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This is my current desktop photo:
The image is taken from a sidewalk on Coffee Street, facing the Piazza de Bergamo (a place that honors sister city, Bergamo, Italy) and Main Street in my home town of Greenville, SC. The local headquarters of Bank of America is towering in the background. It is essentially the center of the mid-sized Southern city that has rediscovered its center-city district after a few decades of neglect and business & residential flight to the southern and eastern suburbs.
Early in my life, this was the scene of folks going to the major department stores and Main Street was a four lane road. Now it is a pedestrian center of nouveau restaurants, untypical retail stores like eclectic “Loose Lucy’s” to neo-mercantile “Mast General Store”. I want to focus on the building on the right, known as the Cauble building. It is a three story structure, Coffee Underground is reached by following the steps leading down on the outside.
Architecturally history can be fascinating to me, in the sense that tells the story of individuals and generational change. Old buildings, and specifically how they change in use over the years are like man-made tree rings that say a lot about how a city has grown. This building is no different. The local paper, The Greenville News, had a history article about the Cauble building in this week’s paper. Here are a few excerpts.
When Peter Cauble arrived in Greenville in 1815, he was planning to stay. … He set up his forge and blacksmith shop at the corner of Main and West Coffee streets. It was a perfect location, two blocks away from busy Court Square; at an important intersection for travelers from the north; just south of Sandy Flats, where horse trading and horse racing were monthly Sales Day activities.
The Cauble-Vickers Building was finished in 1905 and immediately became the home of the Bank of Commerce. Handsomely designed in an eclectic commercial style, its first floor walls were a foot thick, and terra cotta panels in the Della Robbia style were centered above the windows along both Main and Coffee Streets. An exterior stairway led to basement level shops on Coffee Street, and the second floor was fitted out for professional offices. The bank’s deeply recessed main entrance was set on a diagonal.
After World War I, the building became the first home of the Greenville Library. Opening in May 1921 with 500 volumes in the basement space, the library grew so rapidly that within a year it had a 4,000-volume collection and was circulating 40,000 books annually. It moved to more spacious quarters in 1925, when the building was valued at $600,000.
Eight years later (we’re up to 1986 in the story), when Courtney Shives purchased the building from the Caubles, … He stripped away the aluminum to uncover the remains of one of the finest facades in Greenville. He had details restored by master craftsmen. He uncovered the long-lost stairs and basement level, and created desirable apartments where dentists and attorneys had once had their offices.
It is an interesting history that marks the major points of center of town buildings in the South. Blacksmith shop founded by working-class entrepenuer, to his family’s later investment property, to building as functional art with a bank and library that give credibility to the center of town, to its now multi-use facility as a restaurant, Restaurante Bergamo in the former bank/first floor and the MapShop. New urban apartments on the second floor and a coffee shop, Coffee Underground, in the basement. In many ways, this plot of land carries with it the story of the commercial South.
I have spent many a social evening in the former library, now coffee shop. And before I read the article, I had no idea the basement had previously been the town’s first public library. Some of the first dates I went on with my now wife were at Coffee Underground, I have seen movies put on by the Caleb Group, in the coffee shop’s theatre in the back, browsed at the geographic oddities at the Map Shop and eventually plan to eat at the well-regarded Italian restaurant, Restaurante Bergamo, in the former bank lobby. The little street corner of a working-class entrepenuer has become quaint, yet at the same time buzzing with youthful activity and energy. I like that. At any rate, here on the left is the building from the front.
Today, being George Washington’s actual birthday (Feb. 22, 1732), I decided to review a recent book by David Hackett Fischer’s, Washington’s Crossing, recently published in paperback and winner of the Putlizer Prize in its category. Part of the Oxford Pivotal Moments in American History series, Fischer’s work is a cultural history surrounding the events that Washington’s Revolutionary Army participated in from March of 1776 to March of 1777, with the middle of the book focusing on the pivotal turning point of the unlikely capture of the Hessian garrison in Trenton, New Jersey on Christmas of 1776, made famous by the painting featured on the cover of the book.
Fischer’s book was published at nearly the same time as McCullough’s 1776, which covers nearly the indentical time period, yet unlike McCullough’s focus on the narratives and characters of the of the dark days of the American cause in 1776, Fischer’s work is a close examination of cultural trends and mores that developed and moved the American Army, unlike no other movement in the world at the time. In short, McCullough’s book would be best enjoyed by those looking for a tree-top level of the events of the day. It is an excellent book that will be read for years, and Fischer is complementary of it, but Washington’s Crossing is an in-depth look at why the American cause took the course it did and what precisely that means for us today. It is most certainly not history-as-pageant-on-parade. Most importantly, Washington’s Crossing does a wonderful job of de-mythologizing the American cause to American readers, while reintroducing the concepts of rare and unique combinations of leadership and service that actors such as Washington, Knox, Monroe and down to the yeoman citizen-militia were in world history. Something new was happening along the banks of the Delaware that December, when it was most unlikely to.
