I’m building an album on Google Photos showcasing the best photographs I can find of intriguing examples of Victorian architecture with period cars up front. This is a very specific genre. I look for the best quality images–vivid color slides are preferred, but crisp black & white is good too. And I’m focusing on urban scenes which have largely been wiped out by government-funded redevelopment projects, general neglect, and the need to modernize.
Somehow the combination of the buildings and the old cars doubles the interest factor. So here is the best of my collection so far–36 examples of a quaint and lost America (enough to make three calendars!) and each photo I’m sure has many stories to tell . . .
I’m not going to write much about these pictures–I’m just want to put them out there, and let the commenters say what they think. I decided to organize them by location, as if you were traveling from east to west across the country. With a few notable exceptions, what is shown in the photographs no longer exists. So I am grateful to the photographers who took pictures of these places–forever capturing these archaic and ephemeral scenes.
I found a lot of good pictures of Portland, Oregon. The photographer Minor White began photographing ornate Victorian warehouses on Front Street around 1940; he later took many detailed pictures of two spectacular Portland mansions that were slated for demolition. These photos were compiled into a book entitled Heritage Lost by Fred DeWolfe.
While I didn’t include any of White’s photos here, it is possible that someone else in Portland was inspired by White’s work and took very sharp color slide photos of other artistic 19th century commercial buildings that were about to meet the wrecking ball:
Show’s over!
These photos remind me of the type of scenes that model railroaders attempt to reproduce in their miniature layouts. Unfortunately the owners of the buildings (and yes, even the cars) didn’t truly appreciate what they had. Out with the old, in with the new–that’s the American way. It is staggering how much demolition has occurred in the last few decades. What has replaced it is not up to the same artistic standard. And memories are short–once something is gone, it is quickly forgotten. If these places had not been recorded on film, it would be as if they never existed.
However, I have a belief that after the convulsions of our present age are worked through, a new generation will look back on the classic designs of the past. With such marvels as nanotechnology, robotics, and gravity force manipulation, they will build great houses of unsurpassed artistic beauty and richness of detail, sort of like what gamers are doing now with The Sims and Minecraft.
And maybe they will do the same thing with cars. Although they won’t use anything as primitive as wheels. As Dr. Emmett Brown exclaimed in the closing scene of Back To The Future, “Where we’re going, we don’t need . . . roads!”
Somehow I forgot to add this one:
(Madison St., Chicago)
Correction: 2220 S. Dearborn.
Always fascinating to see scenes like these. Whilst a few thousand miles West of where I grew up a lot of that Victorian urban architecture didn’t look so very different. Every now and then I’ve taken photos of ordinary scenes, buildings, shop fronts and signs, etc. but not really comprehensively. And sometimes regretted missing opportuities when finding something gone perhaps a few months or years later. This is one I caught though, back in 1978.
This is great! I think the unknown location with mostly Spanish business names and the large Tecate sign is probably in Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America, judging by the bus. I love the English Ford (Consul? Zephyr?) in the foreground. And the Peugeot 403 in LA. One note: you didn’t seem to link the photos to the CC library so I’m limited to two-finger zoom on my phone, though perhaps the scanned resolution is no better than that.
The combination of English and Spanish languages on the signage (often called “Spanglish”), along with the eclectic variety of cars, suggests a border town on the Mexican side, such as Tijuana or Mexicali.
I just fixed that, the lack of a Media File attachment. But unfortunately, it seems that many of his images were uploaded in small sizes, so those won’t increase in size if clicked on.
I believe that is Avenue Benito Juarez in Juarez. The “Club Kentucky” is an infamous cantina in downtown Juarez. I’ve never been to it but in the 1980s I did go with friends from El Paso to Juarez for wonderful dinners. I think that scene all changed with the violence of this century.
Great article and photos! It’s definitely Tijuana. Here’s a link to another image of the same street, from about 10 years earlier (1949). Cars here too.
https://www.gettyimages.ch/detail/nachrichtenfoto/an-night-exterior-view-of-the-aloha-cantina-restaurant-nachrichtenfoto/589962807?language=it
Yes, Tijuana
https://www.google.com/maps/@32.5353554,-117.0369528,3a,75y,305.73h,98.41t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1shOEwBL_hPAu6oRvIoPyjKA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
The English Ford looks like a 2nd gen Zephyr 1956 – 1961.
I fun challenge would be to select one photo and ID the newest and oldest car in that scene. I’ll go first. Having once lived in SF, I’ll take the Russian Hill photo. The answer for both is a 1960 Ford. Your turn.
That is Vallejo St. between Montgomery and Kearny.
People are already recreating Victorian homes. One went up in my city a few years ago, and it is a company here that does replicas
One rant I have about posts like Peter’s. PLEASE state your location, if you are going to mention things like “my city” please include where you are at. People from around the globe visit here; just a general location would be helpful.
