Well, I have finally made time to go take photos again and to be honest about it, I wanted to let it cool off a little too. Well, it is nicer weather now and I am starting to get out and look for photo opportunities again. I have a few I am looking into but for right now, it is still a good ole case of urban photography that I so love to do.
Today we find me in Chattanooga yet again and this time I am setup on a side street off of Main street called Rossville Avenue and this road has some really neat old buildings on it, some of which I have photographed in the past but I like to get photos of them as I go along to show how they change with time. I get parked and pay for one hour of parking so I have to make it count. Putting a little pressure on myself to come away with SOMETHING of value in this time allotment.,,
My first stop is the Hamilton Parts Distributors building that has been NOT a parts distributor for quite some time as of this point…2023. The building is really starting to show its age too with numerous windows bricked up on the sides as well as the front giving it a sort of dystopian imbalanced look. This could be a set right out of a movie or something. I took several photos from different angles today and some look better than others. I really like the front door and the corner that I get today for some reason… Here they are, what do you think?
I love how the building still has remnants of the signage that was painted on it some time in the past too. Also look at the foundation material, today it is all either poured concrete or cement blocks and has been for many decades, so I am going to speculate this is pre-war construction meaning before World War 2, due to these limestone foundation stones that look like they were repurposed from another construction site that existed before this building did. I have evidence of these cut stones going back to the mid 19th century so I know these are probably something left over either from a fire or was just cast off and the people that built this building saw a chance to save a few dollars on this part of the construction. Also notice that they didn’t seem to think that these stones were very appealing as they hid them behind a mortar stucco finish as seen in the front door photo.
My next stop was right next door at Zarzours Cafe.
This cafe has been in business for over 100 years, Yeah, you read that right…a century and as you see on the sign. It is closing in less than a month. I have never eaten here either. I will change that in the next few days. I have to be able to say that I sat at their café and enjoyed the fine cuisine they had to offer for a century! How could I let that slide???
Back to the walk at hand. I took a couple of photos of the restaurant and parking area and headed on down the street.
The next stop was at the Koch Foods Processing plant. This is one of two processing plants inside the city that I am aware of. These have been here for decades too so they are pretty much fixtures of the city at this point. One is on Broad street and the other is here on Rossville Ave. It being such an iconic location coupled with the skyline containing Lookout Mtn as well makes for a cool photo to me.
After the chicken plant, I made my way over to Main street and did a little photography on Main as well. Main usually has something really colorful as well as interesting too, this is why I usually always make my way over and look around for a little while at a minimum…
These two photos just go to show what all can be found on Main street even when it is not having some sort of special event. All it takes is a little creativity and time of your part to come away with some interesting photos. Now you might be thinking these are not interesting photos, and you will be right as the photo interest rate will vary from person to person, but I found that these to be quite interesting so I am sharing them with you…lol. The difference between the two photo primarily is the shutter speed as one is really slow to blur the truck and the other is faster so it will capture the whole construction scene with out any motion blur on my part.
Well, this is going to be a wrap for the post, I hope you enjoyed following along and if you would like to watch a video of this trip, just click on the link below. Thank you for you time and get your camera out!