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Sunday, February 27, 2011

Reuse, Recycle: Preservation and Aesthetics

Usually, I write about my little adventures: the canned tomatoes that were cheap at Big Lots, the neat sweater I got at Goodwill. I do think there's an aesthetic, as well as a financial, dimension to frugality, but that's a point that is sometimes hard to explain.

Here is an instance of frugality on that larger scale (too large to be practiced by the likes of me) in my very hometown. I still sometimes feel like an alien here even after 20 years. Yet I would never have seen such beautiful buildings and such a beautiful landscape had I not moved here with Mr. FS so many years ago.

Check out the pictures. Beautiful!

Are there any old buildings like this where you live?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

What an interesting glimpse and fits my mental image of your area. We have nothing in my area that dates back to 1818, although friends of ours purchased a turn of the century "carnival" house, where a carnival proprietor lived with all of his animals and carnies in the winter. There's an historic hotel in town that needs to be refurbished.

I like small town life. I live two blocks off our traditional square and can walk to the library, the courthouse, the post office, the drug store, my eye doctor, my dentist. Like you, because I work in the city, I don't feel particularly connected to my neighbors.

Shelley said...

Well, of course there are hundreds and thousands of old buildings - 65% of the buildings Newcastle city centre are 'listed' (historical and protected). But not like the ones you have. In my next life I want to live in a two story Southern house with a veranda and drooping trees.

Duchesse said...

A worthy project. Too much vernacular architecture is lost by neglect.

Curious about what it is that causes you to feel alien. When I first moved to Canada I was unprepared for how "foreign" I felt. Part of it was the architecture, but mostly the social customs and a different immigrant mix.

Funny about Money said...

In very limited numbers. The city of Phoenix has some buildings dating from the late 1920s in a central area that comprises the Palmcroft, Willo, Alvarado, and Coronado neighborhoods. A few of those buildings are really lovely.

For years our City Parents and the developers who own them did their level best to trash these neighborhoods and push the middle class into the ever-expanding (profitable!)perimeter of ticky-tacky look-alike styrofoam-and-stick junk that is our suburbs. At one point they tried to build a 10-story-high elevated freeway through the middle of that district. Because the area had become infested with young lawyers and doctors who abominated the prospect of long commutes and who had money and some political clout, those efforts were beaten back.

For awhile.

Frugal Scholar said...

@Terri--Maybe I'll move to your small town. The lack of connection is due (in my case) to political views and other things. I guess I remain a left-wing Yankee: what can I say?

@Shelley--There are many treasures in Louisiana, perhaps because things were not torn down--(lack of economic development, rather than a good reason). My mother-in-law used to bring Spanish moss home to California--don't know if it survived.

@Duchesse-See response to first comment for alienation--left-leaning Yankee in heavily Republican community. Also, if you're not FROM HERE, you're an outsider...FOREVER. (HERE is HERE--this state)

@Funny--I've seen pictures of some of the neat old places in AZ. Your city sounds like Houston--no planning, alas, so a spread out city with no coherence.