Fall
2013
The Heart of the City: Learning about Urban Studies
Social Science Sleuths
Hessen Cassel Library
Selecting a Site to
Learn About
September 23
The site you choose should be someplace you can get to
fairly regularly. It should have enough
information available that you can find out some interesting things. It should also be somewhere that you can find
evidence of what has been there before when you go walking around.
You are not limited just to the older sections of Fort
Wayne, though they are the areas of town where you will find far more
information to work with. One of the
sources you will have available to you is a book called the Fort
Wayne, Indiana interim report : a presentation of historic resources,
achievements and possibilities. It has some basic history of many of the older
houses all around Fort Wayne. It can be
a little challenging to use at first but it is a really interesting way to know
what you are looking at in older neighborhoods.
The site you select
should not be more than two or three blocks.
It needs to be small enough that you can easily walk around it and take
pictures of the things you find. You
will look for buildings that are there now and evidence of what used to be
there. You will look for the things that
people leave behind, both current and historical.
TAKE
PICTURES!
You will look for clues as to what the land might have
looked like before it was built on. (Hint
are there any big old trees or rocks?)
Once you have your site picked out, you will need to go visit and take pictures
of the buildings that are there. Look at
the ground too.
What are the streets and sidewalks paved with?
Can you find markings
in the cement to tell you who put down the sidewalk and when?
Is there anything
painted on the side of old brick buildings?
Does the building have a name carved into it?
Is there graffiti
anywhere?
What are the windows in the buildings like?
Are they covered with screens or mesh?
Are they bricked over
or boarded up?
What do the roofs of
the buildings look like – are they flat or peaked?
What else can you
tell about the buildings?
What do you think
they are used for?
Do you think they
always had the same use?
What about the places people live?
Do they look like houses for one family or for several
families?
Do you think the house started out one way and was changed?
Look for mailboxes or
house numbers to help you make your determination.
How old do you
suppose the buildings are?
Using City Directories can help you figure out what was going
on in the city during different years.
The Genealogy department at the Main library has a collection of all of
them. You can find some of the earlier
ones online at this web address:
Online access to early city directories.
People are listed by their last names, then first names,
then address and then job.
This map of Fort Wayne is from 1907.
It shows the major businesses, schools and other local landmarks with
numbers on the map and names around the edges.
Fort Wayne map from 1898
BRING
YOUR PICTURES OCTOBER 14TH!
No comments:
Post a Comment