Daily Dose of Blairmont 15

• 2309 University Avenue (Blairmont Associates LLC, November 2005)

January 2003


March 2007

The Blairmont house is the stone-clad one in the background. Time has been rather spectacularly unkind to its neighbor at 2313.

If you pan around the aerial view linked below, you'll noticed several other previously-featured Blairmont properties in close proximity to this one, including the ruins of a totally destroyed house. The remaining residents of this area might well fear for the future of their neighborhood.

Links:

• 2309 University at the City Assessor's database
  
• Aerial view from Maps.Live.com
  
• More on Blairmont

Daily Dose of Blairmont 12

• 2341-2343 University Street

June 2002. Photograph by Kevin Keiffer.

Sometimes, a house is more than just a house.


March 2007. 2341 is on the right.

Sometimes, a house is part of a streetscape, part of a cohesive sequence of buildings that relate to one another and reinforce each other's designs. In the densely built environment of a historic city neighborhood, this is particularly true. Just as a full set of teeth forms a beautiful smile, so too does a complete set of buildings create a pleasing streetscape.

It is a terrible thing when a building is lost from such a sequence -- the equivalent of punching out a tooth.

What, then will become of this row if 2341 University is allowed to continue sitting vacant, as it has for many years? Blairmont Assoociates Ltd. purchased it in May 2006, and have done nothing to improve the building's condition or help guarantee its survival.


March 2007. 2341 is in the center.

Will this row, like so much around it, become nothing more than a memory, leaving no trace of what this neighborhood once was?

Update, July 23, 2008: The worst has come to be; the tooth is being punched out. Michael Allen reports on the demolition of this lovely building.

Links:

• 2341 University at the City Assessor's database
  
• Aerial view from Maps.Live.com
  
• More on Blairmont