pre 1950

The bricks seem new, and the air conditioners are inside the building, but this structure is older then you may imagine. The building was constructed in 1949, and has been touched up countless times to hide water stains, broken bricks and a collapsing roof. Although the building seems to be encompassed by a green lawn, they only began maintaining it recently and it doesn’t hold up as well as they wish it did. The wiring scheme inside the building is insane, they made it that way so that no electrician could rewire the apartment or do anything to mess it up.

Although the outside of the building seems well kept, the inside of the building isn’t maintained so well. When it rains, the basement floods but no one seems to do anything. The inside of the building smells like an ethnic food fair, and the people well resemble that. Many of the people in my building are either immigrants or old ladies whose husbands who died. The people come and go, but the building seems to go unchanged. No one seems to realize that no matter what, the building wont change externally.

The structure of the building seems to be holding up very well, and although the people seem crazy, it’s a great place to live. I have lived in the building for 15 years, and I have seen many people come and go, and I have watched more construction than I have the years when there is no construction. The building holds up well on the electrical aspect (go figure) but the building its self is falling apart. Sometimes we all seem to underestimate the place we call home.

When you think about the place you call home, you never think about the historical aspect of the area you live in. After doing this research I realize that places have more than just a visual aspect, you also have to take into account how the structure got there, why it was build and what was its original purpose. I think its more interesting to know what is behind the structure than what it looks like.