Ghosts of the garrison

It was a lovely day for a bike ride, so I headed for downtown.  It was still a little too chilly in the shadows of the downtown skyscrapers so I pedaled over towards the parking wasteland of South downtown.  I'm always fascinated when I travel through this area at how the bodies of the buildings that once dotted this area are still visible.  Most the buildings were knocked down only to their foundations.

Sometimes a foot or two of wall was left to serve as a type of barrier between the street and lot.

Railroad Yards

One of my favorite images in the Burgert Brothers Collection is this cirkut picture taken of Atlantic Coast Line railroad shop employees grouped in front of and on a locomotive at the Uceta Rail Yards taken in 1929:

I don't know what is the most interesting part of this photo; the process, the fact that the photographers got all or the majority of these people to stand still, the diversity of the workers, or the building looming to the right?  These rail yards are still at the heart of CSXs operations in Tampa and it appears that old shop is still standing.  Take a ride down Adamo between Tampa and Brandon and on the east side of 50th street you drive past a lot filled with trees, punctuated by a signed entranced to CSX.  You would never know that this building and a whole rail yard lie beyond.  However if you drive the elevated crosstown expressway and peer over to the yard you will see this building.

Picture taken 1988