In our last exciting episode we left off as I was exiting Tangent after having had a spot of lunch and a most salutary gruit. It didn't take long for another ghost sign to come into view. All of ten feet or so.
The front of the building also has a ghost sign – "STORAGE" – but I neglected to take a photo.
Strolling down East Washington I couldn't help but be somewhat amazed at all the tall buildings. Well, tall for Madison. This despite riding a bus past the Constellation, the Galaxie, the Sparx, etc. every weekday to and from work. While I perceive them as normal parts of the streetscape, I suppose, these "skyscrapers" are still new to me having gotten used to a street without them for so long. They get 10 out of 10 points for ridding us of empty lots but minus several million for style.
At Paterson Street I find myself in front of the old Gardner's Bakery with some of a ghost sign visible from down below.
Just across Paterson in front of the still shiny new Hotel Indigo is another decorated utility box. I find this one much more pleasing than the faux fabric of the box at Winnebago Street and Riverside Drive.
On a building on the 1000 block of East Wash I spied some metallic star hoolies.
I had noticed similar things a couple blocks up on the Gisholt building during a previous walk.
Anyone care to take a guess as to what they were for? Mounting points for awnings or some such things, perhaps? I cannot find any historic photographs showing any awnings, however, nor anything hanging off the facade.
Across the street is a harbinger of things to come.
This nice little pocket of greenspace will soon be no more as an 11-storey mixed use building is soon to be erected. And behind it will be the Madison Youth Arts Center.
Continuing my trek, I walked by the city building where fire trucks are kept in working order.
But now that the city has a fleet services building on the way, I suppose this one will be sold and developed into yet another mixed-use affair.
By this point I needed chocolate. But before I would be able to fulfill that desire, I had to take a photo of some locally-sourced graffiti lovingly spray painted in honor of one of the best rock bands Madison has ever produced. This has sadly been painted over since.
Just listen to the glorious "King of Sex". Listen!
Crossing the river I came to my next destination: CocoVaa. The proprietor is my wife's cousin and she makes sinfully tasty chocolates.
Vata won some fancy schmancy award last year and she most certainly deserved it. Her chocolates not only taste magnificent they also look like works of art. Now if I could only get a steep family discount.
I threw the bonbons into my backpack but a pain au chocolat was quickly gobbled down as traveled the riverside east to Lake Monona.
To the shores of Monona Lake
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