COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS
DARDANELLE, ARKANSAS
In the vein of my last post, I
thought I'd give some contrasting examples of storefront reuse, all found on South Front Street
of the central-west Arkansas River town of Dardanelle, just south of Russellville.
This is another example of a
turn-of-the-century storefront. The cast iron columns are still intact, as are
the vents and the brickwork. The columns are quite elaborate, with fancy tops
and bases and medallions between, but the original glass and wood panels of the
removed fronts have been replaced with red brick, modern doors with security
grates, and squidgy little awnings that look like they should be on tropical
drinks.
The building was saved, but much of
its character has been erased. At least they didn't paint the new brick, which
they did on the original building. Painting brick, a no-no in my book, can lead
to spalling, or delamination of the painted brickface. Rainwater gets to the unpainted
mortar joints, which expand, and the brick can't move as it would if it was
unpainted. This building seems to be avoiding that fate.
There is no evidence on the
previous storefront of any brackets that might have supported the typical
sidewalk overhang, such as are evidenced in these buildings just to the
southeast of the modernized one. These buildings are more original, one with
the transom windows still intact, though the another has steel instead of
glass. The transoms allow much-needed light into a store whose overhang blocks
it.
This lumber dealer covered over its
transom windows with corrugated steel, though the overhang remains intact.
Just what influenced the rest of
the downtown businesses to do this to the remaining storefronts in town, I
can't imagine.
Yes I can. It was the seventies
that did it.
