Asheville Urban Trail I (11/18/2021)

Thursday, November 18, 2021

We meshed historic buildings with the Asheville Urban Trail for our walking tour of the city.

Wortham Performing Arts Center marquee

Wortham Performing Arts Center (est 1992, renovated 2019)

Former Pack Memorial Library (1926, by Edward Tilson in
Italian Renaissance style) is now the library of the Art Museum

Asheville Art Museum (2016-2019)

Urban Trail Station #2: Crossroads: at the spot where the
indigenous people traveled, then drovers herded livestock
over the mountains on Buncombe Turnpike, and later
trains (1880) and trolleys (1889) journeyed

Vance Monument (1897), a 65'/20 m obelisk was removed in 2021 

Arras Building (1964-1965, as the Northwestern
Bank Building, then BB&T Tower, renovated
2016-2017 including a complete change
of the exterior with Art Deco elements)

Ode to Buskers and Asheville Music (2020,
by Chukk Bruursema and Ash Knight)

Urban Trail Station #3: Stepping Out: bronze top hat,
gloves and cane recall the Grand Opera House
and theaters along Patton Street

Urban Trail Station #5: Immortal Image: the Victorian frieze
(1895, by Frederick Miles) includes the face of a local
merchant who stopped by daily to watch the stone carvers

The frieze is on the Drhumor Building (1895, by
Allen L Melton in Romanesque Revival style)

Urban Trail Station #6: Elizabeth Blackwell:
Dr Blackwell was the first woman awarded a
medical degree in the United States at
Geneva Medical College in NY; however,
she began her studies in Asheville under
Dr John Dickson; bower of medicinal herbs
and bench (by Joseph Miller and James Barnhill)

Urban Trail Station #7: Art Deco Masterpiece: S&W Building
(1928, by Douglas Ellington in Art Deco style)

First Presbyterian Church (1884, in Gothic Revival style)

Trinity Episcopal Church (1912,
in Tudor Gothic Revival style)

Central United Methodist Church (1902,
in Romanesque Revival style)

Woolworth Building (1938) is now Woolworth Walk Gallery

Inside the Woolworth Building is a soda fountain built to
resemble the original Woolworth Luncheonette

Flatiron Building (1926, by Albert Wirth
in Beaux-Arts style)

Urban Trail Station #8: Flat Iron Architecture:
Kent stands by another kind of flatiron that
brings attention to the Flatiron Building

Urban Trail Station #9: Cat Walk: feline sculptures (by
Vadim Bora) recall the catwalks that crossed the alley from a
retaining wall to second floor entrances of buildings on
Patton Street below, before Wall Street was filled in and paved

Kent spotted another cat, but apparently
there are a mouse and rat as well?

Urban Station #10: Grove's Vision: a glass
etching depicts the original plan for
Grove Arcade (1926-1927, by Charles N Parker
in Tudoresque style) that was not fully completed

Grove Arcade was commissioned by Dr Edwin W Grove
who was responsible for the Grove Park Inn

Grove Arcade has shops, restaurants, and services after
reopening in 2002 (it had been the National Weather
Records Center from 1951-1995)

Urban Trail Station #11: Historic Hilltop: a bronze
guestbook symbolizes the old and new Battery Park Hotel;
the first hotel (1886, by Edward Hazlehurst) was where
George Vanderbilt would stay with his widowed mother

Edwin W Grove bought the hotel in 1921 and replaced it
with this building (1924, by William Lee Stoddard with a
Mission Revival style roof); it is now a senior residence

Elder & Sage Community Gardens

Urban Trail Station #12: Guastavino's Monument: the
Basilica of St Lawrence (1905, by Raphael Guastavino
in Spanish Renaissance style)

Urban Trail Station #13: Appalachian Stage: bronze figures
(1999, by Gary Aslum) portray musicians, dancers, and a
girl clapping as a tribute to Appalachian music and dance

An Appalachian fiddle is missing its neck

Urban Trail Station #14: Shopping Daze: forged metal
representation of shoppers commemorates the era when
Haywood Street was the center of fashionable retail

A custom window for Zambra, a tapas restaurant

Next: Asheville Urban Trail II.