StarDestroyer.Net BBS

As the title suggests, show off your city, town, neighborhood, etc. in photographs, paintings, sketches, wee models, or any other visual media. I don't travel much but I am always curious to see what other places look like, and in some ways there is no perspective like that of a native.

Guiltily, I have few photos of my own town that I haven't already posted, so I (regrettably) can't chip in until I've gone out and taken some. But in the meantime, show off whatever you like (or don't) about the place where you live.

For photographers: if you want to make an exercise of it, "Your city in six" is a classic assignment: Six photos that you feel best capture the character of your home turf.

Stuttgart is pretty boring and rather ugly. However there are two really cool characters roaming the streets.

One of them is Big Tom Yardly, an aging Hippie who likes to hang out in bars and discos. He ususally leaves his clothes - including his underwear - at the coat check and hangs out naked at the bar.
Interestingly he´s totally accepted and people, not even women, don´t care about his hobby.

The second image shows the parrot man. He usually plays saxophone in the streets and allways has his parrot on his head which, according to the parrot man, only understands Polish and therefore can´t answer questions asked by pedestrians.

salm wrote: One of them is Big Tom Yardly, an aging Hippie who likes to hang out in bars and discos. He ususally leaves his clothes - including his underwear - at the coat check and hangs out naked at the bar.
Interestingly he´s totally accepted and people, not even women, don´t care about his hobby.

Woah. Security lets him stay there buck naked?

Toronto is weird. If I showed you the next 2 photos you'd never guess that this is a metropolis with something like 2.5 million people, and about 5.5 million in the Greater Toronto Area. You think it's some quiet suburb with a few tens of thousands, or maybe 100k tops.






But if I go east about 20 minutes from where the above pictures were taken, I'm right in downtown, and there's probably close to half a million people in the office & residential buildings below.




I can also walk from a run down ghetto or shady abandoned industrial area like this one...




...to a luxury beachfront condo development in about 5 minutes.




Oh yeah, and we have cool street parties.

God, I just love how your suburb has so many trees! And how they're turning golden brown. I just love the trees. It must be awesome to have so many of them providing lots of shade on those wretchedly hot sunny days!

Sadly, I practically never walk around my hometown with a camera ready and the same watchful eye for nice pictures you get when on vacation. I've browsed my photos and there's just a handful that capture Regensburg in maybe a bit more than just a snapshot-manner. Still, I had to cheat and google this first picture that shows what probably is the most famous motive - St. Peter cathedral in the back, Salzstadl and Steinerne Brücke (the bridge) in the foreground.



The cathedral dominates the "skyline" from pretty much everywhere you look, just to give you an idea of how much taller it is than everything else in the old part of town, here's a picture taken from another church tower:



Something else to notice there is that ugly cube (with the Bücher Pustet sign on it) that totally clashes with all the hundres-of-years-old buildings around it. There are a few eyesores like that in Regensburg, built in the 50s and 60s when not much thought was given to preservation of old buildings.

Your perspective when walking the narrow streets of Regensburg would be something like this



or this:



And here's a view from one of the squares where you can sit down, have a cup of coffee in one of the many, many cafes or bars and enjoy summer days. This is on Bismarkplatz with the town theater in the background.

[R_H] wrote:

salm wrote: One of them is Big Tom Yardly, an aging Hippie who likes to hang out in bars and discos. He ususally leaves his clothes - including his underwear - at the coat check and hangs out naked at the bar.
Interestingly he´s totally accepted and people, not even women, don´t care about his hobby.

Woah. Security lets him stay there buck naked?

Nobody messes with Big Tom.

I live in Union City, NJ, which is not much to look at! Your average street is just standard lower/middle class urban sprawl with only a handful of nicer old brick residential structures.





