Last weekend I photographed early to mid-morning before the street got busy. The mix of classic and renovated Midwestern architecture struck me. The businesses on Bridge Street, just a bit west of the downtown, once served local neighborhoods. Development in the past decade or so has led to renovations–condos, shops, restaurants, and bars, that draw people from the larger city and region.
The Jolly Pumpkin pizzeria is a branch of a small chain of restaurant/breweries in tourist areas and larger cities in Michigan. The building is a classic, with the lovely details typical of the turn of the past century. The booze and food are 21st century.
This reflection image gives you a sense of the street. A mix of older, renovated buildings and new larger buildings put up in the wake of tearing down the old.
You get a bit of a post-war (WW2) development feeling from this image, with the sign in the reflection at the center of this image.
The building in the next image feels very blue collar to me. Function. Next to know windows. Presumably a dim interior. A place to drink and eat pub food. If it’s not torn down and replaced by a multi-story condo building with shops on the street level, like the building next to it on the right, it probably will soon become a tony renovated foodie place with lots of windows. You can see the condo and shops building from another angle two images above.
This image does not really document the businesses in the neighborhood. I just liked the lines and colors of this boarded-up docking bay area.
Enjoy!
No Ordinary Light 