Monday, December 06, 2010

Transbay in Transition: A Freaking Photo Essay Already

I had so much fun with the photos, and what with the teardown and all, well, I might as well get nerdy on you and lay down some before-and-during shots I’ve nerdstakingly compiled into tidy little sets.  Come on, it’s got bad lighting, restricted subject matter, and abandoned bus terminals all in one.  What could it hurt?

First, I suppose symbolically, let’s look at the once-proud name emblazoned on the concrete face of the late great Transbay Terminal (oh, and these are some where it really pays to clickbiggen):

and

Next, the east elevation and its deco stylings - before and after the bridge next to it got removed:

and

ah wait, though, that last set was confusing.  What exactly had been removed to make it look like that?  Here’s a trip along the approach ramps into memory lane:

vs

There now, that makes perfect sense now doesn’t it?  Agreed.  Let’s move on.  By which I mean back, to that now-missing bridge next to the east elevation: You might recall it at one time looking like this:

Well now of course it looks very different.  In a sense, it looks like this:

But in another sense, it really looks more like this:

- because yes, apparently someone’s been getting free advertising for some sort of “Coffee” (how quaint those old folks must have been, whatever could they have meant by “coffee”?) for sixty years, with the only drawback that it was being projected soley into the outside wall of bus terminal.  But now the Coffee Genie is free again, to wreak who knows what kind of antiquated havoc on our freshly-updated streets?  And, just because it looks good here, here’s another photo taken on the same block, behind a very nice restaurant:

I guess that will have to do for now.  I need some overthrow-plotting time tonight.  Keep that on the D-L if you don’t mind, thanks.