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Manistee is about half an hour's drive north of Ludington. It has a population of around 6,600, but by the look of downtown (and the enormity of its churches) you would probably think it was larger. Because the area was very wealthy during the late 1800s, many grand Victorians were built and still exist today. Like Ludington, Manistee was a lumbering town. However, much more of the actual "lumber barons" lived in Manistee while the barons of Ludington were from areas such as Milwaukee and Chicago and didn't contribute their wealth into the development of the city.
This first post is of Manistee's River Street, basically the main street of downtown. The entire district is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Welcome to River Street! (sorry the gold letters didn't come out right)
At the right is the Tuscan Grill, the most recent of 4 restaurants that have occupied that storefront in the last years. All of them have been pretty good; I don't know why exactly they haven't made it.
Same building as the one at the left of the last picture. The top reads Manistee National Bank (now an art gallery). Unfortunately I have no other knowledge of its history.
This picture unintentionally showcases a lamp post that is part of the cities most recent streetscape projects (which also included the brick paver sidewalks the arch from the first photo and some parking lot landscape improvements). Note that the lamps are set atop stone piers rather than mounted directly to the ground as is usually done.
Hmm...cornice removal or cornice fall-off? Maybe a bit of both?
Like in Ludington, the main street runs roughly east-west. Thus, all of the buildings on one side of the street have awnings and the buildings on the other side of the street have none.
Originally the Manistee County Savings Bank (according to the carving above the second floor).
The Vogue Theater. Built in the 30s as a single screen movie theater and later split into two screens. The theater closed after the new movie theater opened in Ludington and is now apparently for sale. I've only been inside once, but the interior is hideous, despite being pretty much original. I'm tossed between considering the exterior cool or ugly.
The color change in the vertical sign is the result of panels recently falling off.
Hopefully some of those storefronts will eventually be improved. With the historic status at least the storefronts can't get worse.
The Ramsdell building, built as the office of wealthy businessman T. J. Ramsdell who also built and owned the Ramsdell Theater (to appear in the next part of the tour). It was recently converted into the Ramsdell Inn, a hotel/bed and breakfast
By the time that I got this far on River Street, I had run out of picture-taking time so I snaped this one last shot that sort of covers the next three blocks. I'll cover these next blocks in greter depth next time I get a chance to add to the photo tour.
...but back on the other side of River Street there are two blocks that are outside of the area defined by the arch:
I thought this old factory looked great in black and white:
One thing I forgot to mention - and take pictures of - is the fact that River Street really does follow the Manistee River (thus the crooks and bends) and the backs of the buildings on the North side of the street face the river. Many of these buildings, especially the restaurants have back patios and the city has also created a very nice river walk.
Pictures from the south side of the city and the grand buildings of Maple Street hill to be posted soon - probably tomorrow or the next day.
Edited by andrew69@ltu, 13 June 2006 - 08:05 PM.
