Helpful Google

Reconstructing a photo-walk from fifteen years ago

It started innocently enough. I posted an old photo on my Monday Window blog, Monday Window – 260216.

My colleague PR remarked, “Superb, but I cannot figure out if the break in the plaster to expose the bricks is deliberate or just a nice artistic coincidence!”

I just had to see if I could answer that question. The photo was taken back in February 2011 on a photo walk with my old-time friend Tom Beach in Savannah, Georgia. My photo archive showed this:

You can see in the “Information” panel that the photo was taken at 11:45 AM. The photo immediately before of the sculpture of a soldier with a rifle raised was taken at 11:43, just two minutes before. I didn’t know where it was located. So, I used Google to inquire about that sculpture, and it told me that it was the “Haitian Monument in Franklin Square”. I went to Google Maps and located the square and the monument. With just two minutes between the photos, we could not have walked far. Which way did we go? The next photo was taken at 11:49 of some flowers – not very helpful as a location marker. The one after that is marked as 1:03 PM – maybe after a lunch break, not helpful at all.

I used the little “Browse Street View Images” doohickey in Google Maps to look around. Right from the monument looking toward Congress Street there was a building that might be it.

Taking a closer view showed this:

Sure enough, that is the one!

Looking at the other side of the building shows missing plaster as well.

Hard to tell whether the missing plaster is intentional or just unrepaired aging. Maybe looking at the other side might help.

There too the plaster is missing in large sections and right around the electrical utility boxes and conduits. That does not look intentional. The Google photos are dated 2019. So, this building looks as dilapidated eight years after my photo from 2011.

Google and Google Maps can be very helpful!

One of the Google view shows a store sign on the building. I searched Google for that business in Savannah. The result showed their phone number and I called them. The friendly voice there did not know the answer for sure but thought the missing plaster was just due to old age.

My conclusion to PR’s question is that it most likely is not intentional just old age.

It was fun reconstructing my old photo walk and searching out information about the building in my photo.