56 Houses Left

12719 Grandin, was discovered in rubble on the evening of February 19, 2008. It was one of my absolute favorites.

This house was one of my top five for photographing… I’m even working on a painting of the light coming in so perfectly through the broken white-framed windows. It was such a beautiful house… one I would have liked to live in. It was ornate, but not overdone. It had a wonderful chandalier in the dining room that was hanging at an angle which I took an innumerable number of shots of just to get that one, perfect photo. The best part of the house was the light and how much light came in through the living room windows glowing bright on the floor. The broken glass on the ground cast sparkling illuminations  across the opposite walls and ceiling. It was one of the very few houses that I felt absolutely comfortable inside.

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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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