scary-ugly

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.