Favorite Historic Buildings or Places

[Fading Fast]

A very nice photo. Puts me in mind of Steichen's image of the Flatiron Building.

Thank you. For full disclosure, super girlfriend took that shot. In addition to being a baking and cooking wiz, she's got some real talent (which she'd deny) as a photographer. Hadn't though of it, but I know the shot you are referencing (love his work) and agree.

 

[Nobert]

Mechanic's Hall, in Real Portland*, the traditional headquarters of the Maine Charitable Mechanics Association:

That little shop with the black windows is a decent vintage clothing place, if you're ever in the neighborhood. It's where I bought my first fedora. The art supply store is also a solid example of the form.

The Association is, amazingly enough, still a going concern, and twenty five bucks will get you a year-long honorary membership. You get a card with your name typed in with an actual, accoustic typewriter, and library privileges.

You can check out books or just hang out and soak up the atmosphere, as these gents are doing:

*That's the original Portland, cordially differentiated from Other Portland with a couple of simple descriptors.

 

[Haversack]

Nobert wrote: "*That's the original Portland, cordially differentiated from Other Portland with a couple of simple descriptors."

What, the one in Dorset?

 

[PADDY]

Currently my work place as I peel back 700 years of one family history here and over 1000 years of there being a castle. Forever discovering new passages and hidden stairs!
Now (strangely ) more famous for Harry Potter's Hogwarts! Life is strange

 

[PADDY]

And Downton Abbey.

 

[Bushman]

These pictures solidify in my mind that the Field Museum is one of the most architecturally beautiful examples of neoclassical architecture in history.

 

[Benzadmiral]

I'm currently on call for jury pool duty at our city's Criminal Courts Building. It opened for use in 1931. The central second floor hallway is remarkable . . . and it gives us a vision of what working life was like back then. The courtrooms and offices are air conditioned, but the central hall and (at least) the men's room are not. The only things that make being in the hall tolerable at this time of year are the very high ceilings and the tall open-able windows, the tilt-open kind you used to see in factories and other places in the Era. None of the windows are open here, though:

Oh, and the courtrooms: wood-paneled with work that would do justice to Downton Abbey, and with good A/C now . . . but there are little desktop fans mounted on the walls above head height, about 4 in the courtroom I was in yesterday, with tall tall ceilings and windows. It must have been a horror to work there before A/C.

 

[Bushman]

I'm currently on call for jury pool duty at our city's Criminal Courts Building. It opened for use in 1931. The central second floor hallway is remarkable . . . and it gives us a vision of what working life was like back then. The courtrooms and offices are air conditioned, but the central hall and (at least) the men's room are not. The only things that make being in the hall tolerable at this time of year are the very high ceilings and the tall open-able windows, the tilt-open kind you used to see in factories and other places in the Era. None of the windows are open here, though:

View attachment 76318

Reminds me of the interior to City Hall in Chicago, which while the ceilings aren't as high, the interior is no less stunningly beautiful:

 

[Fading Fast]

... It must have been a horror to work there before A/C.

Yes on days of high temperature, high humidity and no wind - nothing helps or, as they say, hot is hot. But for days that are just warm or warm with some breezes - warm but not stifling - then things like high ceilings, big windows, fans, thick walls, cross breezes, etc - i.e., all the things pre-A/C architects put a lot of thought into - really make a difference.

We live in a 1928 apartment that has several thoughtful features to make the summers better. While we have air-conditioning, we use it much less than we did when we lived in a modern apartment as that had no heat-mitigating features, so once it got warmer outside, the apartment immediately heated up and you needed A/C. In this '28 apartment, with the use of fans and all the other pre-A/C features, we use A/C less than half as much as we did in the modern apartment.

 

[Trenchfriend]

My favorite: Ennis House.

 

[tonyb]

..,
We live in a 1928 apartment that has several thoughtful features to make the summers better. While we have air-conditioning, we use it much less than we did when we lived in a modern apartment as that had no heat-mitigating features, so once it got warmer outside, the apartment immediately heated up and you needed A/C. In this '28 apartment, with the use of fans and all the other pre-A/C features, we use A/C less than half as much as we did in the modern apartment.

You got transoms above the door(s)?

Nearly 40 years ago I was part of a crew making habitable an old hotel building that had been boarded up some decades earlier. The individual sleeping rooms had transoms over their doors, which had to be drywalled over to satisfy the fire marshal.

This previous owner of this place we bought in autumn of '15 had put in a new central air conditioner a year or so prior to our moving in. She had taken out a swamp cooler. I wish she hadn't done that. Evaporative cooling is a heck of a lot less costly to operate. Or so I've been told. This area (greater Denver) is the first place I've lived where swamp coolers are common. I doubt that your average lifelong Seattleite would know one if he saw it.

 

[tonyb]

My favorite: Ennis House.

That's one of those places people either "get" or don't.

Me, I get why people get it. But I'm not sure that I'm in the club.

 

[Fading Fast]

You got transoms above the door(s)?

Nearly 40 years ago I was part of a crew making habitable an old hotel building that had been boarded up some decades earlier. The individual sleeping rooms had transoms over their doors, which had to be drywalled over to satisfy the fire marshal.

