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Originally uploaded by calebism

At dusk. A place best observed from its exterior, I am told.

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Originally uploaded by calebism

Behind the police station.

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Originally uploaded by calebism

Behind the police department.

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Originally uploaded by calebism

On the South Side of Central Avenue, St Petersburg Florida.

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Originally uploaded by calebism

Like many other sunbelt cities in America, St Petersburg, Florida looks bombed out, like a mouth full of broken, rotten teeth. This is the legacy of the Urban Redevelopment as practiced by the bulldozer boys of The Greatest Generation, who apparently liked the way central Europe looked in 1945 and decided to bring it home. It took them till the 1970’s to finish their conceptual art installations, but what vast enduring pieces they are!

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Originally uploaded by calebism

Depends on how old you are. This building dates from 1950 and looms over Central Avenue In St Petersburg, Florida. A huge disfiguring sign on the back elevation, which looks exactly like the front elevation, says “Dotcom Centre” and something about Microsoft training. This evidently dates from the “dotcom boom era”, which was also the last time that the British spelling of “Center” could be used with a straight face, even in Florida. British spellings and the adding of an archaic and a superfluous “e” suffix were thought to add polish to otherwise undistinguished developments and strip malls back in the dotcom era. Still attempted in Manatee County, I noticed last weekend.