I agree with you, otherwise it’s like:
John Q Citizen
123 Main St.
Anytown, USA
I LOVE THESE PHOTOS! Thank you so much. I am an architecture buff along with other interests. Keep ’em comin’! Here is one that I found on the internet of New York City and what appears to be a Plymouth Valiant
That appears to be a ’67 Dodge Dart convertible.
A 67 Dodge Dart GT convertible.
I went to street view of the building at Park Avenue & 125th Street, Harlem. They saved it and it is looking good. I couldn’t get Zillow to tell me the rent rates for the building, but the building to the left is renting at $2,180 for a studio, and $2,595 for a 1 bedroom apartment.
When this photo was taken everyone though New York was dead. Well, look at it now!
It’s not exactly the same building, but a more modern “Restomod”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Morris_Bank_Building
I took the train to Westchester from the station next door in my reverse commute from Harlem in the early 2000’s. I’m absolutely certain that rents (or condo/coop prices) in that building are quite high these days, despite NYC’s recent difficulties.
In the early 1990’s one could have purchased a 3 story brownstone shell in this neighborhood or others in the nearby Bronx for less than 3 figures. Those days are long gone.
Thanks for the info. It sure fooled me!
I still can’t get my head around renting a studio for $2,000+…
Housing is absurdly expensive in San Francisco. The reason is pure nimbyism- those already living there don’t want to see their funky neighbourhoods change.
Here in Vancouver, I used to lament all the demos and redevelopments but as the population increases, it’s the only way to keep the cost of living at least fairly reasonable.
I live in a brand now public-market building, as all new buildings are in Vancouver. A 1BR runs $1800 and in an older building $1400. Without new supply, these numbers would be much higher. In fact, so many have bought places now the rent market is saturated and rents coming down.
C, can you explain what’s a “public-market building? I know it’s off-topic, but I Googled it and I don’t understand the meaning. Thanks!
I suspect it means it isn’t rent controlled.
That sounds like what they’re doing to the former Hotel Marshall in Sacramento. It was a fine hotel 100 years ago, with a jazz club in the basement that once hosted greats like Billie Holiday, but in more recent years it had become a decaying SRO. Now the new owners have completely gutted the place — the only portion of the building they preserved are the exterior walls, and are constructing a modern “boutique hotel” inside the shell.
Those restomods are unsettling. A while ago I used Googlestreet to check on a couple of large houses that I remembered from the ’50s. Both of them are “there but not there”. In one case I had a photo of the original, so I could be sure; the other couldn’t be proved, but it was clearly a much newer building with a similar shape.
For me, the best photos are the ones filled with ephemera. That shot of the yellow taxi shows lots of information capturing history. The signage, Coke bin, the very name of the bars, the material of the signage, and the painted surfaces on the building, along with the hideous fire escape are the elements in the photo that can’t be reproduced with the authenticity visible in that photo.
Computer generated buildings don’t show how they are used in real life. They show an uninhabited soulless world devoid of what makes a building a home – humans. Model train towns and buildings are cold and lifeless. Without humanity, these thinks don’t come to life.
Same with cars. The Henry Ford museum is filled with perfect cars. Nice. But a Curbside Classic shows a hell of a lot more. The Pebble Beach car show is impressive, but a junk yard can be just as interesting.
Car ads don’t show real people. They show model cars with models. These are very interesting. But not as interesting as vacation photos that somehow included the car that got the vacationers there.
What I love about Curbside Classic is the showcasing of how a car impacted people. It could have been a good car, or not. Yet it is in its use that it becomes a part of our lives.
Much of why I read and contribute to this site in a nutshell!
The frontmost car in Tijuana is puzzling. Seems to be a Buick Sedanet with ’54 Chevy taillights? I don’t see a full Chevy behind it, so the taillights must be part of the same car? Or just an illusion?
Customized Chevy. Frenched headlights, etc. Not uncommon in the late ’50s.
That first photo of the Hudson in front of the decaying buildings almost looks like it could have been taken in modern day Cuba, if it weren’t for the signs in English.
From an automotive perspective, the lead photo with the Hudson is the best. That’s a really terrific looking car and the shot shows its dimensions in the best possible way.
Pretty sure that is lower west side NYC I forget what the neighborhood was called Tbut it was mostly a huge produce market. That area was cleared in the late 60s to build the World Trade Center.
Actually, that picture is also from Portland, OR. You can see a sign in the window, “Oregon Produce Co.”
Ormond Gigli’s Girls in the Windows 1960. Interesting story on how it came about.
Although it looks like a stage set that’s a real building in NYC. It was soon to be demolished. The photographer had one day to line up all the models and get the shot.
https://entertainment.time.com/2013/11/14/girls-in-the-windows-the-real-story-behind-an-iconic-new-york-photo/
A wonderful 1953 shot on a wet night in Chicago’s Loop.
The link contains a description of the photographer and a shot of the sterile a
https://phogotraphy.com/2015/09/30/1950s-randolph-street-chicago/
I saw some interesting vintage photos like that one from St.John’s Newfoundland posted on Skyscraperpage forum from the late 1940s-early 1950s. https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=204158&page=6
This was terrific! Thank you for sharing these photos!
