Forecourt Fountain 1970



Ira Keller Fountain 2011 complete with rusty patina.

                             South Auditorium Renewal District 40 years later. 

From where I work I am about 4 blocks from the Northeast corner of the South Auditorium district that was built in the 1960's replacing a "blighted" area that was composed of apartments, single dwelling homes, brick buildings left over from the 19th century and inhabited mainly by the descendents of Italian, Jewish immigrants that at the time was declared a slum and torn down, burned and replaced by a more modern and sterile public place of parks, large condos and office towers with no consideration for those who lived there.  What was lost and what was gained can now be assesed from the perspective of time.  Though I don't remember the area as it was prior to 1960 I did spend time in the area in the 70's and took some photographs of the then fairly new structures.  Lately I have been walking through the area and seeing how poorly the place is holding up and am starting to take some new photographs just with a simple digital camera and doing a little online research of what was once there and also searching out the few still standing renemants of what was left.  If one wanted to imagine how the area might have looked had it been left alone I think you could get an idea by visiting the Lair Hill Neighborhood in the shadow of "The Tram" which contains a lot of fine examples of modest wooden and brick structures from the 19th century.  They seem to be holding up much better than what replaced their unlucky siblings to the South and shows what might have been if the area had been left alone.