In fact, this strange abandoned building is right across the street from my apartment:



Union City is heavily Catholic and Hispanic. One set of streets will be Columbian, the next Venezualan, and so on- different bars and businesses cater to one particular country or another. My neighborhood itself is very ethnically mixed, but if I walk 3 blocks away I wind up in an area where you need to know a little spanish just to order a meal!



There are a number of large Catholic churches in Union and Jersey City, and I've noticed a distinct red brick construction which I haven't seen in Catholic churches elsewhere.



Union City used to be fairly industrial, but that is no longer the case. This factory used to produce soap. Now only a single small part of the factory is still open (they make custom doors.) It is a little depressing to see at night, because only one set of windows is lit up, the rest is dead and empty.




Of course, Union City has far and away the best view for miles around. Every night before bed I can look out my window and see this:

Hope we see some more participation with this thread! If not for the rain and lousy weather that has been lingering, I'd grab up some shots too. Soon as it clears up I'll see what I can get.

Good stuff so far.

If the rain lets up today then I can get out and take some pics of small town Ontario. Just be warned that I am a shitty photographer.

Well despite the rain, I did it anyways.

I live in Renfrew, Ontario. A small town (8500) in the Ottawa Valley, about an hour from Ottawa. Formerly a town of the old lumber barons (the guys who raped Ontario of pine trees), it's now a town in decay. A local once told me that everyone leaves after HS and comes back to die. I picked buildings and areas that I thought best encapsulated that.

The old Stemco building:


A typical section of the "old part of town." THe small house on the left is from what the locals call "wartime housing", built for the local boys coming back from WWII:


The Mill, one of the oldest buildings in town, if not the oldest. Originally it was a Grist Mill, now a museum:


Probably the most modern area in town, the National Archives of Canada. The building is immense and the grounds occupy a large area. The place has about 8 folks working in there.


The back end of the dam that the town relies on for power:


Fire Station. The towns original bell is located between those two trees out front.

Toronto. I've tried to get some pictures of less well known stuff.



The Toronto Necropolis. This is where most of our city founders and famous dead people are buried.



Fort York, complete with a Red Coat, with the city skyline in the background. The fort was built to defend against the Americans, it wasn't entirely successful.



Distillery District. This is a historic area of Victorian era industrial buildings, the whole place was owned by a brewing & distillery company, then abandoned, and finally converted into a collection of art galleries, cafés, and shops.



Dominion Public Building. This was our main Customs clearing house, it's now the offices of the taxman.



Royal Bank Plaza and TD Centre. Yes, the building on the left really is made of gold, truly a great way to proclaim "we are filthy rich and made of money".

From what I understand, they put the gold in the window panes. It's unrecoverable, though, so there's no point in stealing it. It has the side-effect of reducing the buildings cooling costs in the summer, while increasing the cooling costs for the neighbouring buildings...which are also owned by banks, IIRC. Specifically, their competitors.

Bricktown Canal. No idea why the water looks green there.



Bricktown in December.



Downtown Halloween parade.



Downtown. No idea why old fashioned cars are there.



Downtown Library.



Ice Skating. No idea why the trees have green leaves.



I've fallen down on that thing so many times and it's hell on the ankles..

I'm going to cheat and give you a link to a webcam that shows downtown Edmonton from (I believe) the University of Alberta, facing the North Saskatchewan River. You can see the LRT bridge crossing the river below the High Level Bridge.

http://www.theweathernetwork.com/index. ... e=CMAB0015

There's a couple other cameras you can see from the drop-down menu, but they don't show anything worth seeing.

A bit belated, but here are photos of the Bath and Bristol area.

Bristol:


Broadmead:





The Mall:



Plaza and Harbour:







And Bath:

Some random pictures of Edmonton's parks during the summer





The Muttart Conservatory in Winter



A panorama shot of the downtown skyline at night, taken from near the last photo but facing north. I stole this from somewhere on google, as you can see from the watermark. So sue me.

