And It's Gone

I shot this last year after I got my camera.  I took this from the middle of an overpass, got trapped on a pedestrian footpath by my own carelessness while shooting because I wasn't paying attention to the "locals."  Stuff like that happens to me when I go out to take pictures.  I sort of need a bodyguard, or at least a friend who can say to me, "Really?  Um....or not...."

I had wanted to shoot this building for a long time.  Its red sign advertising "European Plan" rooms with "reasonable rates" used to make me smile every time I saw it.  I knew that it was one of the things I wanted to capture when I got my good Nikon.  When I did a day taking pictures of various structures in downtown Meridian, I made sure I got this shot.  I am exceptionally glad I did, because today, they tore it down to make way for a new museum that may or may not get built on that site.

Time marches on.  Progress requires renovation.  You can't make omelets without broken eggs.  Whatever.

I saw pictures of the inside of the building that another very lucky professional photographer got to go in and take last week before they started razing the building, and it was completely beyond hope.  The west wall had begun to sag noticeably, and it's a well-known fact that there is water under and in some cases in the basements/foundations of all the buildings on Front Street where this thing is located.  After seeing the photo essay, even the staunchest of hearts, even I, couldn't say that there should have been restoration.

That doesn't mean it is easy to know the next time I come over that bridge there will be that gaping hole in the skyline.  That doesn't mean it will ease the absence of that somehow cheerful if fading red sign inviting us all to stay in a place that was once "new" and "fireproof" but that now will only exist in the memories of a city all too full of them.