Building On the Mall

When I look out my office window onto the mall, I have this lovely view of the fountain at the Central Place and for the most part, life is fairly routine. Every day the Tibetans set up their stalls and the jewelery lady (who, for some reason, always seems to wear black and pink) puts out her items. Then there’s “Harmonica Man” (that what I call the street person who sits on an upside down plastic can and plays the harmonica). He’s been around for years but about 4 years ago, he got himself a harmonica and began blowing on it. In the beginning he didn’t really know any tunes, but over these years he’s learned a few, which he plays over – and over – and over – all outside my window so that I have to listen to his repetitive repertory for hours a day. My clients don’t seem to mind it too much since it is rather a novelty to them. But it can get very tiresome and not even my background music can drown it out. Sometimes “Flute Man” is within earshot. He picked up his flute at the local hock shop and like harmonica man, began without a song, just flute noise. But I haven’t seen him recently and I think the winter might have been too cold for him.

So, all the while, there has been a bit of unwelcome noise outside my window but over the years, I have learned to tune it out. Until now…

For many years ‘they’ have threatened to build where the Boxer Learning Building is, across the pedestrian road from my office (see the kid’s face on the building with the book above? That’s Boxer Learning.) I’ve heard various proposals come and go, but they had all been squanched by city hall. Then a couple of years ago, there were rumors that a 9 story boutique hotel was going to be built on top of the existing facade. All the local mall businesses were excited by the prospect of more tourist trade, but for me, it struck dread in my heart… let me explain the dynamics.

The courtyard outside my office, where the restaurants put their tables in the summer and serve lunch/dinner, is like an enormous amphitheatre. Sounds come into the courtyard and bounce off the buildings making the noise so much louder. For example, if harmonica man is outside my window facing away from the courtyard, even though he is much closer in proximity, I don’t hear him nearly as much as when he is facing into the courtyard even though he is across the road. Acoustics are everything!

So as I said, for years they have been mulling over various possibilities for that site, then an article came out in our local paper that said groundbraking would begin in October ’07. Great, I thought, with the building facing the courtyard, the construction noise will be amplified and pretty much put me out of business… Who is going to want to lie on a massage table table, trying to destress with crashing and banging going on outside? I know I will be ultra-sensitive to the noise, worrying about my clients being disturbed. But what to do? I don’t want to give up my office. I love my location and my adopted mall family.

Well, I guess I’ll try and ride it out and see just how much noise will be generated by the construction. I’m sure some days will be worse than others and if it gets absolutely impossible, I can always move my practice home for a few months until the worst is over. Or maybe I’ll make a clean break of it all and find another office. Who knows.

I thought I would chronicle the work from my window, to see the various stages of construction. It could be like a tribute to the ever chagning face of the mall. Ah, progress.

This photo is the start, taken at the end of Feb ’08. They are putting the construction fence around the site, I guess to stop dust and debris from coming out and to save poor passers-by from being clobbered by something from the building.

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The boards are in place and things can begin. The poor vendors have been shifted forward and one of the street people who regularly sat in the door of that building has had to begin begging from by the fountain. So many of the street beggars pretend that they were in the War and that’s how they lost a limb, where as I’m pretty sure they lost it instead to diabetes. I saw one guy in a wheel chair, whipping over to his spot, rummaging around in his backpack, putting out his begging can, then he took out a sling and put over his arm – I believe for effect because it didn’t look like his arm hurt at all with the gusto in which he was wheeling around in his chair… Now, I don’t know for sure, I’m just reporting what I see. Hey, whatever it takes to make a buck, I guess. Someone once told me a street person can make as much as $300 a week. Can that be true? It sounds incredible, but Charlottesvilians are very generous.

Anyway, this begins it. I’ll bring my camera to the office and see if anything exciting happens.