There’s been a lot of talk of “North of Delmar” recently, so I thought it would be interesting for me to drive down Delmar, starting in the Central West End in the west and ending at Vandeventer Avenue in the east and photograph the actual north side of Delmar.  What I saw may surprise you; there is desolation and abandonment, but there is also incredible beauty and resilience.  Take a drive with me…

I absolutely love the two houses below; it you look closely, you can see they’re actually identical, but they’ve each received their own personal touches: a tower on one house, a flat facade on the other.

I’ve always been interested in the housing type below; the turrets above the porch are common in houses throughout the western end of the city.  Note too that red brick has been abandoned on the front facades, and replaced with buff or tan brick.

Two more houses that were built at the same time but minor details and the passage of time under different owners have made them unique.

The two pictures are almost to Vandeventer, and bring us to the oldest part of Delmar through this part of the city.  Second Empire mansions dominate, but so does the evidence of how this neighborhood declined in the early Twentieth Century.  The houses below probably converted to rooming house, and the storefronts were built out the front, sort of like their now lost neighbor on Olive further east.

While the vinyl siding replacing the slate shingles is maybe not the best idea, I cannot criticize the owners since they have chosen to stick it out and keep this house occupied.