Creating Places: West End buildings

Driving along West End Avenue yesterday during the early evening, I caught a quick glance at the hideous building home to Electronic Express and shuddered. The color scheme, lack of detail, excessively large (and jarringly red) signage and overall lack of quality materials render this building a piece of junk that has no business on the city's most high-profile street. In fact, the EE building might be West End's most foul structure. Another "fine" example of a nasty building on the street is the cheaply built strip center across from Vanderbilt University and home to Office Depot (on a positive note, the Pinkberry signage has nicely enlivened the east side of the building). With this in mind, I am going to soon create a ranking of the five to 10 ugliest buildings — those that most need to be razed and replaced — on West End between 17th Avenue and Interstate 440. I will not include the structures that house fast food eateries as all — save for, perhaps, the new-look McDonald's — are no more attractive than the human excrement that results from the consumption of the poison these places serve.

More to follow.