I’ll always think of him as Charlie Trasher, and I’ll never eat at his restaurant – even contemplating it gives me the trots.
It’s easy to see the classic federal-style facades that Charlie Trotter mutilated by bolting on … what? What is that incoherent jumble jutting off his buildings, vaulting the sidewalk and mocking the concept of public space?
Charlie Trotter’s, 816 W. Armitage is not, technically, an ugly building. It’s an ugly façade that set an even uglier precedent, launching Armitage Avenue on an irreversible aesthetic slide. Irreversible? Not if Trotter were to plow some of his financial success back into undoing this hyper-aggressive insult to his landmark community.
If you work in an ugly building anywhere in Chicagoland, and you’ve got the ugly building blues, send us a photo. If it’s one of the ugliest we see in the next week, we’ll post it here. That ought to help chase away the ugly building blues.