Favorite Historic Buildings or Places

I have lived most of my life in a rural area.
We have nothing like the places you see daily. I have been to large cities and seen impressive buildings, but I am endlessly fascinated with beautiful things built on a huge scale. Thank you for sharing your world.

3fingers said:

I have lived most of my life in a rural area.
We have nothing like the places you see daily. I have been to large cities and seen impressive buildings, but I am endlessly fascinated with beautiful things built on a huge scale. Thank you for sharing your world.

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"I am endlessly fascinated with beautiful things built on a huge scale."

⇧ As am I. I fell in love with NYC as a kid in the '70s coming in from NJ, but never thought I'd be able to live here. Despite all its challenges (and there are plenty), I still consider myself very lucky to be living in NYC.

I'm glad you are enjoying the posts.

This is a shame.

Manhattan’s Roosevelt Hotel is closing its doors for good

https://therealdeal.com/2020/10/09/manhattans-roosevelt-hotel-is-closing-its-doors-for-good/


This place is as Fedora Lounge as you could get. Over many years, I've been to several lunch and breakfast meetings here as well as larger meetings in its ballroom, etc. (it's how these old hotels survive in modern times) and would, often, meet friends in the lobby as it was a wonderful place to hang out a bit and very conveniently located. And if they were from out of town, it was an easy and fun way to have them experience a little old New York. I'm pretty sure it's landmark protected, but that only goes so far as even buildings have to earn their keep.

Whenever I hear "Hotel Roosevelt," I immediately think of Ben Bernie, "the Ol' Maestro," whose dance band inhabited the Roosevelt Grill for most of the 1920s. "Ben Bernie and his Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra," reads many of the snappy recordings they made for Brunswick during this tenure.

But Bernie wasn't the longest-tenured band at the Roosevelt by a long shot. When their engagement ended in 1929, they were replaced in the Grill by Guy Lombardo's Royal Canadians -- who remained the resident dance orchestra at the Roosevelt for the next twenty-eight years. When he finally left, Brooklyn's own Eddie Lane, long the resident bandleader at the Hotel Bossert, moved in -- only to receive a hostile and frosty reception from the legions of hard-boiled Lombardo fans who knew a good "businessmen's bounce" when they danced to it.

A neat story from Atlas Obscura.

Inside the New York Public Library’s Last, Secret Apartments
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articl...-63338701&mc_cid=864e6aa3b6&mc_eid=cd91324efb

Lizzie Borden house in Fall River is up for sale. Beautiful looking place, but it would creep me out.

https://wbsm.com/fall-river-lizzie-borden-bed-breakfast-for-sale/

Flak-Tower IV in Hamburg, Heiliggeistfeld, like a lighthouse leading to the St. Pauli football stadium right aside, which i like even more...

We also have a few WWII flak towers here in Vienna. Built by Russian prisoners of war, I believe. Walls are so thick that the cost of tearing them down is prohibitive. Oddly enough, one of them is now being used as an aquarium, where school kids can go to see sea life in glass tanks of varying sizes.

I'm not sure I would call it a favorite, but I like it and it played a role in my life many times. The Medical Arts Building was built in 1928 -1930 in Springfield, Missouri and my wife's Grandfather was the General Contractor. My Mom's obstetrician and my pediatrician had their offices here. My dentist for the first 15 years of my life had an office here for most of that time.





In the late 1980s my first job after college was with the software company that had offices on the top floor and part of the second (being the "new guy" my office was on the back-side of the second floor). The interior had been remodeled so many times that any resemblance to the original was long gone..



As I approach old age I see many of the buildings I used to work in being demolished. It wears on you after a while and, when I drove past this building this past weekend, my first thought was that it was about to happen again as most of the windows were removed and you could see all the way through the building's interior and out the opposite windows.





My office was on this corner of the second floor.





The back side. The company's offices were along this complete side of the second floor and all of the top floor.



I turns out that it it was being gutted for a renovation into a Moxy Hotel (the boutique arm of Marriott). One of only a few in the Midwest. Glad to see it will still be standing for a long time to come.

BobHufford said:

I'm not sure I would call it a favorite, but I like it and it played a role in my life many times. The Medical Arts Building was built in 1928 -1930 in Springfield, Missouri and my wife's Grandfather was the General Contractor. My Mom's obstetrician and my pediatrician had their offices here. My dentist for the first 15 years of my life had an office here for most of that time.