There is a chance I may have been inside one of these buildings in Shawneetown, Illinois. Years ago my parents took me on a day trip to Shawneetown and we ate at a restaurant housed in a very old building – with a serious grade difference between the street and sidewalk.
I was likely around five or six years old, so this would have been 1977 or 1978; as I remember it there was a spider that crawled up the wall beside me.
Of course this may not be the building at all. But Shawneetown is around 1200 in population, so there aren’t going to be too many old buildings or cafes in the place. But it does make me wonder.
These are all terrific photos.
The building on the left of the three appears to still be standing at roughly 681 Main Street, (Old) Shawneetown, IL if you hit Google StreetView, or 2013 photos of Old Shawneetown on the Encyclopedia of Forlorn Places. It sits alone a few plots NE from the Shawneetown Bank State Historic Site. The other two are gone, as are the stairs up its side.
Wonderful photos…
A great theme and very interesting photos. Thank you for sharing them!
The 4007 State st. shot in Chicago is cool, the el train on the right is the old Stockyards branch, probably towards its final years before it was demolished. Across the street would be the “slum” area that would become the Robert Taylor homes, one of many notorious high rise housing projects the city has all but since demolished.
Great collection!
A couple of these look familiar, and may have been taken by Charles Cushman. A collection of thousands of his slides owned by Indiana University, and is available online here.
https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/cushman/index.jsp
The first shot with the Hudson is sublime.
New info:
The New Orleans color photo with the pickup truck was taken at Esplanade Ave. & Miro St.
Good shout! And the building is still there somehow!
Sharp eye Poindexter. Beautiful buildings proud to highlight the skilled trades that built them along with the patina of life’s grit. While I’m an enthusiast of modern architecture it almost always lacks the level of patina seen in these images.
What a treat ! Thank you, Poindexter. (Your late addition, with the gleaming white Ford in front of “Lunch,” is great, too . . .)
The winter snow scene with the 1958 Chevy convertible looks like Queens, NY.
If you liked these, check out “Book 2”–all in color!
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/vintage-snapshots-and-photography/cc-snapshots-cars-architecture-book-2/
Fun post, Poindexter! I must’ve missed its original run.
The photo of the Spaulding Building, Portland OR – I’m pretty sure both of the cars are Studebakers. Is it possible the red truck is also a Studebaker? If so, what’re the odds? 😉
I think the red truck is a Dodge, so no trifecta today.
Oh, dangit! And I was feeling so lucky today.
Oooo, I love all of these.
But I wonder what makes for “the best” when it comes to loans – like the building offering “The Best Loans In Newark”? Least interest? Easiest application? Lowest likelihood of getting limbs broken if you fail to keep up?
In my experience, old buildings were better designed than they were constructed.
Unfortunately, extensive restoration (or even maintenance) of an old building rarely makes financial sense; likewise with most old automobiles. I wonder how many nice 50s and 60s cars will outlast us Boomers.
My small city in NC got Federal money in the 70s and tore down half of the struggling downtown. Unemployment was 20% in the later 70s. A few parts were rebuilt modern and ugly in the 80s, corporations restored some buildings, but the activity had already moved closer to the interstate and west a couple of miles.
A girl on my NoVa volleyball team in the 80s lived in a renovated rowhouse apt. off DuPont Circle in DC. You could see the sky through the empty house next door.
I missed this first time around, so I’m glad to catch it now. Fascinating photos!
I love the genre of books “Lost [name of town]”. Perhaps you do, too. I have New York, Detroit, Houston and Galveston, and am always on the lookout for others. They have a photo per page of a grand building that no longer exists with some text about its history. I also love the Then and Now books, which are the opposite being largely about buildings that still exist.
I found the Scranton, PA photo amazing due to the jarringly ugly ground floor facade additions. I know many a fine old ornate office building got a new modern facade so that you couldn’t even see any of the old. I guess this is what happens when you want to modernize buildings but have no budget!
One of my early influences was a book, “Lost America” by Constance Greiff (1971). It showed how beautiful old buildings were being replaced by ugly new buildings (or parking lots, super-highways, or nothing at all).
I consider it to be a landmark book that helped launch the preservation movement (although much is being destroyed or “remuddled” even now), much like “Silent Spring” launched the environmental movement, and “Unsafe at Any Speed” launched the auto safety movement.
Fantastic collection. It is indeed a pity that so many of these ornate buildings were destroyed. But…everything is temporary.
The Dart in Chinatown is fitting, as it looks like something one would find at a Chinatown fish market.
Sure, I can see it on a bed of ice with its headlights bugging out.
I love the old cars and building photos so my hobby is recreating these. There are still lots of old cars and old buildings in Vancouver. It’s a challenge to exclude modern features such as signs, other cars, fashion, etc. but it’s a lot of fun.
Reading this made me recall some of my father’s photos. This one is a Kodachrome slide from 1954 along Lakeshore Drive in Chicago