Well, hopefully these will be informative...at the end of the day, they are a series of pics of the perimeter of 100 West Moore Street, and a few pics of the 'lot' on 3306 Bellefontaine... so, without further ado, here ya go...
It was
100 degrees on the
100th year of Ginger, heading towards
100 West Moore Street...
...the plaque that verifies our location...
...and the street signage to boot.
The 'moment of truth', as Kat and I introduce ourselves to the homeowner...Kat's daughter, 'Baby', is just behind the leftmost post...
A pretty good pic of the conversation, as nobody is really 'facing the camera', yet in plain sight, if that makes any sense... these last two pics were taken by my wife from the cool comfort of the minivan, whilst keeping 'Bam-Bam' in check.
The start of the 'perimeter shots'...this one is the Southwest corner...
...the Southeast corner - a pretty 'common' shot of the place...
...another 'SE corner', a bit more 'straight on...
...the East exterior, looking Northward...note the change in roof line, which hints at the back portion being a later addition...
...a 'full shot' of the East wall, showing a bit better where the roof lines change in back... remember, the original house was four rooms... F&GM, how many rooms did you count when you went in? :-]
...a detail of the East wall foundation area, just to show the 'true age' of the place, and how much work has to be put into it...lots of stone foundations around this area...not sure of the stone type...granite, maybe?
A view of the back yard, again from the east wall side... a few big trees exist, which may have been there at some stage 100 years ago...
What appears to be the largest tree on the lot, which is jammed against the Northeast corner of the house... this puppy could well be over a century old... oh, check out the squirrel in the gutter (look close).
The North (rear) wall... another good shot of the stone foundation wall, which has had to be re-mortared - probably quite a few times over the decades...
The Northwest corner of the house, again in the back... the roof lines of the door area clearly indicate it is an add-on... I would wager the original house had its back exterior wall at the farthest gutter downspout shown at the right of this pic, at the 'high soffit' roof line...
...and it's on to Bellefontaine...I always want to put a 'u' in it to make it 'foUntaine', but, nope, here's the official spelling shown at the 3300 block...
...the 3400 block sign, which shows in the background a pretty good representation of the houses in the area...note the stone columns at the porch overhangs...
Bellefontaine Street...facing south, in front of Ginger's Grandfolks' house, which is to the right of this pic - well just out of the picture...
...and here is the now vacant lot, at what used to be (and still is, I guess) 3306 Bellefontaine Avenue...
...a 'straight-on' shot of the lot, which is not very descriptive... looks like grass grows pretty well, there... not sure what the gray things are at the back...dog houses, perhaps? I feel sure that one of the adjoining houses purchased the lot for their use, which makes sense... probably should have knocked on a few doors, but was a bit crunched for time...maybe one day in the future...
...and a final shot of the lot - the house on the far side is again pretty indicative of the houses built in this area, although I remember 3306 having a round 'turret' deal on one of its upper floor sides... maybe I'm dreaming that up...
Well, that documents the proceedings pretty thoroughly, I suppose... was a great experience to be there on that special day, as it was a 'once-in-a-lifetime' shot, ya know? Thanks again to the homeowner at 100 West Moore for allowing us to take up some of his weekend... and, we might have created a new Gingerologist in the process!
And, again, I am going to spend the next few days 'backtracking' on all the stuff I missed last week... hope everyone had a great Gingertennial!!! On to #101, right? :-}
KIG!!!
VKMfanHuey
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Great photos! What fun. Thanks for sharing these.
ReplyDeleteOne big room that was at one time two rooms, at some point the wall has been knocked down, a room at the back, a bathroom and a bedroom, which is supposed to be where a certain Virginia Katherine McMath was born ;)
ReplyDeleteWell done, Huey! It must have felt great being there where it all began. If only the walls or that big tree could speak...FredandGingerMad, don't suppose you were able to photo inside..? Probably not. So how do the people staying there today feel about Ginger? And there hasn't been the slightest sound of ..tap dancing or something else ..inexplicable in the air? I know, wishful thinking...:) All the best to you!
ReplyDeleteSound of tap dancing? That shouldn't have been a problem, since Huey has a tapping daughter. ;o)
ReplyDeleteThis is very unique, Huey -- I hope very much it is appreciated in the www, as it should be....
F&GM -- Did you photograph inside the house or just look? If you got a tour, then get out your charcoal, and sketch it for us like Ginger would. Anyway, that was a great report from both though I'd like to have heard a bit of what the owner had to say and if he was familiar with Ginger when he bought the property. Also have any other Ginger fans visited the house and talked with him?
ReplyDeleteNice job with the pics...they gave us a good idea of today's condition.
All in all it was a nice was to celebrate the Ginger centennial!
Sadly no photos of the inside, ya basically stepped in and were immediately inside the big room, which as said before was apparently once two rooms, which had living area and kitchen, directly on the right was the bedroom, then after that the bathroom and at the back another room.
ReplyDeleteThe owner said he'd heard of Ginger when they bought the house but his wife hadn't but sounded like they'd done a fair amount of reading since!
