If you live in a neighborhood you love, and you worry about monster houses taking over, you should know what’s happening over on Park Street.
Posts Tagged ‘fort collins’
Park Street and the 40-foot giant
Posted in Neighborhoods, Vernacular buildings, tagged charvats grocery, fort collins, Historic Landmark District, monster houses, Park Street on July 7, 2009 | 17 Comments »
Blighted Fort Collins
Posted in In the news, Neighborhoods, Preservation and renewal, Vintage commercial, tagged Book Rack, Flood of 1997, fort collins, Mexican markets, Prospect and College, urban blight, Urban Renewal Fort Collins, Wild sweet peas on October 19, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Fort Collins recently found the area around College, just south of Prospect, blighted. It includes ChuckECheese, Dairy Queen, and early strip malls. The area in the photo above is behind the strip malls. It was a trailer park, but it took the worst of the 1997 flood (several residents drowned trying to leave) and the [...]
Center of everything or middle of nowhere?
Posted in Municipal, tagged 1964, Add new tag, chamber of commerce, fort collins, fort collins brochure, location of fort collins, Sarah Palin and Fort Collins on October 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
From a 1956 Chamber of Commerce brochure. (Of course, the “land area” argument was lost when Alaska was admitted to the union 3 years later. Let’s try not to be bitter when Sarah gets here on Monday, okay?)
Googie Fort Collins
Posted in Vernacular buildings, Vintage commercial, tagged architecture, fort collins, googie on September 16, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Fort Collins is kind of uncool. I don’t mean like bitter, mean, no fun uncool. I mean like we don’t have any cool googie architecture –that 50s/60s atomic boomerang look. We have a little bit, and we used to have a little bit more: But we don’t have any googie in all the places you would [...]
Dying art
Posted in Art, Municipal, tagged Art, art in public places, City Hall, Dance formation, fort collins, Martinez Park, Northern Hotel, richard scorpio, sculpture on September 3, 2008 | 1 Comment »
In 1984, Fort Collins paid local artist, Richard Scorpio, $2000 to transform a dead tree in front of City Hall into a contemporary statue. Dance formation was here to “demonstrate the concept of art in public places.” Ceremonies followed. 20 years later, however, the piece moved into a patch of weeds at Martinez Park. I don’t think there was [...]
Tour of historic neighborhood grocery stores
Posted in Neighborhoods, Vintage commercial, tagged bike ride fort collins, charvats, corner store, cultural tourism, emma malabys, fort collins, neighborhood markets, safeway on August 28, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Lost Fort Collins just posted a new page (see the tabs above): “Tour de neighborhood markets.” It’s a suggested bike tour of >15 former grocery stores in old town that are now mostly just peoples’ funny-looking houses. Some people say that neighborhood markets faded when big supermarkets came to town. But that’s not entirely true. [...]
Vintage house eaten alive!
Posted in Neighborhoods, tagged fort collins, gentrification, historic preservation, remuddle, vintage house on August 26, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Vintage playground
Posted in Municipal, Neighborhoods, tagged ayers natural bridge, buckeye community center, city park, fort collins, merry go round, playground safety, poudre park community center, vintage playground on August 23, 2008 | 12 Comments »
There used to be one exactly like this in City Park, in the 50s, says my friend Norm. He would know–he grew up right across the street. Today, you have to look hard to find retro playground equipment. I’ve already seen City Park replace its heavy plastic sets 3 times in the past 12 years. But before the plastics, before 1970s wood [...]
Quonset hut!
Posted in Quonset hut, Vernacular buildings, tagged 1940s, CSU, fort collins, franks trout farm, jefferson, kit house, Quonset hut, Quonset hut house, riverside, swetsville zoo, veterans village on August 13, 2008 | 10 Comments »
This town is awash in Quonset huts. Funny thing: You can live here for decades and not even notice. Like, most of us can remember a Q-hut on Riverside Avenue as you drive into town. But in fact, it’s a row of FOUR Q-huts (technically on Jefferson). See: (Okay, maybe you don’t see. Q1 is distant, [...]
Basement houses
Posted in Modest or alternative living, Vernacular buildings, tagged 1920s, basement house, fort collins, history, interest-only mortgage, northern colorado, Vine street on August 9, 2008 | 21 Comments »
To be honest, when we had basement houses, they used to make me look away. As a girl coming from a part of the country that had no basements, I thought these roof-on-a-foundation homes reminded me too much of those legless men on skateboards in Tijuana. Interesting, really interesting. But you don’t want to gawk. So I [...]