Research branch · camera first
Photographic Breadcrumbs
Surviving photographs. Not proof of a theory. Look at the picture, read what the archive says it is, and compare it with the maps.
The path is a baseline, then documented changes of terrain and street grade, then catastrophic destruction. Reconstruction is not in this first collection. The archival files are not cropped or redrawn.
Some chairs also carry Modern Eyes: a labeled visualization made from that photograph, so the scene is easier to look at. It stays on the same chair. It is not another source, and it is not a separate gallery. The original remains the evidence.
Camera first
World’s Fairs
Official plates and archive links. Not a verdict.
- 01
24 September 1848
Cincinnati waterfront
Cincinnati, Ohio
Modern Eyes attached
About two miles of the riverfront: steamboats, the landing, the young city, and the hills behind it.
- 02
1859
Broadway on a rainy day
New York City
Modern Eyes attached
A wet masonry street, seen as a stereograph: two frames on one card, horses, wagons, and multi-story buildings.
- 03
18 August 1855
Brattle Street
Boston
Modern Eyes attached
A dense brick street, the roadway, and a church tower. Carriages are in the street.
- 04
Daguerreotypes likely before 22 April 1851
From Rincon Hill
San Francisco
Modern Eyes attached
The harbor, ships, a low city, and open hills. Gaps in the panorama are missing sections, not a crop made here.
- 05
Before the 18 April 1906 fire
Market Street, from the film
San Francisco · film frame
Modern Eyes attached
Market Street from a moving car: tracks, masonry blocks, traffic, and the Ferry Building tower at the end of the street.
- 06
1906
Market Street after the fire
San Francisco
Modern Eyes attached
A ruined masonry street, tracks in the roadway, a tower at the end of the view. Smoke is still in the air.
- 07
28 May 1906
The burnt district, from kites
San Francisco
A field of destroyed blocks. The waterfront is in the near ground. Streets run through the ruins.
- 08
1906
City Hall in ruins
San Francisco
The dome’s frame is bare. Walls are down. Rubble fills the foreground.
- 09
Probably 1890
From Denny Hill
Seattle
The camera is on the hill. The city spreads below: houses, a church, a street, and open ground at the edge of town.
- 10
Probably 1908–1915
The remains of Denny Hill
Seattle
Two cut remnants of the hill, a house between them, and a jet of water from a hydraulic giant.
- 11
1906
Washington Hotel on the cut
Seattle
The hotel and nearby houses sit high on the remaining earth. The street below has been cut down.
- 12Photograph not filed
Not filed
Old street level
Seattle
The photograph sought is one that shows a former ground floor against a later, higher sidewalk.
- 13
Probably 1890, and 1906
Denny Hill, before and during
Seattle
One picture is made from the hill, looking over the city. The other is the hill being cut, with the hotel left above the street.
- 14
1871
After the fire
Chicago
A long field of masonry shells, chimneys, and rubble. A street runs through the middle of the ruins.
- 15
1857
Lake Street
Chicago · print, not a photograph
A row of masonry buildings. The sidewalk is up. The roadway is below it. Stairs connect the two levels.
- 16Photograph not filed
1860s
Raised streets
Sacramento
The photograph sought is the raised business streets of the 1860s: new grade, and the older level at the buildings.
- 17
About 1904–1910
Houses up, fill coming in
Galveston, Texas · postcard
Houses stand on piers. Fill is being pumped in around them.
- 18
7 February 1904
Pratt Street after the fire
Baltimore
A ruined brick street, looking east on Pratt Street. Both halves of the stereograph are on the card. Ice from the firefighting is in the foreground.
- 19
19 April 1904
Front Street after the fire
Toronto
Blocks of masonry shells along a street. A later purple catalog line crosses the lower left of this scan. It is not part of the 1904 exposure. It was left in place rather than painted out.
- 20
December 1870
Looking landward
Duluth, Minnesota
The shoreline, the wooden town, and the hillside behind it, with the lake in the foreground of the photograph.
These 20 are a starting collection, not a numerical limit. Another photograph is another chair.