Hotel Blackhawk, Davenport, Iowa
Once the boast of a bustling downtown that had arrived, hotels like the Blackhawk are a key source of energy, prestige, and cultural capital for a downtown coming back.
Quad Cities
Municipal Stadium, Davenport, Iowa
Davenport, Iowa is home to one of the prettiest ballparks in the country, the Quad Cities River Bandits’ Modern Woodmen Park wedged between a rail line and the Mississippi River with a bridge looming over right field. Not that you’d necessarily know it from this postcard.
Second Avenue, Rock Island, Illinois
A once-stately hotel demolished and replaced by a steel-and-glass office building, an Italianate survivor still chugging along nearly 150 years later after a recent rehab, and between them a 1970s pedestrian mall intended to revitalize downtown Rock Island as commerce moved to the suburbs.
Government Bridge between Davenport, Iowa and Rock Island, Illinois
The spiritual heir to the first railroad bridge to cross the Mississippi River, this is actually the fourth bridge connecting Davenport to Rock Island’s Arsenal Island.
First National Bank, Rock Island, Illinois
This sucks–the last thing Rock Island needs is more parking lots. The Modern Woodmen of America demolished this handsome International style office building in 2020. Designed by Stuhr, Parkhurst & Appier and completed in 1963, it was one of only two examples of the style in Rock Island.