ST. AUGUSTINE'S ARCHITECTURE CRAWL
6-22-10 POST KEYWORDS: flagler college, gator bobs, st george street, flagler memorial presbyterian church, villa zorayda museum, lightner museum, cathedral basilica, the fountain of youth, salt water cowboys, art sucks, cojo art juggernaut, artsucks.com, cojo
This blog rarely highlights architecture because I am not schooled in it and couldn't tell you the difference between a portico and a flying buttress. I do however have a good eye for composition, so I decided while playing tourist to photograph any interesting buildings I happened to pass by while touring the historic city.
Flagler College is really an amazing structure. It was built in 1888 as Ponce de León Hotel by millionaire developer Henry M. Flagler. Now it's a college.
Here is the front of the Lightner Museum. We didn't get a chance to enter it, but the museum's founder was a collector of collections, so that's what's in the museum's collection. Before the building was a museum it was called the Hotel Alcazar. In it's time the hotel boasted a steam room, massage parlor, gymnasium, and sulfur baths, as well as the world's largest indoor swimming pool.
One thing I love about St. Augustine is all the crazy tiny cobblestone side streets with really weird overhangs and tall walls.
I liked this building with the fence, have no idea what it is, but it looked cool.
A small road leading to if I remember correctly was a garden with a fountain, and an upstairs library of some sort.
This is the arch to Aviles Street, (editor's note- which as I noted in the Art Scene update- is the oldest street in America).
This garden fountain was in front of one of Flagler Colleges' smaller buildings I believe. In the extreme foreground you will see that their gates are made up of chains connected with blunted morning stars or spiked mace balls.
Gator Bob's is the gift shop and is connected to Old St. Augustine History Museum. I had Molly pose in front of it because I enjoyed the typography as Molly's mom exits the building. Inside the museum we saw a display about the early Cracker settlers.
Also this oddly raven haired Uncle Sam who wants to shake hands, in case you can't tell from the photo, his hand is African American.
An electric chair in the museum.
Some jewelry of the peoples who lived in St. Augustine before it was conquered by the Spanish.
Outside the "museum" was the very touristy The Old Jail, which we skipped. Before we left though we did take a few pictures of their free outdoor exhibits.
The gallows.
Molly in a strange birdcage cell. Are we in the South or Webster Hall?
Posing in one of the tourist face cut out things. I'm the good old boy Sheriff, Molly is the. . . big eared, club footed, racist caricature. What I don't understand is these places take in thousands of dollars a day. You would think that they could use a portion of one day's take and commission an actual illustrator to create these sorts of things so people can take a picture with some art they can be proud to display.
We stopped at a Flagler constructed church.
The inside was pretty, but compared to churches of Europe I"m sure this is puny and lackluster.
Villa Zorayda is an interestingly colored castle, which is probably also puny as far as castles go.
This building is the Old Potter's Wax Museum. The first wax museum in the United States and is the site where they filmed the original 1953 Vincent Price horror film HOUSE OF WAX.
This is a shot I took from the trolly of Magnolia Avenue, which is one of National Geographic's "Most beautiful Streets in America."
Here is a statue of Ponce de León at the gates to what is supposed to be the legendary fountain of youth. Nine bucks to take a sip of fart smelling sulfur water from a dixie cup, drink up rubes.
Finally the he Cathedral Basilica . This is a really prominent and historic church in town and looks amazing from below in perspective.
This is by no means a full account of the outstanding European influenced architecture of the area as I was only shooting it on a side note to my actual art crawl agenda. One of the biggest landmarks of the town is the fort, which we didn't visit.
As a bonus I'm going to leave you with two pieces of interesting signage I saw and had to photograph.
Above is a very expensive dollar store.
Most pumps just encourage you to get coffee inside.
