Tour of our block

Hey friends and family. A real post!

We live in Monroe Ward, this is just the name of our neighborhood. It is a really old part of the city. We are between Downtown, and the State Capital, and Jackson Ward and The Fan. It is much more mixed up then Seattle. Jackson Ward and part of our neighborhood suffered from pretty much every recession, and flight to the suburbs. So lots of buildings are empty and boarded up. But because we are close to the Capital, Downtown and other neighborhoods that are still doing well, there are still nice restaurants and hotels mixed in here. 

 Tanner out front. Our building was built in 1932, it is Art Deco style. At one point it was a furniture store. It has a lot of "character" without being total junk. The building owners seem to keep it up.

Art Deco lettering

It is 5 stories tall, we live on the 5th floor. One tree out front. You can see some of the building details

You can see the office space on the right side of the front door is empty. On the other side a non profit that supports adults with disabilities have offices. 

Next building over is a bank.

We are lucky, our block has pretty good sidewalks. Some sidewalks are still brick and really worn down and uneven

Bank parking lot is behind our building on one side. Lots of notes all over the place not to park at the bank or they will tow you

Next to the bank is the alley that cuts through the block. You can see the back of another apartment building, They are luck, they get balconies. You can also see the parking for a jewelry store, that we are pretty sure is no longer on this block at all.        

Someone in this building has two dogs, one of which is a chihuahua that looks just like the one from the Taco Bell commercials from the 90s. She is so cute, giant ears!

              

As you get around the corner in the above pictures, you are facing the opposite side of the block to our front door. This is Broad Street. At one point it was a major road through town, it is still a four lane road. Though sections like ours don't have thriving businesses any longer. 

I took photos of the front of all the businesses. Our block is actually doing pretty well. It was too shady to get good photos of the building fronts. They are all a little different, and sit right next to each other. Some still look Art Deco, some are updated and boring. 

Legal Aid office, it is pretty big

This is the front of those nice apartments, with balconies. The building is updated, the sign says there is a law office in here. It doesn't look like they take up the whole store front though. Also a sign that you can't get to the apartments from the front, you have to enter from the back

It was Labor Day when I took these photos, so some of the stores were closed

I am pretty sure they have a tiny sign saying they are an architecture and design firm

This is mostly empty, but we do see people in here. I think when they have funds they host art shows in here, but it is a not for profit, so not sure what is going on

This place has some neat art in the windows which is for sale. But I think they also do some community outreach and other stuff

So across Broad Street is what it mostly looks like in our neighborhood. 

Busy road, sort of grassy median, but nice trees

All of the buildings you can see are boarded up. The city or a non profit had someone paint murals all over Broad. So that perks it up a bit. I think that was an effort to make it more appealing for the UCI Road race that is coming up. 

The last length of the block has some small businesses in store fronts, and apartments above. The building is not as tall. 

Cute details 

You can see down the block, smaller sidewalk. Then the side of our building. There is a small parking lot, but we don't want to pay for a spot, we don't park there. We do often use the side door. 

Also, the alley, back from other direction. On the right is the very back of our building. 

There you go! I will post some more pictures of the blocks that are around us. But this seemed like a good way to get started on a tour.