The view from downtown, facing southeast. I used to live on the top (21st) floor of the sixth building from the left. I now live about two blocks south of it, which is about a 20 minute walk from the university. The barely visible short building nearby was once an old mill, which has since been converted into a restaurant.




We have a rather large "shopping mall" with a rather large "water park". I haven't been there in years; it's quite pricey and on the opposite end of the city from me. One of my best friends used to work there, he got to stand around in a bizarre mascot suit and talk to tourists.

I'll go out and shoot some more stuff, but for now, some old shots of Bumfuck, Belgium:

Sights of the burg that spawned me; Hamilton, Ohio.


Railway viaduct and bridge; viaduct circa 1860, bridge circa 1955


Viaduct arch and keystone:


From the other side:


Cut log house, circa 1810-20? Note satelite dish...


Butler County Courthouse, 1886; original cupola lost to fire on March 14, 1912.
My grandmother's birth certificate was lost in that fire, as were two firefighters:

Original appearance:


Grotesque ornamentation:


Soldier's, Sailor's, and Pioneer's Monument; Civil War Memorial of 1906:


Avian art critics:


Facade:


"Who controls the British Crown, who keeps the metric system down, we do, we do..."


Hamilton has some decent art deco; detail view of the First National Bank And Trust building of 1930:


A bit more of the building:


Rather nice Italinate arched windows:


Detail view:


The lovelier Second National Bank right down the street:


My long shot of this building was typically blurred, but at least here's the Eagle finial I managed to crop off in the above shot:


The old Opera House:


Detail of 19th century Italinate goodness:


I love this; an original late 19th century Classical Revival facade, with an Art Deco remodeled window, and a hideous, hideous, hideous 1950's monstrosity of a facade, all in a state of decay. An exquisite testament to the nature of this town:

That Civil War monument...I really don't know what to make of it. It's almost grotesque in its bulk.

About the gaudiest monument you'd see in this neck of the woods is a granite soldier on a plinth, maybe one or two feet over life-size, at Order Arms or casually leaning on his musket. And if the history of the town of Boothbay is any indication, towns were mighty reluctant to pay even for that.

The courthouse is wicked nice, though, and thanks for including the Deco because I'm a real sucker for that style.

Gooderham & Worts building. The administrative headquarters building for the distillery district buildings in my previous post.



Old City Hall. The detail work on this building is incredible, I could spend days taking pictures of it and still miss things.



Closer view of Old City Hall



Art Gallery of Ontario. The original building was eaten by the new extension.



Judging by the architecture, I'm guessing this was a bank building before it was converted into retail.



Hockey Hall of Fame. This is the most holy building in Canada.



Canada Permanent Building. You can tell it's a bank building from the gold inlays on the lettering. Built during the Great Depression.



Close-up view of the entranceway detail from the photo a day thread




The old Bank of Montreal building



Commerce Court North. Yup, it's another Depression era bank building.

Nothing will sum up this town better than this photo:



Liquor, tattoos, and pay-day loans.

Vienna's city center is now illuminated, mostly thanks to various Christmas Markets...

the neo-gothic City Hall:

(mobile phone picture)


same during summer:

(borrowed this picture from a friend)


street illumination:

(mobile phone picture)


more street illumination:

(mobile phone picture)



some shops also put up their own lights:

(another mobile phone picture)


what's for sale at these markets ? Christmas tree decorations, gift items, spiced mulled wine, punch and lots of various foodstuff and sweets...

salm wrote:Stuttgart is pretty boring and rather ugly.

I tend to disagree
It's quite a nice city, compared to a lot of other cities I have seen. Schloßplatz, Altes Schloß, Neues Schloß, the parks, Wilhelma, Mercedes-Benz Museum...
Sadly, my photos are at my home computer, while I am 400km away in Mönchengladbach, which *is* fugly...

Will get some photos when I get back from a yacht race that happens this time of year in these parts but for now there's a handy webcam that shows off Hobart. The CBD is just off the shot to the left and I just off to the right on the skyline.