Things that make you go . . . well, to Doc Knox

Last month I wondered about what turned out to be a TreeGator. It is an object designed to slowly water trees and Mr. (or Ms.) Anonymous correctly gave us the ID. I can update that report to say that there is still only one TreeGator to water several trees and, alas, not only can the city only afford one, it appears they can no longer afford the water to fill even that one: It has remained deflated throughout our recent mind-numbingly torrid spell.

My attention has turned to another object that I imagine I've passed a few thousand times without noticing it. There are many flourishes on the buildings downtown. It is a compliment to the people who built the buildings that they didn't simply make them functional, they at least attempted to make them aesthetically pleasing, if not beautiful. Still, this particular architectural addition confounds me.

It's an arch. Normally I'm a fan of everything arch-related. I think they are beautiful inside or outside of a building and I love them in nature. This particular arch doesn't seem to rise quite to the level of beauty I've come to anticipate from a nicely done arch. Maybe you've passed it without noticing, as well. Here is a wide shot:

It's at the southeastern corner of Market Square above Reruns. It doesn't really look like the wonderful little additions the architects or builders added to most of the buildings downtown. If anything, it looks like they had some extra bricks and couldn't think of anything else to do with them. Here's a closer look:

Was it added later, perhaps, by someone looking to make the building prettier or somehow more noteworthy? This question probably can't be answered on the Internet. I'll welcome guesses below, but I'm thinking this may be a case for Dr. Knox. I've submitted the question and I'll let you know if we get an answer. Can any of you beat Dr. Knox, himself?