Prior to the I Heart Faces photo walk, I had only driven through parts of downtown without much regard for the surrounding areas. The parts of downtown that I was familiar with aren’t exactly places you could walk around and take photos randomly at your leisure. And, no, downtown Columbia isn’t riddled with abandoned crack houses, red light districts, or the like—it’s actually pretty decent. There are a few areas with low-income housing near the outskirts of downtown, but even those places seem safe enough to walk through. So, yes, Columbia is safe, and there’s more to this city than meets the eye.

Our group headed down through Main Street, walking past the large skyscrapers with reflecting windows and past the Sheraton. Wait a minute—there’s a nice hotel in this area? I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was as I looked across the street to the hotel in the Palmetto Building. Built in 1913, the Palmetto building was renovated into a luxury downtown hotel at the cost of $20 million. Its architecture reflects a Gothic revival style reminiscent of the buildings in downtown Chicago. Looking up at it, I sorta felt that it didn’t fit in along with the other commercial buildings in the area. Had I been in Chicago, I probably wouldn’t have batted an eye, but in Columbia it looks out of place. However, it’s a beautiful building that deserves its place on Main Street, and I will have to pay another visit to see what the interior looks like.

And, if you hadn’t guessed it, I am partial to old buildings. At least buildings that have character.

The Palmetto Building certainly has it, and it’s definitely piqued my interest. One of the ladies on our photo walk mentioned that it has a rooftop lounge where you can watch the city from above, but I don’t know if I’ll ever have time to actually go up and enjoy it. I can just imagine how chic and sophisticated I’d look sipping a martini while chasing a 22-month old all over the bar. Mmmm…sexy.

I’ll continue my photo walk exploration in another blog post.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 18th, 2010 at 4:40 pm and is filed under Places. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.