Sunday, May 24, 2015

Corner Stop

Stop!
Look around!
This is the corner of Market and Fore Street in the Old Port area of the city. If you are looking to investigate brick buildings Portland is your city. The heart of it is pretty much filled with brickworks. That and cobblestones. However, the cobblestones will, for the most part, be a bit harder to locate. Although most the thoroughfares in the city were constructed with these rounded stones, these days most streets have been tarred over, so you'll probably need a jackhammer to view them. It was always a fun adventure when Dad turned the station wagon on to Commercial Street. It was all bumpity, bumpity, bump. As I recall there was lots of laughter and an occasional screech emanating from the back seat.
All hail cobblestones!
I would imagine alignment shops took a 'hit' when the blacktop covered them.
Oh well, bricks or otherwise.
Get a project started.
You wouldn't want to see our deck and porch this morning.
Back to work, I go.
btw Even the masters had it right.
"Spring is the time for plans and projects." Leo Tolstoy

22 comments:

  1. Nice that so many buildings were preserved. Downtown Tulsa used to have brick streets and soon after we moved here in 1992 they pulled up the bricks and paved the roads.Now they have put the bricks back at some intersections.

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  2. interesting 'eared' stop sign. there were a few streets in dallas that they had stripped the tar from to uncover the old cobblestones. yikes! jarred your teeth if you weren't expecting it.

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  3. Replies
    1. For sure. Lots of traffic in these parts. Drivers, I think, do a lot of people watchin'. You know skirts and alll.... hehehe. Guilty!

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  4. Nice shot of brick city. We have an area known as "Brick City" in Ocala. We also have a community called "Fore Ranch." There aren't any ranches there, though.

    Weird stop sign.

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  5. A new project, you say. Hmm . . .

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  6. I love the brick buildings but, how about the brick streets? Brick streets are what I grew up with in good old Quincy. I loved the sound of the tires on those bricks or the sound of a a group of school kids walking across the brick street in a straight line. They've all been paved over too! Too bad.

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  7. I recently posted a sketch/drawing of an Old Port red brick building...Corner of Exchange & Fore...

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  8. The ears change the shape of the classic "Stop" sign. Around here officials put flashing red lights on newly placed stop signs. Cobblestone streets may be traditional, but I've never been a fan of them.

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  9. Red brick buildings are common here. I like these. Cobblestones, not so common, but we've got a series of courtyards with them. I haven't photographed there in awhile.

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  10. They were doing work on the road in front of us and there were cobblestones down below the asphalt - which the workers squirrelled away and took home. They were really heavy!

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  11. We have some red brick buildings here but mostly granite. We do have a cobblestone road in what is know as the Oregon Historic District. The buildings and stores look more like what you find downtown Bar Harbor and made up mostly of restaurants and night life venues. There is a great comedy club there. Cobblestone roads keep the traffic speeds down for sure.

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  12. Not many redbrick buildings but lots of brick.

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  13. I remember cobblestone streets when the farmer guy and I lived near Annapolis, MD. Bumpy is right!

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  14. Beautiful architecture. I can see it in parts of London but the stop sign with attitude doesn't help the feel.

    We got no shortage of brick. Might be a regional thing.

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  15. I like those old red brick buildings. You don't find much of that on the West Coast...earthquakes and bricks don't do well together.

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  16. Cobblestones are hard to walk on too!

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  17. Cobblestones are slowly disappearing from our city streets.

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  18. those are the coolest old buildings!! i love that they're still around!!

    i've been down roads before where you could see the cobblestones under the blacktop roads...where the blacktop was breaking apart & coming up. so sad to see that old stone covered up. i would think to ride on cobblestones would be less of a bumpy ride in cars or trucks with rubber tires...than when they rode in horse drawn wagons!!
    ok, so why does the STOP sign have BIG yellow ears?? so it will be noticed??

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  19. These buildings could just be picked up and moved down here to an old town in Texas and no one would ever be the wiser. Most of our early streets were paved with red brick which have also been paved over in most areas. I'm happy that our major town in this area is proud to have main street still with its red bricks.

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