LILEKS (James) :: The Bleat 2019 THURSDAY

Short entry today; combination of Mouse Finger, evening errands, and newspaper column obligations are a logjam that dams up any substantial Bleatage. Which begs the question: do you know what begs the question means? Yes, which is why I wrote that. No, it raises the question as to what I’ll choose to pad ‘er out.

Let’s check the files . . . well, that one’s too close to a Main Street, being full of Google street views, but today is generally Urbanism day, what with the Main Street and Motels, except for the Construction feature . . . OH JUST GET ON WITH IT

If you demand. While looking for a motel for the 2021 updates (I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’m trying to write and layout all the cards I have, and there are 200 in the queue) (Don’t ask about the matchbooks, it’s the same thing; I’m in 2022 now) I found one of those astonishing things that always makes you think something went horribly wrong.

It's the graffiti on the top that makes you think the property manager gave up a while ago.

The closer you get, the worst it gets:

Believe it or not, it's on the National Register.

The New Orleans Federal Savings & Loan Building is of local significance under Criterion C: Design, in the area of Architecture, as the only known example of a Wrightian-style bank and office building in Orleans Parish. In addition, it is one of only two of architect and former Taliesin apprentice Leonard Reese Spangenberg's remaining commercial designs in Orleans Parish that exhibit his strong connection to Frank Lloyd Wright. The period of significance for the building is 1965, the building's construction date.

I'm not seeing much Wrightian style. The colors and the top, perhaps. The rest is standard banality.

The whole area seems to have given up, including the motel:

You're not surprised to see low-rise buildings fall to ruin, but ten-story office towers are different. Who was the last one out?

Did they turn off the lights?

And as always, we wonder: what's in there now?

It's the unfortunately-named Superior Street. A name like that, no matter the origins, had better be that for the length of its tenure, or people will make jokes. Or do websites. This isn't a downtown, but as you've come to expect, we do enjoy a little faded-big-city-commercial strip from time to time. And by "enjoy" I mean silently weep for the needless degradation of old places.

The world, you suspect, has passed this street by.

The building next door - and you know there was one - is gone. The old bank, isn’t.

Down the street, it’s . . . an old factory, perhaps. Something sturdy stripped down to the bones.

Something sturdy stripped down to the bones.

The glass front was bricked up to protect whatever’s inside; whatever glass remains admits a trickle of light, but is left in place because it’s hard to break.