dawn at Lake Ella

3/16/2021 – Tuesday

Anyone who has driven on Monroe St. through Midtown knows this building:

There is a story about it, I’m sure, and I have written about it before too. There used to be a man who came in and “opened shop” during weekdays, but I put that in quotes because he very obviously did not do any business, or even make busy work for himself. He was just…there.

Then the pandemic hit and the sign went up saying the place was closed due to shoulder surgery (???), which eventually faded and fell down and was replaced with a sign that is also fading and starting to fall down but says “temporarily closed.”

I love the building itself though, a throw back to a much different era in Tallahassee that I never knew, and a touch of urban decay in an area that has been slowly gentrifying for 20 years now.

The apartment I live in is a part of that era, though. Concrete block walls and plain, boxy exteriors and shabby in a very not-chic way. Keely and I live here in the past, mole-like in our dwelling, packed tight with history and old paint.