This is Gene Compton’s Restaurant at Market and Van Ness in San Francisco on 10 August 1964.

I’m back from my own road trip (photos and details to come), and very much intrigued by this forthcoming book about someone else’s road trip 35 years ago.

Random thoughts for a Tuesday morning:

• My heart goes out to those poor upscale hiptsers who signed leases for overpriced apartments in Bed-Stuy only to find that the nightlife in the area didn’t live up to their expectations. Poor things.
• Correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to remember that White Castle locations in the midwest didn’t put ketchup on the burgers. The ones in New York apparently do, much to my recent dismay.
• I’m not sure if I like the new Charlotte Observer website. The layout is OK, I guess. I think what bothers me is the logo. Or the lack of one, as it were. It looks like one of those cybersquatter placeholder sites.

To me, the most interesting (and under-reported) story in the Census Bureau’s recently-released city population estimates for 2007 is the dramatic increase in the inner-city population of Atlanta over the past few years.

Atlanta is landlocked and can’t grow by annexation, and for much of the late twentieth century, its population was actually declining, although the metropolitan area was growing at a pretty spectacular pace. Since 2000, however, the city has added over 100,000 residents — a population increase of nearly 25% in just eight years, from 416,000 to 519,000 residents. This is absolutely amazing, and is almost unheard of for an older urban center surrounded by suburbs, particularly one that had long been viewed by many as somewhat “in decline”.

Even booming Charlotte (which isn’t landlocked and can still annex surrouding territory) can’t boast of quite so large a percentage increase. Is it really a “back to the city” thing? Is it about the much-publicized draw of Atlanta for the black middle class? Is it because Letser Maddox finally died a few years ago, and sane people now feel safe in Georgia? I’m not really sure, but whatever they’re doing down there, they’re apparently doing it extremely well.

I think I’ll let other people do the driving today:

• First, although I enjoy Mark’s writing in general, I really think this is one of his best.
• Second, an interesting new site on Charlotte’s long gone eateries.
• Third, my cool software find of the week.

This was a pretty sad sight I wasn’t really expecting to see today. They’re tearing down the old Pomona Mill in Greensboro. This was less than two miles from the house where I grew up, so it’s a landmark I used to pass pretty much every day, and one that I’ll definitely miss.

By the time I was born, the building was being used as a Western Electric plant. By the time I was in high school, it had been converted into an outlet mall that never quite took off; that closed probably ten to fifteen years ago. The building had pretty much been vacant since then, I believe.

As far as I can tell, there aren’t any plans for the land. It’s in sort of an awkward location which isn’t really appropriate for retail, and the surrounding neighborhood isn’t sufficiently picturesque for it to be converted into lofts for the “faux urban” crowd. I imagine they’re tearing it down because they think the land may sell quicker that way, and they’re probably right.

All the same, I can’t imagine what they might build in its place, and I’m sure going to miss my old mill.