This downtown area, newly developed just as I was leaving St. Petersburg twenty-five years ago, quickly got overrun by kids on skateboards and fell into disrepute.
“Skateboarding is not a crime” as the bumper sticker proclaims, but town folks didn’t see it that way. It was bought out, upscaled, and enough security guards now wander around to make even law-abiding citizens nervous.
The name was changed to Sundial and it looks inviting, but I rarely see a crowd of fun-lovers here.
🙂 🙂 🙂
Urban Thursday
– a Thursday sampling of downtown buildings & city landscapes –
In it’s infancy, I think skate boarding was regarded as a “gateway drug” by hardworking short haired 9to5 aliens imported into St. Pete.
Good composition …
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As athletic as I was I have to confess that I never tried skateboarding. Probably saved me a lot of broken bones. 🙂
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I’m glad you documented this, it stands out like cannon fire in contrast to the magnificent street photography you’ve treated us to on these pages which is all real life, animated, colorful, and interesting. I was at once reminded of the communities arranged by the Chinese, which have been built yet remain ghostly in their emptiness today, even the communists can’t organize the peeps to fill the apartments and shops. Civic planning is a very tricky business. Imagine being in the insulated committee meetings and absolutely sure that what you’ve decided amongst yourselves to do to civilization is too brilliant for words and ready for a press release, only to be faced with the shock years later that the committee bunch were the only ones who liked it after all. Which reminds me of spell check and what we willingly put up with which.
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Civil planning ’tis tricky indeed. You can never underestimate the public. 🙂
Thanks, Barbara…
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