Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Each day we will write a blog post on a predetermined theme randomly chosen by a random noun generator. The theme for the fifth day of the month is "Drawing." I am such a bad artist that I've started taking photos of town landmarks and putting them through an app that creates pencil drawings.
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Okay, friends, I did the water tower tour last Saturday morning. To remind you, we have a historic, unused water tower in our neighborhood that is on the National Register of Historic Places. It looks like this:
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| This was taken in May. Our grass is not nearly that green now because of the drought. |
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| The "grass" is obviously not doing well. |
So, it was really fun to take the tour and the tour guides were all great (I think we're going to try to get one of them to do a talk at the community center for our next lecture series). It was free! It was walkable! It was such a treat! It was hard to really get a good photo of what it was like to walk up the 12 flights of 10 stairs each, but I did my best.
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| Looking up. |
One of the more interesting aspects of the tour was the graffiti. The tour guides were careful to say that the historical society had obviously not been the ones to add the graffiti, but they were interested in getting any information they could get about the history of any of it. I like the idea of a septuagenarian writing an anonymous email to our local museum.
But, I know what you really want to see are the photos of the outside. A couple of caveats. One, I'm scared of heights and you all know I think about buildings collapsing beneath my feet, so I was plastered up against the bricks, which wasn't ideal. Two, the air quality has much improved in the last couple of days, but this is not Wisconsin in its finest showoffy summer clothes.
Facing north: The church! You guys are going to think this church is actually famous. LOL. My house is directly behind the church, so you can't see it. Look at that brown grass. *sigh* I could see the water tower for the neighboring town, too. It was really cool.
Facing west(ish): Look at all that brown grass. Downtown!
Thanks for encouraging me to go to this tour. It was so much fun and literally was just blocks from my house!
As per usual, I'd like you to tell me if you prefer the original photo or the drawing. Also, what's the coolest attraction in your town?
It's so cool that you got to tour inside! I would have been nervous of the height, too, but the views are neat.
ReplyDeleteYes, the views were so lovely. It's fun to see my town from a new angle.
DeleteOh! I love the drawing version of the inside of the tower. Really highlights the graffiti. I am so curious who left those marks!
ReplyDeleteSo glad you went on this excursion. You are so brave for facing your fear of heights!
I would love to know a lot more about the graffiti. I hope they get lots of stories about it and start incorporating those stories into the tour.
DeleteThis is awesome! This tour is definitely something I would have done in a heartbeat. I don't *love* heights but I'll put up with them for a view.
ReplyDeleteRight? There's no drawback to this tour - free! short! I mean, you do have to be physically capable of going up and down all those stairs, but it's worth it in the end.
DeleteWow, this is cool. How old is the water tower? When I did the walking tour of "historic" downtown Ocala, I kept thinking "why don't we have anything like this where I live?" But wait- how do I know that we don't? I've never looked into it. I'll bet there are plenty of people living in Ocala that are unaware of the history, just like there are plenty of people in your town who never think about the water tower. You're inspiring me to find some historical sights near me.
ReplyDeleteThe water tower was built in 1901. Apparently it was quite controversial! It was in service all the way until 1989 when it was replaced by a modern tower in the south of the city. I feel like our city does a great job of really talking about the history of our town - we have a museum, they do regular lectures, murals, etc. - so I doubt there are many people in our town who aren't at least aware of *some* of our local history!
DeleteThis time I like the drawing better, Engie! I love when local sites get treated with the respect due to them... One of my favorite places nearby is the Ziibiwing Center, which showcases the Anishnaabe experience in Michigan. I take students and visitors there all the time. It's not a historical site, but has lots of historical artifacts.
ReplyDeleteOh, that's lovely. The local museum here does a lot to raise awareness of the indigenous people of our area, especially of some of the burial mounds that have been preserved.
DeleteThis is so cool! I love the interior picture of all the stairs. I'm not a big fan of heights, but will definitely brave things for the view. And what a view. Hilarious to see "the church" from another vantage point.
ReplyDeleteThe church! It is a bit of a landmark around here, but maybe not quite as big a landmark as I've made it out to be. It's just...it's right behind my house!
DeleteI prefer the drawn photo this time around!
ReplyDeleteI think the drawing really highlights the graffiti, which I appreciate. I like the photo, too, though, because you can see how high up we are. Someone got that graffiti all the way up there!
