56 Houses Left

14832 Ralls was taken on Monday, Jan. 28. Yes, it was the crazy hold-out house with all the weird crap. I took some interior shots the day before it was destroyed. All the paint cans, propane tanks, etc. that filled whole rooms were gone. The house was just as odd on the inside as it was on the outside- you can clearly see how it was boarded up from the inside. The house was added on to and adjusted so much that the floorplan was nowhere close to any other in Carrollton. Even the bedrooms had some kind of kitchen-like cabinetry hung on the walls (there were cabinets everywhere). In addition to his fondness for paint, the owner must have been some kind of hoarder…. especially if he needed cabinets hung in every room.

Friday, Feb. 1st was the day 4250 Cameo was destroyed. This was another house where the owner was a hold-out, but not in the same fight’em way as the Ralls type. This guy just simply stayed put. The airport expansion team had finally evicted him in November 07, close to a year after he received his check (typically, you’re given 3 months or more if you apply for an extension, and you’re given the date of when you will receive your check 3 months in advance). Many of his belongings remained outside the house for a week after his eviction. Rumor has it that after the guy got his check, he had his roof looked at to have a new roof replaced and did some other maintenance on the home as well. They say his car was still parked there even after they cut his electricity. He simply did not believe he would have to leave. The day I noticed his stuff in the yard, I also noticed arrows on the house highlighting some interesting landmarks. My guess is that he wanted to let the demolition crew know that there were some pretty important stuff around the house that needed to be preserved, should they otherwise overlook them. Items to avoid complete destruction included a rose bush on the side of the home and a wren house built above the garage. Their prudent locations were marked with silvery arrows in spray paint.

Well, at least its February now so hopefully the wrens were gone. Not so much hope for the roses.

One last note- I was told that they haven’t received any demo permits recently, therefore things will be rather quite for a while again. The reason being many of the remaining houses (especially the ones on the south side) are tied up in court over asbestos removal issues. I guess that would explain why some houses are left vacant for years while others go down only a few months after they are abandoned. They have capped off the water and sewer lines for three houses in the past two weeks, but that is an unreliable indicator given its a different company handling it.

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Not since January 2nd has a home been erased. Demolition machinery remain frozen in the same spot, week after week. No new graffiti of significance, no burns, nothing. The only change in the past three weeks has been a roof finally giving out on Woodford Way. All three houses remaining on this street now have their overhanging facades kissing dirt.

I went out of town for my three-day weekend to visit some friends. Flying out of Lambert, the plane went right over Carrollton. From above I took mental notes on each of my decaying little subjects below. On the plane, I kept thinking about my latest photographic expeditions in Carrollton. The area continuously beckons me to come look for anything yet undiscovered, like some modern anthropologist. It politely begs for me to find and document every trace of its not-too-distant past when humans called it home. Carrollton inspires me, saddens me, enlightens me, excites me, and enrages me all at the same time. It makes me nostalgic, yet forces me to realize that there will be a future and it will be very different from its past. This is Carrollton’s evolutionary process; I’m just caught in the grief-to-acceptance phase the former residents are still in.

My plane flew out and came back in on the old runway. Not surprising to me, but it was kind of a letdown. Yes, as contradicting as it sounds, I was somehow hoping to fly in on the new runway. Physically occupying a tiny part of the new structure for a small window of time maybe would have been proof that there was a need for W-1W. Sure, I have seen many planes land on it. Some I have seen come in while I am documenting the area. Considering that I now live in the flight path a good distance away from Bridgeton, I glance up and gage their direction, thus knowing which runway the planes are headed towards. Over 90% of what I see fly the old path in the sky.

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#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.

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39 Houses Left.

#42 was 3964 Celburne, the portion of the street that was close to Brumley. Since I am on the theme from prior posts, I also sold them girl scout cookies. There were LOTS of boys in the neighborhood (some swore there was something with the water), and a couple boys closer to my sister’s age lived at this house. I didn’t know them very well at all, but I am glad the family bought cookies from me nevertheless. How else would I have gone to Girl Scout Camp and won a badge and a dolly? Thank you, cookie eating primarily-male families of Bridgeton.

On a more serious note, this house never did sit right with me after one event. I don’t really know if this house was even the right home, but it was close enough to have been seriously affected.

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You heard me right! Come on down to CRAAAAZY Carl Lambert’s Xmas Tree lot where you cut your own tree FOR FREE! That is right, in fact, cut more trees if you want! They’re probably going to be cut down anyway so hack away you crazy maniacs and nevermind the people who planted such pretty trees in the first place!

“But Crazy Carl Lambert, how does it work?”

Its so easy, its like setting fire to abandoned houses in a poorly patrolled area responsible for by a fledgling major airport! All you do is drive your pickup into Carrollton under the cover of darkness, don’t forget to pack a chainsaw and plenty of gas, and find a tree worthy of your double-wide! Once you have found a spectacular 20 foot specimen planted by a former resident of the area, cut about half of it down! Of course, once you have realized that your living room might not exactly fit a 10 foot tree, be sure to start hacking away at the bottom stump and remaining branches! Leave the debris behind! Don’t forget to enjoy some off-roading through the most vacated areas on your way out!

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With the bitter cold and now 8 inches of snow, I was really surprised to see that three more went down this past week…three that meant more to me than most of what remains. Two were on Brumley, and the other one was at the intersection of WW and Brumley. Their owners were my neighbors who bought girl scout cookies from me, who waved at me a few times as I rode my bike up and down the street, and the site of one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. Sure I didn’t know their owners well and I would not recognize any of them today, but I knew their faces from my past. Only one house now remains on Brumley, the one directly across from where mine was.

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3991 Bondurant – Destroyed 12/11

#46 was 3991 Bondurant. During the weekend ice storm, we saw the wrecker parked in the driveway, covered in ice and waiting to dig in. Monday we were hit with another wave of ice, but Tuesday, the ice cleared up and the house was destroyed.

This house was just at the entrance to the park. A quiet little house that sat vacant since last winter (or possibly very early spring) and was vandalized heavily this past fall. I can say that I am sure the police department is glad to see this one go, since much in the graffiti was directed at them. For me, it was one that was such a nice and well-kept home. It was the ideal little Carrollton house, and its dilapitation makes for the perfect poster-home for why the airport should have done something sooner.

I got some enjoyable pictures from this house, from its humble well-manicured beginnings to its ice-covered last hours. Although there are two houses left on Bondurant, the street feels very empty without this one.

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I knew something was terribly odd with 14831 Ralls for years. This was one that, again, stood out in memory of times gone by as being rather odd beyond belief. There was the fact that it had some homespun additions done to it years ago, including a brick lamppost at the end of the driveway with a giant, round ball light atop. There was the overabundance of gardening evident in the vast types of plants in the front yard alone. But it was the fact that I never could quite tell, for YEARS, if someone was actually living there that threw me off the most. Given the condition it was in I had figured the place to be an abandoned dumping ground even before my mom left the area. I was wrong. (more…)

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