AWESOME: Gainesville North Main St. & 4th Ave

AWESOME: Main Street in Gainesville FL is undergoing a "road diet" - a process that makes terrible roads into Complete Streets. A photo of the improved roadway shows two lanes instead of four, a center shared turn lane, bike and parking lanes. This process started on North Main, and will, over the next year, continue South to Depot Ave - all the way through Downtown to the soon to be built Cade Museum.

So, why choose this particular corner for some AWESOME? Well - its simple really - this corner features one of the Downtown area's simplest and most elegant mid-century buildings: Rip's Cleaners. Its a simple arrangement of angles, post and bean construction, and plate glass. Classic late 50s roadside drive thru design and a nifty angular steel sign combine to make a corner that many wouldn't ever notice, but there it is.

And what else makes this corner rock? Well, the NW corner features the Williams-Thomas funeral home. Nothing special there... and yet....

..... look at THAT! Some history minded business person decided to honor the horse drawn past of their trade, and built this little glass box to house the old hearse. How cool is that? A late 19th c. horse drawn wagon and a late 1950s dry cleaners building on the same corner... on a road that was just given a 2010 road diet makeover. That, my friends, is an intersection of eras that makes cities great places.