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In the late 1980s my first job after college was with the software company that had offices on the top floor and part of the second (being the "new guy" my office was on the back-side of the second floor). The interior had been remodeled so many times that any resemblance to the original was long gone..

View attachment 407695

As I approach old age I see many of the buildings I used to work in being demolished. It wears on you after a while and, when I drove past this building this past weekend, my first thought was that it was about to happen again as most of the windows were removed and you could see all the way through the building's interior and out the opposite windows.

View attachment 407687

View attachment 407688

My office was on this corner of the second floor.

View attachment 407689

View attachment 407690

The back side. The company's offices were along this complete side of the second floor and all of the top floor.

View attachment 407691

I turns out that it it was being gutted for a renovation into a Moxy Hotel (the boutique arm of Marriott). One of only a few in the Midwest. Glad to see it will still be standing for a long time to come.

View attachment 407692

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That's a wonderful post and story; thank you for sharing it with us. I'm glad the building won't be knocked down. It's a shame about the interior, but that happens here in NYC a lot too - but thankfully, not always.

My wife and I have toured the US west extensively over the past 7 years. We love small town America and love to do walkabouts. We always seek out the Carnegie Library building. It is amazing how many small towns have one. Sadly, very few are still operating as libraries but the buildings are still there.

International Museum of Surgical Science
1524 N. Lake Shore Drive – Chicago, IL 60610

Holy Name Cathedral Chicago where Hymie Weiss was gunned down. Top picture shows where bullets hit structure, they are still there. The "X" is where he was shot.

Carbide and Carbon Building Chicago IL

The Biograph Theater where the FBI Caught up with John Dillinger

Just line the Three Penny Cinema for two reasons
1. Back in 1975 I saw the Rocky Horror Picture Show there when it was first released , before it became a cult classic. At the time it was just me my girlfriend and my buddy and his girlfriend in the show.
2, It's across the street from the Biograph

Midway Theatre Rockford, IL

Holy Rosary Parish Church founded in 1891 in Kansas City, MO in a community soon known as Little Italy.



Still in service today Holy Rosary has held final services for many "made men" & mob bosses going back to mob boss John Lazia (July, 1934). After being shot & killed at age 37 Lazia was laid out in a silver-lined copper coffin & it is said that more than 10,000 people came to Holy Rosary to pay their respects.

In modern times many a man in the Midwest has gone broke trying to restore this once grand private home. Built in 1899 by Kansas City architect Rudolf Markgraf for Dr. Generous Henderson, it was a three story Second Renaissance Revival style mansion of brick & stone with terra cotta accents & designs. The interior featured a ballroom on the third floor with a band gallery on the second floor where a band played while guests head up. There was also an underground tunnel leading to the carriage house behind.















Dr. Generous Henderson began making his fortune in 1893 when he began treating silent film stars, musicians, politicians, & notorious organized crime figures from around the country for what were then known as "private diseases" (sexually transmitted diseases).

Annie Chambers was Kansas City’s most famous prostitute & biggest Madame. Before opening her own brothel she ran brothel parties right out of Dr. Henderson's mansion. Dr. Henderson would treat Madame Chambers girls as well as their customers who could afford his treatment. The doctor also started a mail order business for the cure around this time which would eventually lead to fraud charges being filed against him.

In 1923 Al Capone was involved in a murder in Chicago. His boss & mentor John Torrio thought it best if Capone hid out until the heat over the murder cooled down. Capone was often sent to KC even in the pre-prohibition era to look for illegal breweries, so Torrio sent him to KC to work for a while. Officially Capone wasn't diagnosed with having syphilis until 1932 while in prison in Atlanta, but some historians think he could have been diagnosed with a "private disease" during that time in KC. Dr. Henderson was a big time gambler & could have easily met Capone during that stay.

Dr. Henderson died in 1924. His wife Catherine continued to live in the mansion for just a few more yrs, until her money ran out. At least one shooting has taken place in the mansion, an unsolved homicide of a former resident. The mansion has stood open to the weather & street people for ~15 yrs now. It has become KC's Hotel California.