Thursday, September 25, 2008

Flashback, Fast-forward, Flinch


These pictures are the result of two things. First, as I have been combing through various info online I came across this picture of the Boatmen’s Bank/Marquette Building from 1951. Since I see this building and walk past it every day, it kind of jumped out at me. It was fun to look at as I noticed a few key differences right away. I also noticed lots of similarities, too.

Second, I’ve been taking my little daily walks, Canon at my side, capturing historic architecture shots for future posts in my series. (You’ll hear more about this beauty in the weeks ahead.) And me being me, and armed with a camera, I set out to recreate this shot as best I could. It wasn’t easy.

The 1951 shot was taken from a building that no longer exists. In fact, I think there probably is no building at all where it was taken from, more of a plaza area leading up to a modern skyscraper. (A building I couldn’t get access to, to mimic the height.) So, without having a similar vantage point, I couldn’t exactly replicate the angle.

You get more of the block in my shot but I wanted to get the corners of both sides of the street and this was the only way I could do it.

To make this both fun (hopefully) and interactive, how many differences do you see? I almost feel like you could walk out of one photo and right into the other. Kind of eerie, isn’t it? I, for one, would love to try it! Considering that I was a long way from even being thought of when the original was taken, would I be me if I were to walk into it? But I digress. (Imagine that.)

One thing I neglected to mention about yesterday’s sojourn (the flinch part): I fell down. I have a “trick knee” that sometimes doesn’t work. It doesn’t happen often, and it has almost never happened out on the street. (Usually, I hit carpet or hardwood at home.) But yesterday, as I was preparing to step onto a curb, it happened. I tried to brace myself (and protect my camera because it was in my hand) which I think made me fall even harder. As a result, I seriously bashed my left elbow (swollen, scraped, and bruised), scraped and banged my left knee, and put a nice contusion on my outer left thigh, covered by a beautiful bruise. My camera was not harmed. Whew!

I’ll live, but I’m sore as hell. So today’s sojourn was cut incredibly short and sans camera. I feel like I wasted an opportunity on one of our lovelier days, but not much I can do about it. I need to save my energy to try and get prepwork for the driveway done tonight as tomorrow (I hope) is SEAL day!

4 comments:

Vicki said...

I notice the top towers have been redone. Other than that I'm missing it. Great building.

Jayne said...

Cool building. I notice that the cornice in the center of the building is missing now, and the medallions in the centers of the windows are gone. (Maybe they were on shades of some sort, and not actually part of the building?) Thank goodness the corner clock is still there.

Ann said...

Awesome building, wish they'd left it alone.

Hope your knee is OKAY, geeze!

NV said...

V -- Yeah. thing have been redone. Thanks goodness. This building's future was uncertain for a very long time.

Jayne -- Good eye! And yes, the clock is very much intact. They had it encased in plywood for a time and I thought they were going to take it down, but it was just to protect it during construction.

Ann -- Yep, it sure is. Had they left it alone though, it would be rubble. I'm just grateful that so much of its grandeur is still alive and well.

the knee is much better, thanks. the hand and elbow -- not so much.