I love this building. It even has stained glass windows. I would live there. Too bad there is nothing left of such a grand building except this photograph.

The Portland ended life as an office building. Its fifteen minutes of fame came in 1922, in a four-alarm fire that started in Senator Kenneth McKellar's apartment. Having sunk into decrepitude over its many years, the place was torn down in 1962.

Once-beautiful Thomas Circle is now surrounded, except for two churches, by hideous office buildings.

Whenever you guys post present day street view scenes, I find it incredibly upsetting. Man oh man does progress suck.

I want to live there.

Looks like a wannabe Flatiron Building complete with cigar store in the point.

Courtesy of Cigar Aficionado:

In his youth, Groucho Marx was too poor to smoke anything but nickel cigars. Only once before he came into big money did he loosen up enough to spend a dime for one. This was the result of an advertisement he had seen for a brand of ten cent pure Havanas called La Preferencias. The ad fascinated him, for it promised the smoker "Thirty glorious minutes in Havana."

Groucho returned it because it only lasted twenty.

Here we see not just mold but evidence of a counterattack -- wash streaks where someone scrubbed the plate with a rag. (Which in my experience works pretty well, but hard to do without losing emulsion.)

Is this tired-looking Residence Inn.