Monday, July 20, 2009

City Walk-A-Bout

Bradenton City Hall is beautiful, built in the historic district and it resides on prime waterfront, as does our library, South Florida Museum, Police Dept and Theater and an assisted living facility. I have heard comments that this is a waste of prime waterfront, I disagree. This means to me I have access to view the lovely Manatee River at any time I want to, since most of our riverfront property is now private.


Side door of City hall, and the following are close up shots of the architecture that I love. Most of the buildings in The District are historical, and the new ones were built to fit in.



There is quite a mix in our downtown area

Old Homes line the side streets

Restored historic buildings mixed with them


The old county courthouse is still in use, but they built a new high rise next to it and it is UGLY, so does not have a place here in this post. Bob and I were married in this old courthouse Feb. 8, 1984, and that is why it has the honor of residing in my post.

Old Main street has Pubs

Antique Stores

Sidewalk Cafes, the sidewalks are brick and the cross walks

Attorney offices, not historic, but worth the aiming of my camera at it.


Yacht club and restaurant, right across the street from City Hall

This is our UGLY County Building, built before they voted to make Downtown a Historic District.

Window to a dressing room in the Theater

another window another dressing room
And Last is the Theater itself. Not a thing of beauty with a wide shot, but beauty can be found in the small parts of the not so beautiful.

Bradenton, Florida was Incorporated May 19, 1903, the area now called the City of Bradenton (approximate population: 54,000; size: 14.44 square miles) was discovered in 1539 by Hernando De Soto when he landed on Shaw's Point and now stretches for miles along the waterfront of the scenic Manatee River that runs to the Gulf Of Mexico. I am one of the 54,000 plus residents and live 2 short miles from all this history.
In all this beauty, I did not feel safe walking around by myself, our city is plagued with a high crime rate and I would loved to have had Crocodile Dundee with me on my Walk-A-Bout.

4 comments:

RoeH said...

Great historic buildings. Hopefully the city won't tear them all down like Mesa has done. In the middle of downtown Mesa they built a huge 'arts center' and an architectural nightmare. It looks like a large ugly ship sinking in the desert. So ugly! But that's Mesa.

DawnTreader said...

Nice tour, thankyou!

Gerry's Soap N Stuff said...

I enjoyed the tour of your lovely city. The older buildings are absolutely more charming. Gerry

SquirrelQueen said...

I think it is nice that something besides private property is on the waterfront. Other than some of the newer buildings it looks like a very lovely area. Too bad about the high crime rate.