Wood-Frame, Urban Paint Shop Gone Salvage Yard, Circa Third or Fourth Quarter 19th Century (Building), Circa Early 20th Century (Image).

Probably third to fourth quarter 19^th century, the wood-frame paint shop gone all-purpose salvage yard was probably the venue of a real Jack of all trades, but regardless, Jack’s business or whoever had pre-dated the more intense commercial buildings that lined the historically laid-out urban streetscape. The hilly yard leading to the gable fronted façade and its strewn contents of salvage materials is like its building, a crude, but wonderful oddity—probably, at the time, thought of as an eyesore by the more sophisticated business owners in more modern buildings.  The photographer had an eye for hangers-on and probably other things with “feeling.”  Since the building was obviously built on an urban lot, it’s clear that either the urban lay-out occurred long before development or that a different kind of urban development had already been scraped away for progress. While it appears that the proprietor had, at some point, expanded his business venture from paint to everything else, we see a junk yard or, more politically correct, a salvage yard, other would have seen normative materials avaible for reuse. We only think about reuse as a choice in a age where everything is made to be thrown away.

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