Tom: Thanks! There may be a few too many, but, hopefully it documents the place with some new 'angles' for y'all.. I REALLY wanted inside, but the owner had company, I think he said, and heck, that's fine with me... he said it was pretty well 'modernized' inside, even the flooring, I think... I also asked him about anything in the attic, he found nothing up there...but he DID find some older stuff in the crawl space... from like the 50's, tho... but pretty cool, nevertheless...
ReplyDeleteF&GM: Hmmm... interesting...I would wager that the original hose didn't have indoor plumbing... MAYBE, but that was pretty new at that time, and a little house like that probably wasn't equipped with it... but yes, it was the 'back' bedroom where Ginger made her first appearance, I do recall...
Catarinah: It was a bit weird, thinking how everything would 'go down' when I actually got there...probably was pretty good that F&GM was there to be more like a 'group'...if two (well, 'baby' was there also, so THREE!) folks constitute a 'group'. I was going to at least knock on the door when I got there, and it was cool when the homeowner came out and was very friendly.
CS: I definitely was on the lookout for any 'Gingery' echoes in the place, although I actually didn't get in... I was a bit disappointed that my daughter didn't go with us...she opted for shopping with the folks we were staying with...but she's still a big fan.
Thanks for the kind words, CS...and, what is this I read about the demise of Sweet and Hot? Will something replace it? PLEASE don't stop blogging...you are great at it!!! Plus, who else is gonna keep me in line? :-]
Lady F: The owner said an older couple dropped by earlier that morning...but it was quite disappointing that there was really not much mention of Ginger anywhere in Independence...I bought a paper there, which was a 'three-day' edition, with no mention of Ginger's 100th...but IO guess it is still cool to have it as a memento...
F&GM: If you want to sketch out the floor plan, that would be cool... BTW, my e-mail is: jwhuey67@charter.net - thought I gave it to ya before, but there it is -any pics you have or anything else, if ya want me to post them or whatever, just holler at me!!! :-] Glad you made it back home and you daughter is OK!
KIG, y'all!
VKMfanHuey
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"Demise of sweet&hot"? Sounds kinda tough.
ReplyDeleteWell it's very easy to explain. My life was a mess, I didn't get things done anymore. For I have more than just that obsession with the 30s. I have another -- much greater and deeper -- obsession, which generated a big comeback in May, in a totally different era of history.
Jean and Ginger are still my favorite actresses, and 30s films are still those I prefer. But I can't go on writing for sweet&hot. I can't live in two eras at the same time. I cannot work on TWO projects just each 50%. No, I'm used to do things 100%. I feel that other call so deeply, I have to be just there now....
The point is: In September 2009 I re-discovered 30s movies. Before that I had never possessed video devices. I didn't know one could buy DVDs with Fred&Ginger. So at that time I found all the things I had been missing since I had left my parent's home. But well, now it's just normality.
Something replace sweet&hot? Yes and know, I have a new blog on my profile -- I call it my representative office. But I won't invest so much time in big articles for virtual papers and magazines. Frankly, those papers would flop in reality: sweet&hot on Blogspot had up to 80 clicks daily in early 2011 -- this summer it was up to 30. So the 'company' was not going up, it was going down. I had been loosing commentators too -- probably the more sophisticated I wrote the more they quit sweet&hot. So the concept wasn't really popular in this 21st century. To me it certainly was a good exercise to improve my writing.
Maybe in two years there will be a great comeback of the 30s in my life. Who knows? And then maybe I will write more articles on sweet&hot, because I probably will have to.....
Well, I'm sure you will give it 100%, CS!!! Sad to see the...let's call it 'deferral' of S&H, tho... hope it gets back...well, you can talk about whatever on an 'open topic' type blog... I am kicking around starting one up myself... but there are a few big things cooking for G-ology...maybe...
ReplyDeleteAnyway, don't be a stranger, Clarissa!!! :-]
And keep it VERY Gingery and EXTREMELY Jean-like!!!
VKMfanHuey
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Huey said...
ReplyDelete"And keep it VERY Gingery and EXTREMELY Jean-like!!!"
You can say that again, Huey. :o)
The recent dept ceiling stuff made me so upset, I spent too much time on CBSnews, actually missing Jean&Ginger. On the Ginger side I'm yearning to see THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR again. It gotta happen one of these days...
And I won't be a stranger on Gingerology -- it's a great place to be!
P.S.: Indeed there is another blog, in a far away century. Was always trying hard to keep those two blogspot identities separated. Am not sure this is your kinda stuff -- but okay, I'll email you the link...
Thanks for posting the great tribute to Lucy on her 100th b-day! What an inspiration Ginger and Lucy's friendship was, since actresses are usually too competitive to enjoy real friendships with each other.
ReplyDeleteJust wish that Lucy had helped Ginger get a regular TV show, though, since Ginger and Lela had helped Lucy so much in films. It's a shame that The Ginger Rogers Show didn't get beyond the pilot stage. Ginger did a lot of great theater shows in her later years, but not much TV -- and it would be great to have more of her later performances recorded for posterity. Anyway, it's great that they managed to stay friends throughout so many years.
Whitney