non-parking garage

 

With its 1965 decorative facade removed, the bare bones parking garage awaits renovation with its new life as the parking garage for the Citizens Tower municipal employees.  The garage's accompanying structure was built in 1965 as the Citizens National Bank and then refitted as the Omni. The structure languished in a dying downtown and its marble panels started falling to their death on the brick streets.  The rebirth is a difficult process.

 

Citizens Tower Parking Garage

14th and Avenue K

Lubbock, Texas

black/white: 201

 

The parking garage lent itself to black-and-white photography.  After shooting from the alley and the outside, I wondered what the interior could offer.  Since the garage was deserted on a Sunday afternoon, I climbed the ramp to the second level with some trepidation thinking about hoodlums and the homeless.  I liked the sun and shadows contrast of the bars in the west corner.  As I turned to leave, there parked in the east corner was one of Lubbock's finest in his black-and-white vehicle.  As I cheerfully waved, I thought "gotcha!"  I don't know if he were hiding out, taking a break or doing paperwork-- maybe it was surveillance for trespassing photographers!

 

Wells Fargo Parking Garage

1500 Broadway

Lubbock, Texas

parking garage

 

Opened in 1949, Hemphill-Wells was the premiere shopping destination in Lubbock and the South Plains.  Long-timers will have their own stories of the department store.  As a child I remember Saturdays with my grandmother.  We would take a taxi downtown, I would fidget while she got her hair done at the Merle Norman Studio and then we would walk around the corner to have lunch in the Tea Room on the mezzanine of Hemphill-Wells.  My great-aunt Almedea was the "hat lady" in the hat department.  At Christmas cars would line the block for a view of the decorated scenes in the windows.  The department store is no more but the parking garage is vacant and still bears the sign. The Department Store Museum is a neat blog with more history of Hemphill-Wells.