sad, but inspiring?

I just love my neighborhood, and at two different times (and currently) I have lived within walking distance of Terilli's, Blue Goose, Hurricane's, The Dubliner, etc. Until this past year, I have frequented Cafe Brazil and The Dubliner more often than those across the street.

But since joining a kickball team, Hurricane's has become our hangout. And so, when our team won the championship (yep, there are playoffs for adult kickball), we all signed one of the guy's lucky cleats and hung them from the rafters.

When a fire started early Tuesday morning, it quickly burned through the strip of restaurants and bars. It's just so sad to see these older buildings crumbling, but the owners are already talking about rebuilding. It seems some in the neighborhood would love to see the buildings bulldozed and replaced with bright, shiny new buildings--which is exactly how the bank across the street came to be. But I would love nothing more than to see them at least salvage the store fronts and keep some of the character in my neighborhood.

I went to capture some pictures yesterday and you'll never believe what I found...our lucky shoe survived the fire and was perched on a table outside of Hurricane's!