Views out my window

 March 10: Daylight Savings Time (spring ahead)

Beginning of orchid blooms, Jan 16. Christmas lights still up!

Robin, Feb 26

March 3 - 19 Blooms on orchid, lavender with new growth, and windows open for the first time to 60 degrees!

Having Easter at the end of this month and finding my neighborhood is actually slower to bloom this year than last year (as opposed to many other bloggers) I'm just coming out of my own slumbers.

Today's quote:

In the middle of every difficulty lies an opportunity.

MATEO ASKARIPOUR Last year's post on March 10, My Lakeside Dining Room

Chasing history

 Houses on Vance Ave. that might have been pictured recently in my post featuring a 1915 postcard...HERE.

The other day I wanted to check out the newest coffee shop, "Recess." It had just opened, but I also heard their baked goods had sold out quickly. This was around 3 pm, so I didn't really want/need coffee. 

It's on the left-hand side of this building on Black Mountain Ave.

While on the right end is a meat place. On the other side of the parking lot is Louise's Kitchen which serves breakfast and lunch (and often has a line waiting).

But let's look from the view the post card had...sort of. It's now an auto repair place, instead of a good old hotel which burned down many years ago...new building completely.

The railroad tracks haven't changed, and what I thought was a berm along the far side is really just how the railroad cut into the mountain, which shows in the land below the tracks on Vance.

And here's the post card so you can actually compare perhaps the buildings in 1915 to those in 2024.

So I drove slowly west on Vance, taking photos of the older houses.

On the north/uphill side of Vance St...one of the first old houses.

This one is on the south side of the street, and connected to next door...

This church which is pretty new.

Back looking north, up the hill, I noticed several of these older houses have been cut up into apartments.

These were the only pair of the hip-roofed cottages, which would possibly have been around that long ago. (south side of street)

My last shot of a house on the uphill side of Vance Ave. 

I'm not convinced any are the same buildings. Maybe the register of deeds...but I'm not interested in that deep a search. I want to be making little pottery dragons, remember?

Sharing again with Sepia Saturday. This is where those old photos often take us, to see what's there now!

Today's quote:

The grandeur of human actions is measured by the inspiration from which they spring. Happy is he who bears a god within, and who obeys it.—Louis Pasteur

Today March 9: 

National Barbie Day, 

Get Over It Day

Two years ago, March 11, my blog was sharing some spring beauties before a snow was due to fall.

Two sets of buildings next to each other

 March 8: International Women's Day

From the Monte Vista Hotel, you see these two sedate buildings, with similar finishes.

But go around the other side of them, and there are interesting fences and siding on balconies, with windows looking west toward the view down the hill.

The next building down that hill (on West State St. in Black Mountain NC) is now a boutique hotel called Peri. It used to be an event location, with pretty red brick walls, called the White Rabbit. But it was empty for years, and the new owners painted everything black! 

There were many construction crew members who did the work on both these sets of buildings, and I don't think they are finished in Peri yet.

The building was for sale for quite a long while, here seen in its former colors.

Today's quote:

Gratitude situates one well to know what can be and must be done to challenge inequity. It situates one to see opportunity where others see despair.

LUCAS JOHNSON

Last year my blog shared about Women in History...also on my other blog When I Was 69...31 different women featured throughout the month of March.

Breakfast at the Biscuit Company

March 7 is Cereal Day, Flapjack Day

I like those light fixtures over my shoulder

I ordered my breakfast, got my coffee, and enjoyed looking out the window while my breakfast was being prepared quickly.

This was a day I had had an early morning appointment. I was glad to have someone prepare all this food for me, and I ate almost all of it!

Today's quote:

When we live fully in the moment, there is an aliveness that comes easily.

Last year I shared my efforts to do Feldenkrais on this date...a slow motion movement to help our muscles, nerves and bones avoid osteoporosis.

Hodge Podge

 March 6: National Dentist's Day

A year ago I blogged about quitting my volunteer position (earlier than I would have liked) without any appreciation. Yes I had made mistakes. And all my proof readers weren't available either! So it was an issue on all of us. Anyway, here's that link Saying Goodbye to Volunteer Position.

Our Monte Vista Hotel

 In honor of National Retro Day, let's take a step back in time. (I never heard of that day...Feb 27!)

