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M
m8rt
Guest
As a non-professional lover of architecture, I have quite few books on Texas buildings and six of those are dedicated to the courthouses.
Courthouses of Texas (1962) - Clark Coursey
There are only 1,000 of these, I have #51
The Texas Courthouse Revisited (1984) - June Rayfield Welch
The Courthouses of Texas (1993) - Kelsey & Dyal
This is the one you need!
Old Friends: Great Texas Courthouses (1999) - Bill Morgan
The Courthouse Square in Texas (2000) - Robert E. Veselka
Historic Texas Courthouses (2006) - Michael Andrews
All my life I've enjoyed getting on top of tall buildings. Back in 1969 I remember B.S.ing my way to the roof of the Hancock Building in Chicago, when it was still under construction. At that time it was the tallest building in the world outside New York City.
My courthouse version of that is getting into the bell tower, clock tower, on the roof, whatever. Secondary to that is getting into the courtroom.
This had made for many unforgettable visits.
I think I'm proudest of crashing the "beehive" on top of the Bexar County Courthouse.
For those of you in Poughkeepsie, that's San Antonio.
That day I walked in with a camera. It wasn't even a very impressive camera, but it did the trick.
I approached some county employee and said, "I'm here to take pictures from the tower."
That phrase would get repeated.
I was taken to an office, "He's here to take pictures from the tower."
Soon I had a security guard with me, my own "muscle".
In a third floor office a series of rungs in the wall disapear into a suspended ceiling. Climbing on top of the row of filing cabinets I assurred all present that I'd be fine and vanished....
Got some great pictures of another nearby favorite, the Tower Life Building.
Sadly, too many of the grand old structures are gone.
You pull into a lot of downtown squares and think, "What the **** was wrong with you people when you put this piece of &^$# up in 1973?"
Courthouses of Texas (1962) - Clark Coursey
There are only 1,000 of these, I have #51
The Texas Courthouse Revisited (1984) - June Rayfield Welch
The Courthouses of Texas (1993) - Kelsey & Dyal
This is the one you need!
Old Friends: Great Texas Courthouses (1999) - Bill Morgan
The Courthouse Square in Texas (2000) - Robert E. Veselka
Historic Texas Courthouses (2006) - Michael Andrews
All my life I've enjoyed getting on top of tall buildings. Back in 1969 I remember B.S.ing my way to the roof of the Hancock Building in Chicago, when it was still under construction. At that time it was the tallest building in the world outside New York City.
My courthouse version of that is getting into the bell tower, clock tower, on the roof, whatever. Secondary to that is getting into the courtroom.
This had made for many unforgettable visits.
I think I'm proudest of crashing the "beehive" on top of the Bexar County Courthouse.
For those of you in Poughkeepsie, that's San Antonio.
That day I walked in with a camera. It wasn't even a very impressive camera, but it did the trick.
I approached some county employee and said, "I'm here to take pictures from the tower."
That phrase would get repeated.
I was taken to an office, "He's here to take pictures from the tower."
Soon I had a security guard with me, my own "muscle".
In a third floor office a series of rungs in the wall disapear into a suspended ceiling. Climbing on top of the row of filing cabinets I assurred all present that I'd be fine and vanished....
Got some great pictures of another nearby favorite, the Tower Life Building.
Sadly, too many of the grand old structures are gone.
You pull into a lot of downtown squares and think, "What the **** was wrong with you people when you put this piece of &^$# up in 1973?"
