100th Post: Downtown Dreams

Someone caught a big time fish.

Over the course of the last three years and 99 posts, I've been to a lot of forlorn places. I've seen broken windows, fallen bricks, crumbling mortar, long-dead dreams, ghost signs, signs of ghosts, signs of future ghosts. Whole buildings missing like teeth. Parking lots put in their places. Main Streets empty of the souls they were built for.

Lots of forlorn places.
This isn't one of them.

Snapshot - Congress Square, Portland, 1904

Google street view from 2009. The YMCA is gone and the skinny building has gained a floor.

Another gem from Shorpy. This photo shows Portland, Maine - not the better known Oregon version. I was born in this city 81 years after the photo was taken.