Exploring Downtown San Antonio

This week, I've been attending some training downtown. Now, most of the time I'm in classes but during lunch I've had some time to explore...And I decided to put my new camera to the test. So, this photo-heavy post is the result.

Full post includes photos from the hotel, riverwalk area (including new construction) and various downtown buildings.
Teaser: Weird Modern Fountain.


While the hotel itself was older, it had an interesting tropical theme that resulted in some nice touches. The patterns from this place will be a separate post. But here are a few decorative highlights....

Throughout the hotel lobby, they had these mask/suit things on display. They were quite colorful.
If a little scary.

The phone alcove.
I love this. It's very arresting.

And the piece de resistance:
Chairs made with seatbelt webbing! All over the lobby! Very Awesome.

The hotel was on the riverwalk at the very North end. The banks were lined with one of my favorite plants:
Now, I always heard this referred to as a "Wandering Jew" which, according to Wikipedia, is not a polite term. The technical name is Tradescantia pallida. It grows all over the Texas Gulf coast.

San Antonio is extending the riverwalk on the Northern end so from the hotel we had a great view of the construction (I know, only an engineer would think this).



To get to the riverwalk, there's always these wonderful stone staircases and tunnels, like so:
Well, in the new construction, you can see the "skeletons" for future staircases:


Most of the touristy parts of the riverwalk are on the Southern end, the North is more local businesses and park-like.


Sometimes the bridges are quite decorated, both under and over

There's also the occasional tunnel.
Can you tell I'm a fan of the stonework?

All around the hotel, there's tons of just gorgeous old & new buildings. Some fit in with what you'd expect and some are just very out of place if cool. Let's start with the first one I noticed:
Webb Hall is this huge complex of red brick buildings. It's practically a whole city-block.

Next up is the Municipal Auditorium. From the back, it appears quite stern and boring. Think: the administrative offices for Azkaban prison. The front however is quite cool.
(Note: the antenna is behind the building not sprouting from one of the domes)

Across from there is one of the many AT&T buildings downtown. This one is the largest I saw. It has a couple war memorials out front in a little park area. The majority of the building is boring-ol-skyscraper. But the windows and doors on the first floor are stunning:
And it's not just in front either, along the side there's equal detail:


Unfortunately, downtown has some parts that aren't very nice. But sometimes, even a rundown buildings catch your eye.
I love the details around the second story windows here.

Now some buildings very much blend in while also being nice-looking in their own right. For instance, there's this apartment building:
Definitely Hispanic influence, fits in with the neighborhood and beautiful building.

Other buildings, man, they stuck out like a sore thumb.
I don't know what this is. I call it 'Crazy Red Building'. It doesn't fit in AT ALL. In another area, it might be more appealing but I went looking for old houses and came across this.

Eventually, I did find some grand old mansion-like houses.
Most are law offices with the backyard converted into tiny parking lots. They usually have pretty huge porches and balconies.
This one looks great considering it's abandoned:


Finally, I struck GOLD. One morning while on the freeway, I noticed a church steeple:

I thought, 'Hmmmm...that's probably worth checking out for pictures'. Boy, was I right!

It's a historical building according to the marker, the "Madison Square Presbyterian Church'. Gorgeous stonework, with some buildings behind it done in the same material.



All in all, wandering around downtown like a tourists isn't a bad way to spend my lunch hours.

Coming soon! Patterns from my training experience.

Link to full post.

Downtown San Antonio

While downtown for the “Race-for-the-Cure” last Saturday (see post here), the race route passed by some absolutely wonderful buildings. I don’t know if the buildings are because of the tourist industry or we have a tourist industry because of the buildings but downtown San Antonio is simply wonderful for walking around.

Teaser: It is important that you understand that we aren’t afraid of color in San Antonio.

It’s a somewhat frontier-style building that is about a 1000x better than anything that ever existed in an actual frontier town.

It wouldn’t be a trip to downtown San Antonio without some mention of the RiverWalk and its associated facilities. Here’s one of the older buildings which now houses a department store:

Wonderful details and manages to be snazzy without that tacky Vegas approach**.

Most downtowns have some statues and such. With these works of art, you can always tell where traditional gives way to modern:

Is it a polymerase reaction frozen in place as a homage to our UT Medical Center? Is it a giant tomato-basil fettuccine noodle representing the wrath of the Pastafarian God? But most importantly, why is it blocking my view of the gorgeous red-brick shopping center?

It seems obvious in retrospect but I had no idea San Antonio even had a “Visitor Information Center”:

Or that it was so nicely done. The inside was all plasma screen TVs and slick displays. Oddly, even though the lights and TVs were on, they didn’t appear to be open. I didn’t see anyone inside. Very welcoming guys.

When I had jury duty last year, I mainly went to the new courthouse building. However, San Antonio actually has a couple of older court buildings. This is one of them:

Although it’s a funny angle, this building is actually pretty intimidating. Also, the metal in the windows kinda ruins the “historic” vibe of the Greco-Roman style.

