Walk downtown Alpine. Start with what you don’t see along several blocks of the oldest part of Alpine along Holland Avenue and Avenue E, Alpine’s main east-west thoroughfares and Murphy Street across the railroad tracks: big box chain stores, acres of pavement, traffic lights, city noise. What you will find are wonderful examples of late 19th and early 20th century architecture (starting with the Holland Hotel, designed by Trost & Trost, and the county courthouse). Along the way you’ll find shops, art galleries, real book stores and record shops, an authentic, operating movie theater, a guitar store with a fully loaded repair bench…and murals.
