#39 was 12705 Grandin, destroyed on December 28th, 2007. The last house of 2007.
This house was vacated long before many of the remaining. It must have been abandoned over 2 years ago, if not more. The house sat without much action throughout much of 2006. Despite the lack of occupancy, it still was a beautiful little house that someone took pride in. In the spring of 2007, shutters were removed, then it was vandalized with stripes of blue spray paint. From there, the whole place started to go downhill. Windows were broken, the roof deteriorated, even the lamppost was destroyed long before the actual home was. When I drove up on December the 28th, the crane sat atop the last bits of rubble that remained, tearing up the driveway to the home.
#38, the first house to go in 2008 was taken on January 2nd. This house, 12724 Woodford Way, was the last house in the area that had the same exact floor plan as my old home. It was odd to walk into that house and see the position of the rooms, exact as mine, but in worse condition than mine was allowed. Windows broken, graffiti strewn, dank and moldy, just walking through the mess made me appreciate how quickly mine was taken.
This green little house sat on the corner of Woodford Way and Celburne. It also sat vacant for a long period of time, but like the Grandin house above, wasn’t vandalized until much later in 2007. Also in common with the Grandin home, I got to the demolition just at the very end with the machinery parked in position to finish removing the driveway for the next day.
Despite the hundreds of shots I took of this place over the past year and a half, my favorite picture of this
house happens to be the one where the bulldozer is parked outside the windows of the living room, with the light sneaking in behind it. This living room interior was where my bedroom was converted, and this was the exact shot I had wished to get from my old house just before its destruction. Since this is practically the same house, it feels exactly as it should.
J. Desy Schoenewies
56 Houses Left 