Originally posted in October 2013:
Another photo by John Vachon — an old house with a double porch in Houston, Texas, May 1943.* I love the tower room.
You really need to click on the photo and enlarge it to enjoy all the details of this one.
Sharp-eyed commenters on the Library of Congress’s Flickr Commons project noticed that the address on the curb is 1900 Franklin Street. The location is currently a parking lot next to the US Route 59 overpass, close to Minute Maid Park.
*via Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Color Photographs Collection, Library of Congress.
When you enlarge it you realize there is actually more porch than house in there.
In Houston’s heat before AC, the porch was at least as necessary as interior rooms.
Seeing the laundry makes me understand, the lack of privacy. Have just moved into ca. 1900 American farmhouse and surprised by my lack of privacy. No garage, people know when I come/go, feed chickens, set trash on porch ahead of going to dump. And more ! Had zero clue my former 2 car garage with electric doors was doing so much for my ‘lifestyle’. XOT
After years of living in Africa, where every house/yard is enclosed by a wall of some kind, gardening out in the open in the U.S., especially in the front yard, is always difficult for me to get used to.