Built in 1937, the Monte Vista Hotel is a three-story Colonial Revival-style hotel located at 308 West State Street to the west of the commercial district in Black Mountain, North Carolina. With the completion of a railroad connection in the late-nineteenth century, the Black Mountain area became a popular gateway for tourists to visit Mount Mitchell and the surrounding mountains. Lucien and Rosalie Phillips opened the Monte Vista Hotel in 1919 in a former school building and built a fifteen-room annex in 1926. The Phillips's borrowed $70,000 during the height of the Depression to construct the modern brick building, which was designed by architect S. Grant Alexander and built by Connally Dougherty. The Monte Vista Hotel, which has operated continuously since 1919, meets National Register Criterion A in the area of Entertainment/Recreation as one of the largest and most successful hotels in Black Mountain. A six-room addition to the hotel built ca. 1940, soon after the main building was completed, and an attached sixteen-room annex built in 1980 are located to the rear of the main building. The period of significance for the hotel, which remains in operation, extends from the construction of the main building in 1926 to 1957.

Today The Monte Vista Hotel still functions as a hotel with full bar and restaurant, as well as venue space for weddings and gatherings. Our guests enjoy the step back in time to a simpler life with no telephones or televisions in our historic rooms but the modern convenience of AC.

Today's quote:

A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist. -Louis Nizer, lawyer (1902-1994)

My question: Why would you ask a lawyer to tell you what an artist is?

And we mustn't forget the celebration of the day (thanks to Frog and Penguinn)

National Cheese Doodle Day

and here in North Carolina, it's primary election day.

Linking to Tom's Tuesday Treasures.

Day off

 Doing what needs doing today. Reading your blogs, but nothing new here in Black Mountain.

Come over to When I Was 69 for a post from me about climate change.

The BMCA Clay Studio

 

Don't strain your eyes, here's a bigger version below:

I didn't write it. That dangling last sentence isn't my fault.

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Clay Club of Western North Carolina met in 2013 at our studio (that's John Britt talking, whose instrumental in Clay Club, but not a BMCA studio member.) 

I'll show more historic photos of the insides of the clay studio over on "Alchemy of Clay" blog HERE.

Today's quote:

“To me, poetry is somebody standing up, so to speak, and saying, with as little concealment as possible, what it is for him or her to be on earth at this moment.” 

By contemporary poet Galway Kinnell, He spent many years studying abroad through the 1960s before returning to the U.S. to join the Congress for Racial Equity, helping to register black voters in the segregated South.

Today is 

World Wildlife Day, 

National Anthem Day, 

National Mulled Wine Day, 

thanks to fellow blogistas Frog and Penguinn

There's more to the basement...

 ... in a hallway which is the back door entrance to the Black Mountain Center for the Arts. Newer signs give some of the history of the building. I enter the building from the parking lot or the clay studio, which is around the corner from this main building. Up one flight of stairs is the office and theatre.

But these photos continue the story of the history of this building, which I began in my blog post here.

On the second story, BMCA has a nice gallery space for showing a variety of exhibits through the year. But it used to be the Black Mountain Library!

The other room on the second story is now used primarily for dance classes, with one mirrored wall.

I'm going to slip something else in here, since that's such a great photo of the fire station when in use.

Here's the Swannanoa Museum in the same space today. 

This fire station now museum is situated to the left of the Center for the Arts (as you look at them from State St.)

And the front entrance of Black Mountain Center for the Arts is on State St. Here's how it looked when it was the City Hall, which is still the carved in marble title above the door.

A 1954 view of both buildings

PS, The Clay Studio also has a history...more on that later!!

Sharing with Sepia Saturday this week. Buildings are the places where people work, live, eat, enjoy entertainment, create, etc etc...

Today's quote:

Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. No, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I want somebody to hire his experience? -Thomas J. Watson, Chairman and CEO of IBM (1874-1956)
And we mustn't forget the celebration of the day (thanks to Frog and Penguinn) March 2 is,..Dr. Seuss's Birthday, National Read Across America Day, Old Stuff Day, World Teen Mental Wellness Day

March month begins

And in honor of those who would appreciate the wish of good luck at the beginning of a month, Rabbit Rabbit...

Whisper in the Wind (circa 2018) by British textile artist Fiona Gill

One of my favorite spring gardens...

Early Days yet.

If your house is tucked on the side of a steep road, why not give it pizzazz of making it bright red!

Today's quote:

Mark Twain: “All ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources.” 

Some of my favorite art at Alchemy of Clay.