The year 2009 is turning out to be a notable year – in demolitions for downtown Greensboro. A few months ago, a two-story Queen Anne-style house was destroyed on Blandwood Avenue. On Easter weekend, the 110-year old Love House on Smith Street in Fisher Park was lost. Today, the old offices for Big Brothers Big Sisters…
DetailsHigh Point has quite a few notable textbook examples of residential architecture. The Wilson House at 425 Hillcrest Drive is a rendition of the landmark home known as Tudor Place in the Georgetown section of Washington DC. The Zollicoffer House at 1207 Johnson Street (image, right) studiously follows the design philosophy of Frank Lloyd Wright.…
DetailsThe North State Milling Company at 816 South Elm Street is an excellent example of an early twentieth-century industrial site. The company was founded in 1912 and manufactured plain and self-rising corn meal and flour, hen scratch, bran, and feed for livestock. Grain was brought to the site by truck and by rail where it…
DetailsAny building with the scale, history, and gravitas of the L. Richardson Preyer Federal Building on Market Street has a few stories to tell. With a recent Insider Tour sponsored by Preservation Greensboro, a few interesting secrets long forgotten were revealed about the stature and past of the building. Architectural historians consider the structure to…
DetailsLandmarks, Preservation Greensboro’s quarterly newsmagazine, will be delivered to area mailboxes soon! The publication is delivered to those who contribute to Preservation Greensboro (PGI), but is also available at Blandwood Mansion for pickup. The cover sports a porch detail of the Preservation Award-winning Anthony House, the centerpiece of the new apartment community “The Gardens at the Anthony…
DetailsSally Quinn’s heartfelt essay about her foray into historic preservation reminds us of the value of place, history, and authenticity. Her East Hampton, New York home, Grey Gardens, is the setting of a recent HBO film about the life of its previous inhabitants…inspired by a now-cultish classic documentary from 1975. “The first thing the contractor said was, “It…
DetailsDuring the Wednesday, April 8th Chancellor’s Forum at UNCG, several images were shown of what the new Quad could look like. Organizers emphasized that the images remained in the conceptual phase. Renderings depicted Classical Revival buildings in the same style as the existing 90-year-old Quad – with a grander scale and height that achieved the…
DetailsThe bulldozer emblazoned with the demolition contractor D. H. Griffin and parked behind the house at 210 West Smith Street (image, below) says it all. Another one bites the dust in the Fisher Park neighborhood…all for an parking empty lot. For those who value the built environment, the historic neighborhood, and Greensboro history, this scene is…
DetailsShould the UNC Greensboro Quad, an ninety-year-old landmark in the heart of the campus, be destroyed to make way for new dormitories? You can have your say in the process that is the subject of the Chancellor’s Open Forum this Wednesday April 8, from 2:30-4:00pm in the Alexander Room, Elliott University Center. Organizers hope this…
DetailsWhen Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin visited Greensboro in 2007, he ended his discussion before an audience of over 100 Greensboro citizens with the following directive: “There’s an old saying: You get what you deserve. Well, we get the built environment we deserve, especially in a small city. Chicago, a big city, can take the…
DetailsAccording to an article in this morning’s News and Observer: “President Barack Obama on Monday signed into law a massive public lands bill that includes a small provision to preserve historic landmarks in North Carolina and the rest of the country — the result of work begun in part by U.S. Rep. Brad Miller of Raleigh”…
DetailsTraipse the woods and old fields of the Carolina Piedmont in the month of March, and you will likely discover a lonesome cluster of daffodils randomly sited off the path. Those who work with historic buildings in the region recognize these flowers as reliable signs of settlement that might stretch 100 years or more into…
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