Once bustling with pedestrian traffic, North Grand feels more like a highway nowadays, with stoplights for deserted side streets that don’t have anyone waiting at anyway. It’s hard to imagine what the boulevard would have been like in its heyday, when streetcars went to and from Sportmans’ Park. An old funeral home, clearly a modification of an Italianate country house, is one surviving building along this stretch.

Italianate buildings, such as the houses above, point to the early development of this part of the city in the Nineteenth Century.

Now, such revenue engines such as billboards and sleazy motels predominate. Seriously, has this motel ever been nice?

Formstone, and some people call it, is a classic example of a 1950’s attempt at fixing up an historic building for the changing times. At least it is still occupied.

Who lives in this house? Do they mind the traffic? Why do they live here? Family ties? Stubbornness?