It’s one of those rarer winter days in Asheville where snow actually collects on the ground. I’m just off Riverside Drive, under the tall and howling Bowen bridge, peering into a dilapidated building with a huge brickwork chimney. Technically, I’m trespassing, but the gate was swinging open in the wind, so…
The building was part of a prewar cotton mill, though now it looks like it’s been shelled. The hole I’m gazing into was created by a corner that collapsed into a mound of bricks. Relics like these are my favorite buildings in Asheville, and there are a lot of them. From outside (I’m not going in there) I can see brave graffiti, stressed girders, tangled vines and a monstrous furnace at the base of the chimney. It broods there in the dark and cold. Like Ted Hughes’ “Tractor,” it hurts to look at. Yet it’s hard to turn away from this frigid hulk that wears the costs of time so honestly on its face.
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