Saturday, March 2, 2013

Spent 2 days in Tallahassee...

and the only photograph I took was this one in Gullie Alley across from Andrew's Restaurant on South Adams Street where I had a couple of bourbons and a really great Mediterranean salad during happy hour.  The tables and people flowed out of the place onto the sidewalk and into the street filling Adams Street with a warm festive late afternoon deep southern feeling.  Thank goodness for Andrew's, cause it was just about the only show in town.




The reason for my lack of productivity was that there wasn't much for me to see.  Most of the original city had been torn down to make way for multi level parking garages, Soviet style, undistinguished, utilitarian government office buildings, and generic chain hotels.  Two and a half square blocks of renovated buildings housing lawyers. investment counselors, eateries, and a visitor's center etc., were about all that remained of the old city, of which Gullie Alley was a part.  There was some charming balconied southern architecture and a few other old buildings  reminiscent of New Orleans, but they lacked cohesion and there just weren't enough of them. The context was missing, so for me anyway, it was hard to get any sense of place, only a fleeting sense of what once was.  Of course part of the problem, as always, was at least partly, my expectations.  The Tallahassee I hoped to see, and which still exists only in old photos and imagination, is no longer there.  I wouldn't recommend going out of your way to see the town, but if you do go, don't miss the old capitol building which is beautiful and houses a great museum of Florida history.  

                                                                         Pablo

No comments:

Post a Comment