This previous owner of this place we bought in autumn of '15 had put in a new central air conditioner a year or so prior to our moving in. She had taken out a swamp cooler. I wish she hadn't done that. Evaporative cooling is a heck of a lot less costly to operate. Or so I've been told. This area (greater Denver) is the first place I've lived where swamp coolers are common. I doubt that your average lifelong Seattleite would know one if he saw it.

Sadly and oddly, we don't have transoms despite this building having been constructed at a time when they were quite common in NYC. We looked at a lot (a whole lot) of apartments from the '20s and well-more than half had them.

It was an "item on our list" that we'd hope to get, but had to give it up as the apartment we did choose had so many other great things going for it - tremendous cross breezes being one of them - that the trade-off made sense.

Transoms are wonderful for airflow, they also bring light into "deeper" parts of the building and they are, IMHO, a beautiful architectural detail.

 

[Benzadmiral]

You got transoms above the door(s)?

Nearly 40 years ago I was part of a crew making habitable an old hotel building that had been boarded up some decades earlier. The individual sleeping rooms had transoms over their doors, which had to be drywalled over to satisfy the fire marshal.

This previous owner of this place we bought in autumn of '15 had put in a new central air conditioner a year or so prior to our moving in. She had taken out a swamp cooler. I wish she hadn't done that. Evaporative cooling is a heck of a lot less costly to operate. Or so I've been told. This area (greater Denver) is the first place I've lived where swamp coolers are common. I doubt that your average lifelong Seattleite would know one if he saw it.

Swamp coolers didn't help much when I lived in Denver. I'd come away from visiting a house with a swamp cooler feeling almost as sticky as if it had had no cooling equipment at all. SCs probably worked fine when Denver had a much lower population, and fewer swimming pools and lawn sprinklers. The old-timers in Denver swore the city used to be a lot drier.

That said, I remember visiting a shop in Old Town Albuquerque in late May. It was very cool in there, and I complimented the owner on her good A/C. She shook her head. "No, that's a swamp cooler."

 

[Stearmen]

Swamp coolers didn't help much when I lived in Denver. I'd come away from visiting a house with a swamp cooler feeling almost as sticky as if it had had no cooling equipment at all. SCs probably worked fine when Denver had a much lower population, and fewer swimming pools and lawn sprinklers. The old-timers in Denver swore the city used to be a lot drier.

That said, I remember visiting a shop in Old Twon Albuquerque in late May. It wa very cool in there, and I complimented the owner on her good A/C. She shook her head. "No, that's a swamp cooler."

You hit it on the head, pools and Kentucky Blue Grass. Same thing in Tucson, AZ. When I lived there in the 60s, only the rich had lawns, and the humidity did not get up to 30% in a down poor. Last time I was there in March, it was already 80 degrees and humid!

 

[tonyb]

You hit it on the head, pools and Kentucky Blue Grass. Same thing in Tucson, AZ. When I lived there in the 60s, only the rich had lawns, and the humidity did not get up to 30% in a down poor. Last time I was there in March, it was already 80 degrees and humid!

The missus is lobbying for xeriscaping. I'm looking for a low-water (as opposed to no-water) scheme. But getting a good design and executing it will cost. And we have higher priorities for our meager financial resources at present. So I water and mow the lawn and put down weed 'n' weed a couple times a year. Just call me Captain America.

 

[Fading Fast]

I've wanted to post pictures of this New York Central Rail Transit Bridge for awhile and, yesterday, was on the Westside and took these shots. I love that this thing still exists. While the pier now (like so many things) is a nice cleaned up "esplanade" with pretty landscaping, etc., for the public to walk along - this hulking relic reminds you that this was once a working pier in an industrialized city. Also, how cool is it that they used to float rail freight cars over on barges to get them from NJ to NYC?

Wikipedia:
The 69th Street Transfer Bridge, part of the West Side Line of the New York Central Railroad, was a dock for car floats which allowed the transfer of railroad cars from the rail line to car floats which crossed the Hudson River to the Weehawken Yards in New Jersey. Its innovative linkspan design kept the boxcars from falling into the river while being loaded.[1]

 

[2jakes]

E. 111th & S. St. Lawrence Ave., Chicago: Today

“Road to Perdition”.

 

[Fading Fast]

I love this local YMCA - and its over-the-top Italiante / Medieval design - and have wanted to post pics for awhile, but finally stopped today and discovered it's impossible to get a good shot as the street it's on is tight with tall buildings and trees everywhere.

Hence, the first picture is from the web and, clearly, from back when it was built and the buildings around it hadn't yet been built. The others are shots I took today.

Hard to believe there ever was a time a YMCA could be this elaborate and expensive, but it shows you that organization was a leader in its day.

Best angles I could get

And the insanely ornate main entrance arch (love the owls):

 

[2jakes]

Nice place to visit.

The Lost YMCA Bldg, No. 52 E. 23rd Street

A carriage awaits a shopper on the Fourth Avenue side as street cars rumble
along West 23rd. Photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum
of the City of New York.

Dream vacation:
Check out all the old existing buildings, take a pizza break and continue!