Thursday, January 29

Some serious rubbernecking

My Mom randomly sent me this picture, and I think its pretty amazing. The date is 1912. I'm not sure where it was taken.

2 comments:

Seth said...

I love being able to deduce where pictures were taken from urban form clues. We know this much: brick rowhouses with a fairly steep hill, and the row houses look to be new - considering the height of the trees. Guessing an industrial city like Pittsburgh, Philly, or Baltimore (I don't know how hilly it is there). The neo-colonial style of porches points to east coast. Definitely not Chicago, and not dense enough to be NY. My guess is Pittsburgh.

The thing I really love about this picture is that you can see that this working-class neighborhood looks fairly new and feels suburban. In 1912, it was "suburban" by comparison to the downtown. But by today's standards it would be an urban neighborhood. I would love to go back in time to see what the edge of town was like. Was it something like this neighborhood, then the street ended and there was a farm field?

Daniel Nairn said...

That is an interesting question. Those row houses do really remind me of Philadelphia, and certainly the hill would be realistic for somewhere in the area. Maybe a streetcar suburb. But Pittsburg seems like a fine guess too.

hmm .. I wonder if the street light would be a clue.