Ugliest Multi Story Building

[HSVTiger]

Not to hard to pick one or several. Pick the one where the architect should have heard in the words of The Donald..

YOU'RE FIRED..

Number one on my list.. The Compass Bank building on Governors Dr. simply awful.

[Evad]

Not to hard to pick one or several. Pick the one where the architect should have heard in the words of The Donald..

YOU'RE FIRED..

Number one on my list.. The Compass Bank building on Governors Dr. simply awful.

[HSVTiger]

That Compass Bank building is indeed pretty bad. I hate the courthouse as well. If you've ever seen a picture of the building it replaced you'd cry. Granted it wasn't very tall, but I'm partial to the classical style courthouses with clocks on top and such. Why couldn't they just build annexes? The square would be such a more attractive space.

My vote would either go to the courthouse, or the myriad of horrid buildings on the arsenal. My god, those older buildings are horrid.

[Evad]

Yeah, that's the second of four courthouses. I like that one too, but I'm partial to the 3rd one. I have several pictures of it at home, but I don't have a scanner. No idea what the first looked like, but it was probably rather unimpressive. Agreed that the interior of the current one is pretty cool. I wish they'd redo the exterior...

[HSVTiger]

number 1 courthouse maybe

Number 3, the Confederate statue can still be seen today standing guard outside the current courthouse.

And the columns now reside at the entrance of the Huntsville Botanical Gardens.

[jmanhsv]

I'm gonna have to go with the courthouse as well. It's hideous. My previous worst would have been the old SCI headquarters before it was renovated into Commerce Center.

There are plenty of buildings in Huntsville that would look MUCH better if they were taller (e.g. Embassy Suites, the Summit)

[rnc]

The courthouse...hands down.

There may be an uglier building in town, but not one that replaced a beautiful old building and sits on arguably the most valuable and prominent patch of real estate in town.

[Evad]

Speaking of beautiful buildings being destroyed downtown, I picked up a really cool(and depressing at the same time) book up at Barnes and Noble a couple weeks ago. Can't recall the name of it at the moment, but I can look when I get home if anyone is interested. Anyways, what the author did was take historic photographs of downtown(ranging from early 1900s to as far as the 70s) and paired them with current photographs taken from the same location and angle. It also tends to have little tidbits of info about the historic photo.

Lots of pics of the 2nd and 3rd courthouses. Also are some gems that I never knew existed that were lost to fire and 'progress'. Huntsville's opera house was gorgeous! It was lost to a fire and what's there now? A surface parking lot. Also lost to fire was the Twickenham hotel which is where the large parking deck across from Crossroad's/Mason's. Huntsville's old city hall was freakin' fantastic. Same with the old jail. I believe both of these were lost to 'progress' and 'urban renewal'. Anyways, it's full of interesting tidbits. A couple more for you(which you oldtimer's might know but I'm relatively new to H'ville) Where Crossroads and Mason's are now used to be a furniture store called Mason's. Wild Irish Cafe on the square used to be a Krystal's, and furthermore one of the cofounder's of the chain had Huntsville roots.

Oh and I forgot to mention. At least when I bought it, it was on sale for 20 bucks. Quite a steal.

[deesonic]

Madison County Courthouse is awful. I always refer to it as "The Death Star." But the inside is fairly interesting.

[Sherlock]

I don't think the courthouse looks all that bad (the style was trendy when it was built in the '60s), but I too would have liked to see the old one left and the new one built elsewhere. Maybe if they build a new city hall, as has been proposed, someone will but the present city hall and use it ... I kinda like it too.

BTW ... the Times is running a series of old newspaper scans for the 50th anniversary of the space program. In this morning's paper, one of the old ones had an article about the contract being let for the courthouse. I'm not sure if it was the Times or the News, but the date was March 1965, as I recall, so it was built in about a year. I came here in June 1966 and it was up and operational by then. The same contractor (from Decatur) built the courthouse as built Buildings 4201 and 4202 at NASA on the Arsenal. The Central Bank building was built about the time I got in town. Downtown was still vibrant then with department stores and theaters. And The Mall had just opened.

My vote for the ugliest building in town is the Redstone Credit Union on the east side of the South Parkway near the "useless" overpass.

[Alabadrock]

I agree that the courthouse is the ugliest. I can't wait until the county is so pressed for space that they have to implode the current one and replace it with one that has a greek revival facade.

I dream too much don't I...