I'm so happy that it's not going to be torn down. There was talk of razing it when I lived in Hampton Roads.

How ever did they do routine maintenance on those huge suspended street lights over intersections. Before the advent of JLG articulating boom lifts and DOT rigs outfitted with boom baskets that is.

[By lowering them. - Dave]

Like a lot of YMCA buildings, this one was built to last. It became the Union Mission a little over 30 years ago, and now is being redeveloped into apartments. It even has Facebook page.

I thought the window washer on the right was wearing a ballerina costume!

Ah yes! I went right for "Y.M.C.A.", forgot that other song entirely. Too clever by half!

If those walls could talk!!!

There are TWO songs?

I read your caption, Dave, I was humming that song. HA! We're like Pavlov's dogs. Extremely well trained.

[Both songs? - Dave]

Most major cities at the turn of the century had a system of police call boxes. Norfolk apparently was no exception. The boxes contained a telephone to the local police station along with a telegraph mechanism which could be "pulled," sending the box number to the station by way of punches on a paper tape. Beat officers had to make an hourly "pull"; the number on the tape would show that they were pulling from the correct box and thus on their beat.

Detroit, like most cities, eliminated the call box system between 1960 and 1980 as portable radios took their place. I kept my old call box key as a good luck piece. The boxes were manufactured by the Gamewell Corporation, and the locks throughout the US were standard. This key could have opened that box.