Introduction
A few days before Thanksgiving (2020), a gent from Maryland emailed me about my photographs of Pearl Street. He had grown up on there in the 1960s and said my photographs of the houses along both sides of the railroad tracks were the only ones he could find on the web. We met one afternoon and walked around. He was in town to visit his 94-year-old mother, who no longer lived in the old family home and now lived in another part of town.
The family home had just recently been razed, as shown by fresh dirt on the site. He told me that before the urban renewal program of the 1970s, they all used outhouses behind the houses. Federal funds covered the cost of installing sewers and connecting piping to the houses. He also remembered when Tuminello's (500 Speed Street) was considered the finest restaurant in town, but African Americans were not allowed to eat there. Several small local grocery stores catered to the local residents. All the children knew each other and played together, and parents kept an eye on the games.
My friend's visit inspired me to look over Kodachrome slides that I took along Pearl Street over the years. Some I had scanned before, and I scanned the remainder. I will show reduced-size versions below. They are ordered from south to north, so the house numbers decrease. See the caption under each frame for the address. Many of these cottages have been demolished, and today there is nothing left to see. Brush and trees occupy many of the former house lots. Click any frame to see a larger view of 1600 pixels on the long dimension.
Pearl Street south of Fairground Street
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| 2607 Pearl Street |
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| 2605 Pearl Street |
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| 2603 Pearl Street |
These houses are still extant. The railroad embankment runs right in front of their porches and ruins the view. At least the locomotives no longer sound their deafening horns now. I took these photographs from the tracks.
Fairground Street
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| Fairground Street Keystone bridge, view east, photograph taken from top of petroleum tank at Levee Street tank farm |
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| 501-509 Fairground Street cottages, photograph taken from top of petroleum tank at Levee Street tank farm |
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| 503-507 Fairground Street (Leitz 90mm ƒ/2.8 Tele-Elmarit lens) |
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| 502 Fairground Street (2020 photograph taken with Kodak Ektar 25 film, Hasselblad 501CM camera) |
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Fairground Street Keystone bridge (Leica IIIC, 5cm ƒ/3.5 Elmar lens, ⅒ ƒ/11.5)
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| Fairground Street Bridge from KCS tracks (Kodak Ektar 25 film, Hasselblad 501CM camera, 80mm ƒ/2.8 Planar-CB lens) |
Fairground once was a through street that gave access to Levee Street on the west side of the railroad yard. I remember driving over the Keystone bridge in the 1980s, but the city deemed it unsafe and closed it to traffic in the 1990s. At one time, the City was going to move it to the Catfish Park at the waterfront, but nothing came of the plan.
Fairground Street view north
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| KCS train heading south. Note iron rooftops on the left |
This is the view north along the tracks on the east side of Pearl Street. At one time, a parallel road on the west side extended as far as the cottages on the west (see the iron roofs). All these houses are now gone.
Film Notes
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| The last of the Kodachrome 25 film. |
Most of the photographs above are scans of Kodachrome 25 (K25) color slide film. Kodachrome was the world's first successful color transparency film. Introduced in 1935 and modified over the years, it was in use until 2010, an amazing 75-year production history. Many people associate mid-century color photography with the colors of Kodachrome. It had a certain look. For more information about this historic film:
- Mike Eckman wrote a blog post on Kodachrome and reproduced an excellent 50-year anniversary article from Modern Photography magazine. Mike reviews classic film cameras and summarizes articles on various film topics.
- Wikipedia has a good article with a timeline of the different emulsions.
- A short 2009 article in Time.
- Original sources and examples from filmcolors.org
- Retrospective with contributed examples on casualphotophile.com. Casual is a great site for film photographers.
I find Kodachrome difficult to scan with my Plustek 7600i film scanner, especially compared to scanning color negative (color print) film. Dense slides just do not scan well. The color balance is often off, but using the "HDR" setting on the Silverfast Ai scanning software usually handles the colors reasonably well. Sometimes, I use the neutral grey dropper tool to set the colors. Placing the dropper tool on grey pavement usually works. My experience with Nikon's Coolscan scanners was better, but they are no longer in production and are extremely expensive on ePrey. And if the Coolscan unit fails, it may not be repairable any more.
