Ma said when she was a girl the place had red carpets and a polar bear that stood by the front desk. She said her daddy would take her there on her birthday. They would dine in the fancy restaurant on Lobster Newberg and feel like a couple of swells.
No more. It was a ruin now. Broken gutters, black mold. Windblown garbage caught between the spikes of the rusty iron fence that surrounded the hulking ruin straddling the bluff, its armless marble angels on parapets staring down into the city with soot-streaked faces like the ghosts of murdered prostitutes.
Loving the contrast
“ghosts of murdered prostitutes.” Great line.
I agree.
The image of the polar bear is quite startling. And it does a great job at emphasizing the grandeur…
i’m with you on that one, had to read it a couple of times to realise it didn’t mean a REAL polar bear…
How are the mighty fallen!
I too like the line “like the ghosts of murdered prostitutes.” Nicely done.
Brilliantly descriptive, especially that last line.
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Like the echo of so many great houses throughout our land, now empty and derelict.
Lovely phrasing to invokes the past.
Brilliant! Love both the constructing descriptions.
Great take on the prompt. The prostitute line was the icing.
– Lisa
Straight forward language