Click to enlarge. Photo for thegazz.com by Mark Wolfe

Rob Cleland is in the home stretch now, creating the mural on this East End building as described in posts below. Familiar figures are starting to appear (is that Hunter S. Thompson at the top row, middle?).

~ guest post by Mark Wolfe

Click to enlarge. Photo for thegazz.com by Walker DeVille

This, now, was quite a sight: protesters lining the length of the South Side Bridge, anticipating the arrival and departure of President Bush from the South Hills, whence he came on a Republican mission of mercy. The most dramatic sign was the big, simple, long one you can see (click the photo to enlarge it): QUAGMIRE. Needless to say, some of the massive amount of muscle and meat on hand did not look kindly on the bridge people. “Do you know when the protesters will be allowed onto the bridge,” I inquired before the event of one of the city of Charleston’s men in blue. “Hopefully never,” he said with a smirk.

Photos for thegazz.com by Walker DeVille

Whatever ones feels about the current occupant of that big white house on Pennsylvania, Charleston Mayor Danny Jones deserves — how do you say? — props for standing up and not standing down to the Secret Service and the current administration and the kabosh it puts on shielding the president from contrary views. Which is to say, allowing protesters to line the South Side Bridge as the presidential motorcade headed up to a private campaign function yesterday in the South Hills for a Congresslady whose name shall not be named because… well, hasn’t she gotten enough free publicity anyway? One hopes the mayor succeeds in having her campaign reimburse the city for manpower and resources required to shadow the parade of vehicles, many bearing beefy, hard men in SWAT outfits, that tied up rush-hour traffic as the leader of the Free World made a campaign stop.

Click to enlarge. Photo for thegazz.com by Walker DeVille

This may be a view of the Commander-in-Chief in that vehicle. There were 4 or 5 of these black vans bearing flags — this one bore a Presidential flag as it skedaddled out of town at the end of the President’s South Hills visit. Were there that many black vehicles to play a shell game if some mad fellow was planning a hit? Was the President, in fact, hunkered down in the back seat of one of the initial state troopers who barreled merrily down the Boulevard? It was better than television.

Click to enlarge. Photos for thegazz.com by Mark Wolfe

Our nation’s leader was in town yesterday so I decided to check out the goings on at the bridge. Patriots for Peace, assorted protestors and the curious were there to greet him. It was hot on that bridge, but we braved that, boredom and secret service to get a peep at President Bush. Not sure if he was actually on the bridge after the event, but the motorcade was very impressive and the crowd was lively.

By Mark Wolfe

Photos for thegazz.com by Mark Wolfe

Charleston photographer and graphic designer Mark Wolfe (half of the dynamic duo who provided the recent DowntownWV feature “It’s All in the Details”) steps up to the shutter again with this series of three sculpted heads. Where can these folks be found? Says Wolfe: “They are all in a row over the arches of the entrance to the governor’s office in the executive building.”

Click to enlarge. Photo for thegazz.com by Walker DeVille

Intersections are generally unlovely spaces. Yet they are also grand central switching stations for the many directions we are headed. Plus, I love all the different vectors pointing in so many directions (left, right, diagonally, up and down) in this photo of the intersection near the BB&T building at Summers and Lee streets.

Photo for thegazz.com by Walker DeVille. Click to enlarge

Whither the downtown library? First, there’s a $40 million proposal to site an expanded, dramatic new library on east end of the block bordered by Quarrier, Leon Sullivan Drive and Lee Streets (with possible destructive consequences for the Quarrier Diner). Then, new proposals started popping up like morning lawn mushrooms: maybe near the Civic Center instead? A West End locale that would revivify the area? While city fathers, city mothers and city teenagers hash it out, one longs to escape into the seeming jungle of zebra grass that engulfs the current, actual library downtown.

Photo by Amy Williams for thegazz.com

Local artist, Raymond McNamara looks on as Rob Cleland dabs away at this latest addition to the 20-by-30-foor East End mural that is a community development project of the East End Main Street Program’s Design Committee. See posts below for more details on the project, which is being documented in guest photos to this blog by Amy Williams and Mark Wolfe.

Click to enlarge. Photo for thegazz.com by Walker DeVille

In DowntownWV’s ongoing ‘Cars of Charleston’ series (well, this is the second one — here’s the first), we have again spotted a car parked downtown which, if only the keys had been left in it while idling, we might have been tempted to abscond with. This is an old MG, right? We would look good in it as we exited stage right for NYC for dinner at Aquavit, or perhaps stage north, for the Toronto Film Fest. Or maybe we shall just tool over to Gratzi’s at Town Center Mall for their fabuloso Salmone Incrostate con Pistachio.