Well another historical city landmark has been thoroughly deleted from the city's grossly, unmemorable landscape. Another blank space, empty lot, the sort of thing that this city seems to NEVER tire of. After all, an empty lot is 1) Orderly, 2) Non-controversial and even possibly Profitable!!!
The Pomona cotton mill which was still serving as a museum/shopping mall when I first moved to Gso. had been mostly unused for about 10 years and in Greensboro, NC that's a VERY long time for anything to exist without a definite purpose!!! In addition, the Mill was serving as a host to Gso's only real artists. Graffiti writers and in Greensboring, any sort of unregulated imaginative, activity in public, particularly of the Artistic type is strictly prohibited!!! So now in addition to yet ANOTHER SPLENDID VACANT LOT, we have yet another testament to the typical UNIMAGINATIVE, vacuous, tiny minds of local real estate "developers". Most of whom can't begin to imagine ANYTHING new without first beginning from the perspective of a totally 'vacant lot' !!
The very idea of recycling an interesting vacant structure and merging it with a new structure so as to preserve at least part of a local landmark is just too, too strenuous for the small, simple minds of these local guys who can only see quick $$ and easy repetition of the conventional as reasonable uses for any piece of land they get their paws on.
Of course it's probably unfair to blame our developers for being "IMAGINATION CHALLENGED" when we are blessed with so many "gifted" city leaders who consider thinking anywhere NEAR "outside the box" as being down right un-american. Just take former Mayor Holiday for example, who's idea of a perfect cellular tower would be one that "looks like a flag pole" rather than one using latticework or any sort of creativity at all.
To Holiday, a Greensboro lifer, boring is beautiful that's why he also endorsed the brilliant aesthetic idea of encouraging EVERY builder in the city to design EVERY BUILDING so it looks JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER ONE! So now Greensboro's OFFICIAL architecture is Southern-Post-Modernism like the "new" bank tower downtown on Spring street. The theme for this type of city design is just like Greensboring itself; NO SURPRISES! It means We're Boring and We like it that way!
So if you suffer from ADHD and you have a strong need for visual variety and novelty, well you'd better just pack-up yer bags, git back in yer car and MOVE SOMEWHERE ELSE (like Winston-Salem or High Point). Cuz in The Gated City we demand and expect ORDER, CONFORMITY, BLANDNESS and SIMPLE MINDEDNESS in EVERYTHING - No Exceptions.
So kids, don't bother bringing your camera or even pulling it out of the bag. Save it for the next town. We're dull & we like it that way.
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