By bike and on foot, you tend to notice things within the city that you’ve passed hundreds of times without ever noticing. Life is just whizzing by too quickly. Such is the case with buildings that border the little in between streets that many of us look on as alleys. This view is looking southeast to a property set back from 10th Street (the position of which has changed sometime in the last few decades) and fronting where Talbott runs through and meets Puryear Street. It took quite some time to find the 1915 Sanborn map with the structure on it–we are lucky to have the IUPUI digital collection available, but I have difficulty finding things within it sometimes. Get a better view of the Puryear side on google.
The commercial building looked like it had been used in some kind of garage capacity, but the little 1 1/2 older, more residential or carriage house looking building is intriguing. Was this originally a carriage house for a former residence that would have fronted Pennsylvania? By 1913, 953 North Pennsylvania was home to Mr. and Mrs. Donald McD. Ketcham. Whatever the case, both of these buildings, look like they could use some serious TLC. As downtrodden as these look, “they” still “just don’t make ’em like this anymore.”
Noticing this structure has gotten me paying a lot more attention to those often ignored buildings. Got a buildings like this on any of your lists?
I walk by this building every day on my way to work and have talked about it with St. Joe resident Leah Orr. The building intrigues me and I wish it could be restored! You do see things on foot or on a bike that you don’t always notice from a car…
It is interesting that, in the Sanborn map even by 1915, the commercial building is already listed as “Auto Repair”. Also, from the map, it would appear that one would be looking southeast into the corner of the “L” between the commercial building and the carriage house.
Absolutely correct! Sometimes the late night/ sleep deprived writing gets the best of me. I said Anton Scherrer when I know I meant Adolph Scherrer two times recently–again, after little sleep. Thanks for the catch!