Read more… Read the rest of this entry »
Use this website to find out what was the #1 pop song in America when you were born. For me it was Ray Steven’s novelty song, “The Streak”. As a side, I had no idea that this song was #1 for 12 straight weeks. I guess people needed something dumb to get their minds off of the closing days of Watergate.
#1 Song on this Date
Well.. I was born naked, so its somewhat appropo…
Contrary to popular opinion, today in the United States is not a holiday to honor all former Presidents. It is still recognized as George Washington’s Day.
The third Monday in February has come to be known – wrongly – as President’s Day. … Although it was celebrated as early as 1778, and by the early 19th century was second only to the Fourth of July as a patriotic holiday, Congress did not officially recognize Washington’s Birthday as a national holiday until 1870. The Monday Holiday Law in 1968–applied to executive branch departments and agencies by Richard Nixon’s Executive Order 11582 in 1971–moved the holiday from February 22 to the third Monday in February. Section 6103 of Title 5, United States Code, currently designates that legal federal holiday as “Washington’s Birthday.â€? Contrary to popular opinion, no action by Congress or order by any President has changed “Washington’s Birthdayâ€? to “President’s Day.â€?
Washington has long been my favorite American. I have known plenty of people who have held General’s Thomas Jackson, Robert E. Lee, or Franklin Roosevelt in my grandparent’s generation or any of the myriad of inventors, scientists, educators, theologians, business leaders, etc. that have contributed to the growth of the United States. In my estimation, Washington has set the standard for being an American.
To learn more of General Washington’s religious beliefs in a Q&A published today with Templeton award winner Michael Novak, click here
See how Washington’s birthday was celebrated at his home today, Mount Vernon; or simply check out the Alexandria, VA site devoted to their most famous son’s birthday at www.washingtonbirthday.net.
In Washington’s Day, and in the year’s afterwards, it was a day of cherished memories of the Rovolutionary struggle; especially considering many of the first generation of people living in the United States had memories of being forced to celebrate the King’s official birthday on June 4th. To instead have public celebrations of Washington’s birthday was an important event to take solace in the national identity.
So Happy Birthday Your Excellency!
I have been trying to think of something witty and profound to say about the kerfuful over the violent reaction in parts of the Muslim world to the Danish cartoons depicting the Muslim world as violent, and I may, but greater things are afoot, especially to those of my ilk who are of the ‘Reformed’ wing of Christianity. The blogger Ochuk has alerted us all to these offensive ‘Calvin & Hobbes’ cartoons and their depictions of the great reformer John Calvin as a selfish, six-year old boy. Apparently, according to Ochuk, protests are taking place all over, and I personally suppose that if proper measures are not taken, the offenders will be punished by an endless series of presbytery meetings where the topic will rehashed over and over: narthex or entry lobby, is it emergent or ‘TR’?
An excerpt from Ochuk’s report of these vile cartoons:
“Reformed traditions ban depictions John Calvin and other famous protestant saints such as John Owen, Jonathan Edwards, and generally anyone named John—a popular name among Reformed believers like that of Mohammed among Muslim.
This is the latest protest about the controversial cartoons which first appeared more than 20 years ago that reprinted in a number American newspapers and books. A spokesperson for the OPC said that the Reformed community was unaware of the comics strips, because they forbid any contact with the secular media calling it “worldly� and the “musings of the goats.�
Read more here…
And finally, I am not much of a computer gamer. Sometimes I will pull out my edition Tiger Woods Golf or NHL Hockey to blow off some steam at the end of the every odd day or so, but that is about it. But this little gem of gaming software has gotten my attention. It is called the ‘Mega-Church’ game for your PC.
The game has these features:
- Pastor a simulated church that and create your own Christian empire.
- Build a church from the ground up, customize your staff, control budgets and more.
- Hire and fire staff and deal with idiots, naive volunteers, and denominational egos.
- Attract fickle unchurched people with Bingo, revival meetings or fasting–it is all up to you!
- Select congregants from a pre-loaded community library.
Sounds totally awesome, I’ll check it out.
