Sunday, January 23, 2011

Some Shots of Bay City

Yesterday's Assignment was to Make a photo that features stripes of some sort today. I was up in Bay city again and I was racking my brain on where to find some stripes.

And then it dawned on me, there are stripes on the awning for St. Laurent's Candy Store. So I took a picture of that.

They have pretty good candies and have the appearance of an old time candy shop. The store has been in business since 1904 and I remember going there a few times as a kid.

The front of the building which is on Third Street. Just past this building was the Third Street Bridge which went down in the mid 70's. It was a pretty cool bridge because it would swing open. I believe Bay City had another bridge like it at one time.

The entrance on the other street.

I wanted a shot where I pulled out slightly, so you could see the sign at the top and little bit to the sides.

A picture looking south on Washington Street. The look of this street hasn't changed too much since I lived there except that many of the buildings have different occupants or are empty. The funny looking building to the right is a bank. I think the white is part of a facade because I think it probably looks pretty cool underneath. At the far side of the picture is the City Hall.


As I was wandering around downtown, I saw another opportunity to take a picture of stripes. This time with a picture of a fire escape on the Phoenix Building.

A shot of the fire escape as I backed away from the building to get an oblique angle.
The entrance to what used to be the Kresge's Building. This was the predecessor to K-Mart. This particular store went out of business in the mid-80's. I used to shop there sometimes as a kid. It was bought and renovated to hold offices.

The Shearer Building on Center Avenue. It was constructed in the late 1800's and held offices and store fronts for the longest time. There used to be a pretty good video store in one of the offices. Like many buildings, it feel into some state of disrepair and has been renovated. I believe it holds condominiums now.

The Phoenix Building at the corner of Washington and Center. I'm not sure what it used to be. Part of me wants to say that it used to be a clothing store but another part of me says that could be wrong. I'm not quite sure what they are doing with it now though.

The Knepp's Building. This used to be a department store until the early 80's (I think). I remember going into it a few times and I'll remember that it must have had better days at one point. There may have been other stores in other towns.

Looking up Washington Street to the north. Many of these buildings have little specialty shops in them. The building at the far end of the picture is the Post Office which is a pretty neat building in and of itself.

An Alley.

I'm not sure what this building used to be but it is now a Simmon's Jeweler.

This building used to be a Ford's store. They sold clothing and I remember my parents getting me my Cub Scout Uniform here. I don't quite remember when this store went out of business though.

Another look at the alley.

When I was taking pictures earlier, there was a car in front of this. I wanted a shot of the whole building front.

I'm not sure what this building is.

I shot this particular series in black and white because it was more or less a reminiscing series of pictures. I moved to Ypsilanti 23 years ago when I started at Eastern Michigan but my mom still lives in Bay City so I get back there fairly often. It's still amazing though because there are times when I don't recognize the city I grew up in.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here's a history of the building on the site before the Phoenix Building, the Westover Building. It says the Phoenix Bldg. was built in 1889.
http://www.bay-journal.com/bay/1he/bldgs/westover-bldg.html

Here's some of what is happening in the Phoenix Bldg. now.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Historic-Phoenix-Building-Bay-City-MI/110159102335120

And Amazon has a book of postcards of Bay City, covering the period 1900-1940, when Bay City was the third-largest city in MI.

The Post Office sold the Post Office bldg. last year, though it immediately leased the customer-service part of the bldg. back. The mail-sorting for the city is apparently now done in Pontiac.

Mikoyan said...

Thank you for the postings. It's funny that you should mention the postcard book because the author used to be my principal in the 4th and 5th grade.