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85 Years of North Downtown Houston


telwink

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I feel half bad for posting this both on Flickr, and on HAIF, becasue a lot of my flickr buddies are HAIFers and vice versa. But in any case, I'm really enjoying this project, so what the heck ....

Many of you likely already know this, but the Library of Congress photo archive has a number of historic panoramic photographs of downtown Houston. These photos were taken by reputable panographers of the era, such as Haines Photo Co., Cecil Thomson Studios, Texas Litterst Commercial Photo Co. (who this wonderful 1924 photo), and my personal favorite, F. J. Schlueter.

I wanted to take this shot from the exact same place (Keystone Building, which is now the Keystone Lofts), but my requests to Keystone's management fell on deaf ears more than once. No soup for them!!! In any case, I got on top of a parking garage a few blocks from the original spot, so the effect is at least a resemblance of what I had in mind.

Kudos to the Library of Congress' historic photo archive for hosting these beautiful historic Houston photographs.

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It looks like something was on fire when they took that picture in 1924.

Every old Houston picture seems to have smoke in the background. I used to think the same thing, but now think it was factory exhaust. Can't imagine breathing that in every day...or maybe we do, it's just clear now!

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All those old buildings had incinerators with smoke stacks. I guess they burned their trash. Many stacks are still attached to the old buildings, they're just nolonger used.

True, my back patio at St. Germain faces the back of Club Quarters Hotel and its still got a really old-looking smoke stack. Not sure how long the building's been there.

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True, my back patio at St. Germain faces the back of Club Quarters Hotel and its still got a really old-looking smoke stack. Not sure how long the building's been there.

State National's still got one too. You can see it in both photos above.

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