Well, there is this beautiful old brick building on Washington near my home in Houston. It is an old machine shop. Building looks like it was built in the nineteen-teens right around WWI. The "Q" machine shop. Old faded sign panted on the side. I've driven past there for a couple of years always thinking I'd stop in and talk to them about something and look around. Drove by today and the sign has been scrubbed off the side of the building...no telling how long it had been there, and there is a for sale sign out front. This is now an "upscale" area of town. This has been happening every where in Houston...this damn prosperity is killin this town! I can without doubt or hesitation tell you, for sure, that that place will not stand a month from now. Some ****tastic strip center or condos will replace it....uhg! sigh...
Aint that the gospel? All over America man. Pretty soon it's just going to be a strip mall from one end of the nation to the other. Here in Bangor, we have a beautiful downtown - old brick buildings, art deco facades, and the place is dying. You can't keep a business up in running, but go a couple miles north to the "mall" and witness mindless box store sprawl packed to the gills on any given Sunday. I hate people.
These are the same people that want to crush old carsvfor cash instead of investing in american automotive history. Sad times indeed........
There are a lot of nice old buildings burried in our nation's landfills. It's depressing. Get some pictures before it is bulldozed.
Houston has ZERO protection for historic buildings, that part of town has some of the most interesting stuff, but it's going fast.
They need to take a note of what Galveston's been doing for a couple decades! lucky, what's a ram adapter, those aluminum funnels we used to call velocity stacks?
Yep, I'm not lookin' for velosity stacks....not that they aren't nice and all. Here is what I'm after:
On the bright side(?), one of those tacky "indoor swap meet" stores burned to the ground in Alhambra, CA this morning. Sadly, it was in one of the older buildings in the town.
the oldest ford dealership here in town was an army surplus store for YEARS. i would ride my bike there when i wa sa kid, dig 3 ft into a pile of stinky *** old surplus and find WWI stuff at the bottom. loved that place, love the smell of old surplus gear. tore it down to make a ****in CVS pharmacy in downtown. there ain't **** in downtown either. google "kahiki" to learn about another cool old spot that got destroyed for a drug store, and why i'll never shop at walgreens...
a few years ago while working for a auctioneer we went to review a family farmstead.. the place was owned by a group of self sufisciant sisters and a brothers they were moving into town soon and had the whole farm to liquidate the place was shock full of antiques and old primitives... buggys ,tools, homemade toys,old furniture ,cast iron pans,crocks, oil lamps... etc the auctioneer set a date and informed the family to clean up the clutter a little and we'd be back for the auction the day before we went to set up and 50%of the old stuff was missin... wtf the family had hired a few kids to haul ?loads to thier dump at the back of the property.. you know" who would want all that old stuff we had around here for all these years".. they did clean up the b/w tv and the new chest of drawers (particle board.,tupperware, for the sale! we were able save about 10 pickup loads and even more neat ol stuff and thier ***es ..as the antiques brought thousands , turn othe century canning jars dated 1902. ,cupboads..... soo some people do not want old stuff or feel history is important... gee they lived thru the hard time so now they could have nice new plastic things
Happening here in Spokane, Wash. also, and now that you mention it the last 2 I saw were both turned into a WALLGREENS!!!! HMM.. never gave any thought to that except how disappointed I was that the old building was gone!! I am HATING wallgreens now!!!
It aint much but on each house I build and each remodel I do, I do***ent the date and the builders on the inside of a wall. I got the idea from a remodel we did 6 years ago. Old guy was 97 at the time and built the house we had bought (he lived next door). He had more history about Rapid City than the historical society! When we tore into a wall and found signatures and notes we called him over..............he knew the day and the story........he added a stairwell inside because his wife didnt want to use the outside stairs to put the kids in thier cribs, I met the "kid" he was 70+ Save the buildings, but also talk to our elders...........that nondescript warehouse could have helped int he War effort and actually be worth more to keep standing than tearing it down.......and you wouldnt know unless you asked that old hunched over dude with the cane...........
Sounds like a great location to put that Hot Rod Shop that "everyones been gunna do for awhile". I feel your pain, I am a REALTOR(tm) in Lodi/Stockton, Ca and it kills me when I see properties like the one you are talking about being taken down for a Starbucks/Walgreens, etc. These buildings are no different than the cars we love, and worth every cent to restore/keep. I highly suggest that we all get 2 or three(3) friends, and start buying these properties for shops/retail whatever. Just so they dont go away. Let me know when your ready to buy
I know what you mean. Here in our town there was a 3 story house that was built by a shipbuilder around 1900. Beautiful woodwork up in the 3rd floor that had never been retouched or molested. The house was in good shape, and Century21 used it as their office for about 7 or 8 years. Across the street was a pink house that had been there since the 30's. Now this is in our so called historic district. Anyway, to make a long story short, the 3 story house was sold and Century 21 bought the pink house. They bulldozed the 3 story house and built a bank. Across the street they bulldozed the pink house and built a brick Century21 office building. Now, how ****ed up is that?
We have an old motel here that had a cool painted wall on the second level facing the main road thru town, the painting had some cool cairacture bears and trees and stuff all set off with neon. Well the motel sold and one day I went to town and it was all gone, with the wall painted a **** brown. It really ****ed cause it was a great eye catcher before.
The loss of historic and "character" buildings and houses in Calgary is partly what is driving my wife and I to move back to Winnipeg Manitoba. We'd desperately love to buy an old house to restore, but around here they're priced out of our league. Developers buy them and tear them down so they can put two little "infill" houses on the big lots. It ****ing ****s. Most of todays generation don't give a **** about history and old stuff.
Me too! The sad part is that, not only is this a beauty of an old building, but they literally don't build them like they used to. This is a honest to god brick structure, with possible some steel in it. They are not puttin' those things up anywhere. When was the last time you sat a real masonry wall being built out of brick by real masons? I'd have to say the last time I saw that was some time in my childhood in the mid 1970...and even then it was unusual.
This kind of thing has been happening for the last 40 years but it's only now coming to our attention as the last of the old stuff is finally disapearing. When every building in town was turn of the century you never noticed (or cared) but when it gets down to the last few it's really dramatic to see the old survivors disappear. It's called "progress" and for the most part it ****s. Frank
Our city council opted to "restore" our downtown area by repainting the signage that still existed on the old downtown buildings that are still there. Texarkana actually has an organization that is directly connected to the city that is over the preservation and restoration of the old part of downtown.
See Dan at Exeter Auto Supply, he is a HAMB Alliance Vendor. If anybody can get you an Offenhauser part Dan can. And oh, by the way, don't get to ruff about the trash in Houston coming down and being replaced with Condo's. My son is a Archetectural Project Manager for a large firm in Houston cleaning up the slums. His comment about doing was.."dad, if the owners of these buidings would take some pride in their age and tradition, we would be looking elsewhere".
The problem of course stems from all of us going to the Lowes and Wallmarts of the world instead of patronizing the small town businesses. I have been running an Antique shop for years now and havent figured out why.. with not much business. People just dont care much for "old" stuff. It equates to most as "work" and Upkeep. No one wants that>>>>>>> I own a old 1870's brick home. There is absolutely no new structure with as much soul and character as the old buildings. I hate people too. It a sad time for America!
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