What’s left of the Conrad Bank building began yielding to the wrecking ball this morning. Most recently the home of B&B Loan and Rental, the building was gutted two years ago by a fire that destroyed the interior but allowed the hideous Sixties-era facade to come down, revealing some beautiful architectural flourishes and a brief glimpse into an era of wonderful buildings now long gone. In my hometown of Helena, an unbelievable wealth of architectural jewels has been lost to earthquakes, fires (accidental and otherwise) and the early-70s whim of fashion with the Orwellian name of Urban Renewal.

In Rome you can see arched colonnades built in the time of Christ. Ours have considerably shorter lifespans:

The Conrad Building was too far gone; without a deep-pocketed benefactor interested in preserving it, there was simply no way to keep it standing. Which is a pity, because you couldn’t build it for money today. And who in his financially-right mind would want to, when it’s so much cheaper to drop a steel box on an empty lot and tart it up with fake brick and neon? Like a lot of things in Montana, these beauties are getting rarer all the time. It’s worth appreciating the ones we still have, and passing them on to the next generation if we can. And I suppose if they have to go, I’d rather they didn’t fall in the name of some developer’s hare-brained scheme to earn a percentage.

I’d rather see them go in a blaze of glory.