Wednesday, February 18, 2009

A weird reason to be sad.

Driving to get lunch yesterday I passed our 'old town park' and noticed they were tearing down the OLD house next door. I am not sure of it's history, but it was OLD. There were 60 year old trees touching the house, where someone who is now old, thought, I will get those later. My guess is the house was one of the ORIGINALS. Old Town Park dates to 1877. This house may have belonged to the family who donated the land? I just don't know.
Really the sadness was not that it was being torn down. The elderly lady living there must have passed and those old trees left to grow too close, probably had destroyed the foundation, not to mention the ???? years of roof neglect and more.
For me, the sadness, was that noone had salvaged, what looks like ANYTHING. As I went by a dumpster full of 'debris' was being covered and hanging out the back was a 100+ year old piece of wood trim. My heart sank. This house was kind of spooky when we were kids, but cool and I just imagined what had been inside when they started demolition. What is left this morning as i passed is about 1/4 of the original mass. Still standing in an interior wall is what looks to be an 8' wood six panel door. Is this an old REAL door, what would I pay to have one made? Did they leave an old mantel on the original fireplace and just wreck it too?
I am so sad, that it is almost not RIGHT. This was no family home, no personal story, just a big old house and the history mattered little to the people who are tearing it down.
Just sad....I wish they had at least seen the potential profit, so that SOMEONE could have gotten that HISTORY, but no! There is even a family nearby who goes into homes before they are torn down and removes useable items.
What a waste.

I will go by later on the way to the hair salon and take a few pictures. This morning the sun wasn't up enough to get one.
Update: Here they are! :(

2 comments:

Tanya said...

I don't blame you for being sad. So much of that Architectural salvage can be repurposed and it's just beautiful.

solarity said...

I'm glad not only that my mother saved the leaded glass front door from my grandmother's house (now in my house) when it was torn down after her death, but that people from nearby saved some of the mantels (the ones that weren't termite riddled) and the tiles and the copper gas fire. It's always sad to see things wasted.

Mary Anne in Kentucky