Friday, December 5, 2008

Back-alley brickwork

When I went out to see Dad I told him that we would have to meander through the alleyways of a nearby city. I recommended Fort Smith, as their historic downtown is currently being renovated, but Dad had a different idea. He recommended that we go to historic Van Buren. I was thrilled by the amount of crumbling brickwork that was waiting for us in the alleys:

 

And crumbling plaster, showing the brick below:

 

We even saw where it looked like a whole wall had crumbled, leaving only a fragment behind next to a beautiful spiral staircase:

 

We caught sight of an old Anheuser-Busch building, whose green trim accentuated the red brick beautifully:

 

There was a brick opera house:

 

There were bits of painted brick:

 

And bits of brand new brickwork, in the case of this patio area behind the Cajun's Backdoor restaurant:

 

And the coup de grace was the old brick Citizen Bank building, which screamed for a little HDR treatment:

 

I had a great time exploring the bricks of Van Buren with Dad!

9 comments:

Chickenbells said...

Good grief! What wonderful brickwork...I just love meandering around old downtowns...so amazing!!

TomboCheck said...

Glad you enjoyed! :)

Granny J said...

Beautiful stuff, Tombo. I guess my favorites would be the old bank and the spiral staircase...

NeceLynn said...

Tom, I liked them all but my favorite was the spiral staircase :-)

TomboCheck said...

GrannyJ - the two shots that got HDR treatment. :) It really pulls out some cool things in the bricks.

Sillie_Girl - holy moly, look who's commenting now! Yeah, the staircase was pretty sweet, and kind of surprising to find in the alleyway. :)

Warren said...

great pictures!

TomboCheck said...

Thanks Warran!

Linda G. said...

I'm not going to pick a favorite..well maybe the bank...but these buildings are all interesting.
Isn't it funny how familiar names pop up here, there and everywhere..Yarnell..
Maybe I'll researce that for my Y post!

TomboCheck said...

SOLB - that would make a good post methinks. :)