Click to enlarge. Photo by Walker DeVille

Speaking of classy, as we were doing in the post below, you don’t get much classier than the bar at Bridge Road Bistro in the South Hills of Charleston (a place featured in the WineBoy 6 webcast). Commodious, cushy and relaxing — especially after two Cabernets — it’s a fine place to wind down your week and ramp up for the weekend. P.S. — Click large the thumbnailed 2nd shot and look for the painting of Bridge Road Bistro founder Robert Wong on the wall at left.

Click to enlarge. Photo by Walker DeVille

The back entrance of the Kanawha County Courthouse (facing Kanawha Boulevard) features one of those classy bits that the master stone and marble masons who built so much great old American architecture tossed off eveywhere. The curved portico is for a back door but there’s no less attention to artful detail. Compare to the banalities of pre-fab and tossed-off contemporary work elsewhere around town and lament lost arts. The model is an unpaid volunteer, who happened to be sitting there.

Click to enlarge. Photo by Walker DeVille

If you are feeling like you need something to do Sunday night, any Sunday night, head to Café Paris at the corner of Capitol and Quarrier streets. Marshall Petty and an army of horn, guitar, bass and keyboard players rock the joint with jazz and blues, that’s alternately smooth and hot. Also, the jammed space displays one of Charleston’s signal features: the easy camaraderie of black and white audience members  in a roomful of good music.

Click to enlarge. Photo by Walker DeVille

The anal retentive geometrics of these two buildings in downtown Charleston are commented upon — reflection-wise — by the more ornate (and, to my eye, more satisfying and nourishing) Union Building seen in reflection.

Click to enlarge. Photo by Walker DeVille

I always forget the name of this building at the corner of Virginia and Capitol streets, but it is one of Charleston’s most entertaining. It’s like what the ornate cake might look like at the wedding of a coal baron’s daughter. Long and narrow, and crowded onto a corner lot, the best way to appreciate the structure is a rubber-necking view straight up the facade. If a radioactive spider bit me and left me with Spidey powers, this is the first building I’d climb then s-w-i-n-g from. P.S. — Click the photo larger for the full effect

Click to enlarge. Photo by Walker DeVille

First Presbyterian Church is my idea of a community-church — friendly to all and they make the space open to community groups that are not card-carrying Presbos, like the Buddhist-oriented Meditation Circle of Charleston. The interior of the church also serves up some of the most striking, soaring views this side of the Atlantic and the cathedrals over on the other side (as seen here and here from past posts). So, I say this with all due respect and affection but… don’t the roof and cupola repairs going on right now make the dome look a little, eensy bit like… um, Pinhead?

Click to enlarge. Photo by Walker DeVille

Bicyclists pony up along the sidewalk in front of IntaJuice on Summers Street for, say, a green tea smoothie with wheatgrass shot, as Laidley Tower rises like the Monolith from “2001: A Space Odyssey” on the horizon.(P.S.– Have patience with the load time on the “Odyssey” link and you’ll be rewarded)

Click to enlarge. Photo by Walker DeVille

Firefighters spend far more time polishing their firetrucks than actually driving them. So it must be a thrill to finally get to go tearing through the streets — in this case, turning onto Summers Street off Virginia — in the shiniest red thing around.

Click to enlarge. Photo by Walker DeVille

Here is one of the funkiest urban gardens in downtown Charleston (admittedly, the competition is not extensive). You can see this gang of spider plants and a few other species during the monthly ArtWalk gallery tours in downtown Charleston. This scene presents itself while walking out the back door of the Good News Garage exhibition space and over to Mark Tobin Moore’s Blue Door Art Studio at 223 (Rear) Hale Street. I’ll bet you didn’t even know there was a rear Hale Street.

NOTE: The next ArtWalk takes place this Thursday (Sept. 20) from 5 to 8 p.m. See the ArtWalk website and gazz section this Thursday for more details.

Click to enlarge. Photo by Walker DeVille

I swear, if you stand at this exact spot, look up at this exact angle and edit out all else from your line-of-sight, for a fraction of a second you could imagine you were gazing at an apartment tower along Central Park West in NYC, and that on the corner you could grab a pomegranite granita from that street vendor on your way to an evening showing of “Mama Mia!” Then, the spell is broken, the building morphs back into the Kanawha Trust and you head for lunch at Subway’s.