We passed by several ritzy hotels, most of which just looked like your typical ritzy hotels. However, one of them would do well as the setting of a horror movie (“Gargolyes on Vacation: Showdown at the Alamo” coming to a Sci-Fi channel near you). Check out some of the vaguely Gothic detail work:

Even the front awning could look creepy in the right lighting.
This is more cheerful, patriotic, Saturday morning lighting.

I have no idea what this building is but after the “Post Office/Courthouse”, this was the most intimidating. It had too many windows. Otherwise, I’d say it resembled some kind of fortress.


Now one of the odder buildings (in terms of its use), “The Scottish Rite Cathedral”

This is the Greco-Roman style done right. Also, it’s incredibly detailed. I didn’t have time to stop and take pictures but the building is covered in these little Masonic touches. Maybe it’s just my Scot-philia but I found it a very friendly building.

Our final building is one of my all-time favorites. It’s this lovely Lutheran Church:

I’m a sucker for detailed brickwork and the colors here are just lovely.

My one architectural/artistic disappoint of the race was the lack of graffiti. Last year, we walked through this underpass with all this gorgeous graffiti art. Unfortunately, this year they’d painted over all the artwork with this boring, ugly flat yellow-white. Yuck. So, I conclude with this picture from last year’s race:


*I mean “Western” in the cowboy sense not the “Western” civilization sense.
**There is a time and place for the Vegas approach. Ex - In Las Vegas at some other time.

Link to full post.

Wednesday Randomness

This isn't really my week for links to serious topics...

1) Robot Arm Clocks. Creating timepieces with robots & colored blocks. Most are pretty intuitive but for a couple I had to watch again to see how they worked.

2) The Pan flute Flowchart. Succinct. For your wind instrument decision-making needs.

3) Pictures of a Polish Radio Station. It looks like a Sci-Fi movie set! Very cool. I’d love a tour of this place.

Link to full post.

Back to Texas

So, back from LA. As part of my personal enrichment goals, I made an effort to take some pictures while I was there. Here's a teaser pic of a storm over downtown Houston.

More after cut.


I think this is the first instance where I didn't have to run to make my connecting flight when travelling through Houston Intercontinental. Which is how I noticed the strangeness of the George Bush statue they have at the airport. What's with the coat?

It's perfectly orthogonal to his body. I mean, if they wanted to convey wind the tie (blown to the side) would have done it fine. Personally, it looks like the sculptor was just showing off.

My rental car:

Which was terrible! Uncomfortable to drive with a huge blind spot. This picture makes it look blue but it was really this incredibly weird purple color. I felt like I was driving a clown car.

Usually, when I go to California, I spend my time in Orange County (for training / visit relatives) or the Carson area (for work). This time I got to go drive straight through downtown LA:

In a bit of LA strangeness (to me), there were these rather nice apartments right next to the freeway (as in you can see the sign on the left):

You could actually watch people out on their balconies while waiting in traffic. Who would want to live there?

Finally, I discovered the BEST RADIO SHOW EVER while in LA. When driving my crap rental car to the hotel, I listened to 88.1 KKJZ. Now usually, they play jazz and are pretty darn good. But on Sunday nights, they have a blues show which I caught for the first time. IT WAS AWESOME. Aretha Franklin covering Marshall Tucker Band? Comparing the original Statesboro Blues with the Allman Brothers cover? When I got to my hotel, the first thing I did was log-on to my computer to listen to the web feed.

Link to full post.

Stone + Brick = NO

With all the construction going on in San Antonio, my morning commute involves scenic views of many a new-born subdivision. Most of the time, I like to stare & daydream...Except this one place.

There's tons of limestone in this area so it's not uncommon to see older houses done in stone or, in the nicer new neighborhoods, homes with stone accents. But in these places, usually, it's stone OR brick NOT both. This subdivision is therefore an exception, a visually overdone and tacky exception.

For example:
1)
Every time I drive by this place, I see this house and other just like it. I always wonder if they just couldn't get enough of one material or the other so decided to use both*. It's gaudy and overdone, both of which are things you don't usually see in San Antonio. Houston, however...

2)
This looks slightly better. At least the brick chosen compliments the stone better. But, when you compare it with this:


This is an unfinished house with only the stone put in. The house is a world of better looking than the other two (and of course facing away from the main road) It's composed and classy. Everything you see goes together and has an understated but confident appeal.

After years of houses that look like wooden replicas of pillboxes, I'm glad builders in this area are offering some greater variety & quality options like the stone-work. Indeed, a great deal of the older buildings in this area are stone. But, I will be marking down the name of this builder and, when I buy a house, they're off the list.

*It is possible. My parents, when building their house last year, ran into a similar problem & had to choose different brick when the supplier of their original choice got audited by the EPA (no joke). Apparently, the materials used to color the bricks were "hazardous" and they had to be regularly checked out to ensure the bad dust is handled properly before it goes into bricks for people's homes.

Link to full post.