Carew Tower Arcade

Saturday
This morning we had our church choir rehearsal with orchestra for our special Christmas services tomorrow. The Pergolesi Magnificat went pretty well, though Joe was impressing upon us as always the importance of consonants! But a couple of the other carols we had some problems with and I think he should have gone over a couple more times. However, as the musicians are paid for their services, he obviously tries to keep the time to a minimum.

Afterwards we had a couple of shopping errands to make and then had lunch out at a great Greek/Lebanese restaurant we discovered a few months back - nothing fancy, but plenty of good food at reasonable prices. Then we headed downtown to see some of the sights decked out for Christmas. We started at the Taft Museum, then went to Fountain Square, kind of the focal point of downtown, where they have a small outdoor skating rink in the winter months. While we were there, I noticed people rapelling down the side of one of the tall buildings. We discovered later that 'Santa' was going to be rapelling down at 6pm, so I guess they were practising! While we were watching the guys coming down the building, there was a large group of guys (plus a couple of girls) all dressed up as Santas walking down the street rather rowdily. I tried snatching a quick blip before traffic got in the way, and that was the one I was hoping to use for blip, as they were quite a sight, but unfortunately it didnt turn out too well - it was too blurred Then we checked out the Christmas displays in some of the downtown hotels, including the Hilton Netherlands Plaza Hotel. My blip is the Carew Tower Arcade, part of the Carew Tower complex which also includes the hotel.
The Carew Tower was designed in an art-deco style by the architectural firm Shreve, Lamb and Harmon Associates, who went on to design the Empire State Building in New York, based in part upon the design of the Carew Tower. Construction began in September 1929, just one month before the stock market crash on October 24 that triggered the Great Depression. Consequently construction continued on a modified plan with the external art deco details (architectural motifs, friezes, and decorative metal) being stopped at the third floor and plain bricks used on the floors above.