a newspaper man adjusts his pen

Thursday, April 30, 2009

An historic courthouse, exposed

The 1916 Neoclassical Palm Beach Courthouse was revealed in its full glory in March 2008 after an unusual wrap-around building came down in an $18 million restoration project.

The Florida county commissioners must have been dropping LSD in the late 1960s when they decided to hide this building with that ugly addition.

A different board of commissions in 2002 had no idea how much of this gem still existed when it had the foresight to approve money for this chip-away work, the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Preservation magazine reports in its May/June issue. The work involved salvaging the original columns that had been relocated to a cemetery.

The building now is used for some county offices, as well as a history museum.

While the quality of this video of the demolition is poor, it's pretty cool, nonetheless.

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