Rooftop View of South Seventh Street

Rooftop View of South Seventh Street

Stephen Bybee
Columbia, MO
Summer, 2001

This rooftop view of Columbia’s South Seventh Street encompasses the stretch from Cherry Street to Locust Street.  The rooftop utilized was right outside of Seth Bro’s apartment on Eighth Street, the occasion was a party, the season was summer, and the year was 2001.  Considering that this was taken on black and white film, most likely with my Nikon F3, I must have been using a tripod.  This raises a few questions, but the one I can’t answer is why I was attending downtown rooftop parties in Columbia while carrying around a camera and tripod.  In retrospect, I am glad I did, and I wish there had been more of these rooftop social events.  From here we are looking west towards Seventh Street, with MU’s Locust Street Building on the left, followed by TP’s in the middle, and the building now serving as Columbia College’s Federal Hall on the right.  At the time, Federal Hall was poised to eventually become Columbia’s short-lived Youseum, TP’s was a place I never patronized but I did bake bread for while I worked at Ellis Bakery, and MU’s Locust Street Building most likely served the same purpose that it does now.  Visible in the foreground is Chong’s Asian Market, closed and darkened for the night while the hopeful patrons of TP’s bar mill about cautiously on the sidewalk outside the bar.  I scanned several negatives from this roll of film over the winter, and I am just now bringing them to light.  I can’t remember the reason for the rooftop party, or maybe a rooftop party doesn’t really need a reason to happen…but during the party I took photographs of several different views of downtown Columbia.  I hope to post those in the coming weeks.  For now, enjoy this tiny window onto a summer’s evening 24 years ago in downtown Columbia.