Re: What Building in your city was Demolished, and should not have been?

[Fiorenza]

Atlanta - Not necessarily the most distressing or depressing knockdowns, but here's what I have at hand:

Terminal Station


Cabana Motor Hotel


615 Peachtree


615 Peachtree

[DecoJim]

Originally Posted by b-s

It makes me sad to think about Detroit's lost treasures. IMHO, no other city in the country has lost more gems than Detroit.

Actually I do not necessarily think Detroit has lost more than other old cities. It is the WAY that they are lost that is especially painful. In a city such as New York, an architecturally significant building may have been torn down, but a new skyscraper usually with at least some merit of its own is quickly put up in its place. In Detroit, however, the story is sometimes different. In a city that once had almost 2 million people in its city limits and now contains less than 900,000, a hotel or theater that closes has little prospect of reopening any time soon. After it closes, it may change hands a few times and then the slow decline begins. Sometimes the city tries to arrange a deal for redevelopment that falls through. The roof begins to leak, windows are broken, and then scrappers steal all metal pipes and window frames. Some buildings take decades to die. Meanwhile its hulk remains to forcibly remind one that the best days were in the past.

One could even argue that Detroit has a higher percentage of buildings from the early 20th century than many other cities. The problem is that some of them are not in use and are doomed unless they can be redeveloped. In the last five years there have been some hopeful signs as two major hotels that were abandoned for about 20 years are being restored and reopened.

On a separate category, I think it may be misleading to post structures built for a worlds fair. Usually these structures were not built to last and were intended to be dismantled after the event. For example, at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, most of the structures were covered with a form of plaster, not stone so they would eventually degrade. Only one such structure, that is now the Field Museum, was rebuilt in stone at a later date.

[WilliamTheArtist]

While Tulsa is a small town on the prarie and certainly cant compete with the larger, older, cities on this thread... Unfortunately it can put up quite a battle on the tearing down buildings front. I think we have torn down more than we have built in our downtown. Here is but a sampling.

First a few of the old theater palaces and show houses.
The orpheum





The Ritz









The Akdar





The Coliseum


Grand





Some of the other bildings in or near downtown that have been lost.

Interior of the Mayo Hotel


Lobby of Mayo



Hotel Tulsa


Alvin Hotel




Brady Hotel


Reeder building


Halliburton/Abbot building


Tulsa Medical Arts building


Daniel building



Pioneer building


Clinton building


Central National Bank building


Goodwill building


McBirney building


Skaggs building


Tulsa County Courthouse


Morningside Hospital


Palace Clothiers


Carnegie Library


Tulsa's Art-deco municipal airport.




Some various small schools and churches, all gone now.






There are lots more that were torn down, but will have to find pics.

BTW we have lots of parking lots downtown to look at now. Yuck. Fortunately some of the larger more impressive buildings that were built in Tulsas heydays of the 1920s were spared the wrecking ball. They are considered treasures now. Sure wish we had a few of those Theater Palaces left though. And what a great museum or other use that Courthouse could have been used for. At one time Tulsas population was over 9,000 people per square mile. Suburban type sprawl has brought it down to about 1,900 people per square mile now.

[bnk]

Amazing stuff guys. Great finds.

Wow London has lost a lot of history...

I thought the states lost a lot in the last hundred years or so...

Not as much compared to London...

I weep for your losses and I hope everyone everywhere learns from what was built in the past and respect it.

I hope these illustrations help future engineers and developers avoid the terrible losses of our past achievements.

Ideally we could retro fit the majority of these wonderful pieces of architecture in the future and make them up to date, plumbing, electricity, connectivity..


But alas I understand the dilemmas of a building that is uneconomical to maintain and is not in feasible to maintain any longer...

[Comrade]

The Constitution Building in Salt Lake.



This was one of the most historical buildings in downtown Salt Lake, as it was one of the oldest. It was demolished in the 1970s for a mall that is now being demolished currently.