The once-forlorn downtown of T-Town’s undergone some magnificent renewal in recent years. Still down-n’-out, though, is the once-stoic 1906 Elks club building.
The Elks themselves want nothing to do with their former palace. The landlord wants to raze it for condos. The civic-preservation clique wants it restored. Rebellious kids climb into it through broken windows for squat parties.
And a local guerilla-art group, Beautiful Angle, posts flyers on its boarded-up doors. This flyer depicts the nearby Thea Foss Bridge, also threatened with razing.
The fine print reads: “I am the fishbone stuck in the craw of a great jazz singer, who wishes it were gone and then wonders afterwards why the songs don’t sound as sweet.”
The couple who escorted me down the bridge called it “the Bridge of Death.” A large bird apparently lives in the upper rafters and attacks smaller birds, whose carcasses litter the roadway beneath.
At least one more batch of T-Town pix is still to come.