The vacant lot circled in red is the site of my apartment building; the small two-row apartment court next to it still exists.
Much has changed, and I don't just mean that all the vacant lots have been built upon. The houses along the bluffs have long ago fallen into the sea, and several streets have been rerouted somewhat to reflect the loss of water-side land. The lighthouse at bottom center remains, minus its light, and now, as a historical landmark, sits in the middle of a park.
Even the waterfront in the upper right portion of the picture has changed, has been resculpted to accommodate new shipping terminals. There was freight coming in by ship back then, but much of the port area was used by the Navy; now, it's the province of two Red Chinese companies.
I sometimes wonder what I would have been doing if I lived here at that time. Most likely, I would have been a fisherman or a shopkeeper. Perhaps a taxi driver, a reporter for the long-since vanished local paper or, if I was fortunate, I might have been one of the musicians working in the pit at the local theater (which is also long gone). Another movie house was built in 1931, but employed no musicians. From the start, it played only "talkies," and had no live acts on stage.
Of course if I had reached maturity in 1926, I wouldn't be here to write about it.
And I would have not met a couple of people who have had negative impacts on my life, but we won't go there....
Still, the area looks damn nice, better than it does today.
Wish I could have seen it. Even more, I wish it was like this now.
7 comments:
That's really cool to have a pic like that.
Gill
I think so too, gillardia. Took me a while to figure out where everything is in relation to today, though...so many changes!
I drive around here, and think, didn't the lrzxgm use to be there? Older I get, harder it is to remember what was where.
That's ture here, too, as land values encourage the nouveau riche to build those ugly McMansions where classy cottages used to be.
People around here are a bunch of svnxm when it comes to historic preservation.
You would like the village of Barriefield. Old houses that are protected from being torn down or modernized. But it can be very thpguhzw keeping them looking 'period'.
I'll have to get some pics of it.
Yeah, you have to have a lot of kuizk to keep an old house in shape.
I wanna see the pix, dal!
That picture makes me sad. Because now every bit of coast-line seems to be crowded over with ugly, vulgar, pink-stucco palaces. Why not build cute little shy bungalows hobbled together in a sorta-row, modest and functional and quaint and befitting the landscape? California, you're so lost.
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