President Obama has been to 12 Bones Smokehouse in Asheville twice. I'll show you the surroundings.

[Mira]

Here is the google image of him coming out after standing in line for a long time. He chatted with folks and did not accept attempts to treat him and the first lady as VIPs.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSkJOVm7PYIZpZkQogv4VpNRrtmv5x1g67gj53D7y-Fvd8TCZyN
Now here are my photos of what is less than a 5 min walk from the restaurant, and our President never got to see.
Here is the photo I took during Christmas of the deserted place presently on Winter vacation.



Along the walk



Arriving at the first of 2 huge buildings where there is crime and its filled with spots for the homeless and vagrants.
It's not possible to make choices and give you a good idea without posting probably too many shots.



Approaching the first building in its glory, I look at the big door, and try to decide if that lock lets me open it



Sure enough it did. This old lock was a joke.



Once inside, I looked to the right



and then to the left



and up



I visited a side entrance and wondered just HOW folks really can stand it in there



There are large holes in this wall, hard to show



but I was able to get this photo looking into one of them.



The steps at the side of the building don't lead anywhere anymore



But then, who would want to go up there anyway.



So much for the first building
I will show you the other one in the next few days.

[ZombieHorde]

1. Cool pics. nt

[SouthernDonkey]

2. Thanks Mira!

As always....GREAT shots, and a wonderful photo story to go with them.

[alfredo]

3. The colors are excellent. They help highlight the decay.

[handmade34]

4. oh, you did good!

the photos tell the story

[cheapdate]

13. The photos don't quite tell the story.

They don't tell the story of WHY 4 million manufacturing jobs vanished from this part of the country since the 1980s.

[Mira]

14. Just how could the photos answer your heart felt question?

I had the good fortune to ride trains through Southern parts of Germany and Switzerland a few months ago. Next to phenomenal graffiti entertaining us along the train station walls and along the way were smoking factory stacks, trucks laden with manufactured goods, workers busy and not a single window with blown out glass.

Go figure!

[cheapdate]

15. I love the photos, by the way.

Reckless globalization and unconscionable greed has gutted and destroyed thousands of once thriving communities all across the South -- and across the country, I'm sure.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

5. Love urban exploring

I just got a good quality camera out of the blue, so hopefully I can get back into it.

[JohnnyRingo]

6. Every color in the rainbow.

I like you recent focus on street art and urban culture.

Besides the fact that I eat up grafitti with a spoon, your images add fantastic overall appeal and perspective.

Thanx for posting.

[Mira]

8. You ought to see my eyes,

when I come upon a place like that.
I'm always the only one to go inside, and name calling me by family members is not unusual.

Yesterday, camera around my neck, I stood in a doorway and started to retch. There are no photos of that one.
America has places that, albeit beautiful, are places that make me shameful and unable to believe how we cannot all double down on helping each other and opening our eyes and hearts.

[liberal N proud]

7. You gotta go where the good food is

Many times the neighborhood isn't first class, but the food is.

Great color in those pics.

[littlemissmartypants]

9. Thank you. n/t

[Rozlee]

10. Clinton did something similar when he visited Grady's BBQ in San Antonio.

Grady's is a chain and this one was located near Ft. Sam, but it was still close to an area near the old tracks that had a lot of abandoned, dilapidated buildings that the less than benign local urban artists had decorated enthusiastically. The downtown southwest of San Antonio was a lot like that in the areas surrounding the Alamodome for quite a while, and now, gentrification is starting to creep in and bulldozing a lot of it down. It's a shame too, because many people still call a lot of those places home and the only places they can afford.

[Mira]

11. Very very dangerous though.

Watch for my next (and last for now) thread on this very subject, your comments will be addresses in it. I'll be posting it today.

[azurnoir]

12. Thank you and the photo's are superb

but I can not say lovely, it is sad to say the least the disrepair and blight that is over taking area's of our country, what is ever sadder is that for some this home, everyday reality

[toby jo]

16. Artists breathe life wherever they go

[Bucky]

17. My God. Why on earth would President Obama vandalize those old factories?!

Are you sure you weren't thinking of President Bush? I can see him tagging up of an abandoned building. On the other hand, on closer inspection I see all the profanities were spelled correctly, so I guess that rules him out.

[Solly Mack]

18. k/r