the end of Land's End

image found via Google

"Land's End," the once majestic property that is the alleged inspiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald's East Egg home of Tom & Daisy Buchanan in his literary masterpiece The Great Gatsby, and the real life host of artistocrats, politicians and wanna-bes, has declined into irreversible decay...  so much so, it's slated for demolition sometime this month.

I wish I could find some images to show here... This morning's Today show had a feature that showed the property in its breathtaking & glorious heyday, and then, too, in its current state of delapidated disrepair.  So sad... but I think not for "what might have been" and instead for "what is no more."  Land's End symbolized the artistry, glamour, indulgence and flambouyant lifestyle at the peak of the American Dream's turning point.  It's finest hour.  

I always get melancholy when I see or learn of a beautiful property falling to the wayside.  I imagine the spirit in which it was originally created, the dream that drove it from a vision to a reality...  the era of its height of success and then the circumstances that brought it all to an end.  So sad...  I appreciate architecture, especially old architecture - back before technology and science made creating a building a function rather than an art.  Back in the day of Thomas Jefferson creating Monticello...  back in the day of Tiffany's on 5th - a place I decided to see in person so I could experience that magnificence first hand, never mind there is a Tiffany's right here in Atlanta.  Back in the day of the gates to Paramount Studios, the White House, Margaret Mitchell's The Dump, the Hamptons' Grey Gardens...  Back when architecture was spurred by beautiful inspiration with intricate design instead of strategy, philosophy, placement. 

~sigh~
 
And the history soon to be lost... the missed opportunities to no longer be able to stand where someone great once stood...  walking the Mall in DC and imagining our founding fathers walking these same grounds... Standing in a parking lot outside of Turner Field and realizing there is a base beneath your feet...  a base?  Yes, a base.  What is this?  OMGosh, it's home plate...  and you look up and it dawns on you, you're in the old stadium - the stadium they tore done when the new one was built.  And there is a marker on the ground here, but, you know what?  When the lot is full on a game day, this marker is hidden under someone's carriage.  So for now you stand there at home plate & take a mock swing and you remember Hank Aaron stood here.  RIGHT HERE.  On this spot.  And he hit a home run.

And now it's a marker on the ground that you don't even see unless you happen to notice it on an ordinary day while walk thru a parking lot in Atlanta.

THAT's why I get melancholy.  For what is no more.  And what is soon to be forgotten.  For, when Land's End is knocked to the ground sometime this month, who will remember it was even there 10years from now?  Who will carry on it's legacy and tell its wonderous tales?

So sad.