DeleteThis is awesome! What a cool thing to do. I'd love to see my town that way. Yours is beautiful! (minus the grass LOL)
ReplyDeleteI knew we were in a drought, but I guess I hadn't realized just how bad it was until these photos. LOL. Maybe next summer I'll go back on the tour to try and get some photos with more green.
DeleteI like the drawing! I also love the thought of some old person confessing to what they did as a young whippersnapper.
ReplyDeleteI would LOVE to be privy to the graffiti confessionals. I feel like there's a great oral history here and we need it!
DeleteYou did well with the photos whether highly edited or not. I like both versions of the tower.
ReplyDeleteThanks! It was just a quick snap with my phone's camera, so nothing fancy.
DeleteThat looks like so much fun! Graffiti and all!
ReplyDeleteThe tour guides really made it. They were so much fun!
DeleteThat is a cool water tower, and even better you were able to tour it. What a great view. Thanks for stopping by my blog, and your comment is so true about learning something new and being a pseudo-expert for a while. What's great about that horse book is the author is learning about them as she goes, and takes you on to that journey with her. Happy July.
ReplyDeleteI think they do tours three times a year and I'm so glad I was able to fit it in this year. It was fun to hear the history and see the sights.
DeleteWe have a big old water tower in our town too, which I have been inside as part of a tour with my kids' school years back. I think perhaps the most interesting thing about where I live is that it is the birthplace of the famous artist Georgia O'Keefe! Lots of info about that in our local historical museum, as well as streets named after her in the area as well.
ReplyDeleteOh, that's so cool about O'Keefe. Maybe I'll try to fit in a trip to that museum the next time I go to Costco!
DeleteThis is so cool! I love visiting stuff like this- it reminds me of lighthouses that are all over the beaches near me. I'm not sure what the coolest thing in my town is- in my hometown of Pittsburgh we have a Mr. Roger's statue because he was from Pittsburgh so I always think that's cool! They play clips of his show all the time and he just looks out over the city. Sometimes people will knit him a giant red sweater to match his famous look :)
ReplyDeleteYES! It reminded me A LOT of lighthouse tours I've been on. With a less watery view. of course. :)
DeleteWhen I fly to visit my relatives, I always fly into the Pittsburgh airport. One time my flight got in really late and all the restaurants were closed and we were looking for a vending machine to just get something to tide us over until we could get to a Sheetz (LOL), but ALL the vending machines were Hershey's ones. We laughed so hard.
I'm glad you finally got to do the tour. Very cool to get a birdseye view of your town. Being in a big city we have a heap of attractions but I think the coolest attraction in our suburb would be the colourful bathing boxes on the beach. Google brighton bathing boxes Melbourne and you will be able to see.
ReplyDeleteThose bathing boxes are fun! They're like colorful sheds. I think it would be fun to be in on painting one!
DeleteWow. The views from the top are spectacular! I also have a terrible fear of heights, so this would have been an iffy visit for me as well. Who the heck would graffiti in a place like that? Idiots, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteI love the drawing in lieu of the original.
Our town is known for the Beach and The Zoo.
Oh, I think when it was a working water tower, no one really thought about it as being special, so the graffiti was probably just kids. At least, I assume it was kids and wasn't meant to be malicious!
DeleteI love places that overlook the whole town. Beautiful views!
ReplyDeleteIt was SO gorgeous. I don't know if they do it in the fall, too, but if they do, I'd like to do it again to see the views with the leaves changing.
DeleteThis is so cool! How fun to see your town from an entirely new angle. I'm just thinking about what the town looked like when the water tower was originally built and what the angles looked like then - what a difference 120+ years can make. ;)
ReplyDeleteOh, it would be lovely to know if there are any photos from the top of the water tower in the early 1900s. I will ask the next time I'm at our local museum!
DeleteThis is excellent! I don't think there is anything similar here in Madison, though, because you can't get to the tippy top of the Capitol, and I don't think you can go outside. Apparently, the rooftop of Monona Terrace, though, is a nice place to see the city. I'll have to hit up Fort A. for your water tower and Sun Prairie for theirs. :) and I like the drawing, too.
ReplyDeleteIt was such a glorious view! I feel very lucky that we have it available to us in our small town! It is interesting that there's no equivalent in Madison - that would be a super interesting view with the lake and the Capitol.
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