online). I could probably do a supplemental pix post of some of these places.

I have to say this was a great (but short) time living here, a truly walkable place where one could lead a true carless existence. There was a lot of street life, but it was pretty safe, even with the visible queeny gay presence. One thing to note about this neighborhood, this midtown/old city area is that it had a real mix of types, with some concentrations, but not the hard divisions one sees here in the midwest.

And the town had some really great gay bars.