My Search For the Location of an Old Photo

 

I love old photographs; they are such an indisputable record of the past. I often buy old photos that have subjects that interest me... like cars. When I found this old picture at a flea market for only a dollar, I snatched it up.

 What was particularly fascinating was the writing on the back: August 7. 49.

Of course I knew the car was an Oldsmobile 88 Convertible (if you didn’t know, you could read that on the lower part of the front fender). The fact that the month and year is listed tells us it’s a ‘49 Olds because a 1950 model wouldn’t have come out until later in the year and 1948 or earlier models had totally different body styles. 

But... Warrington Drive. Wouldn’t you like to know where that is... or was? And how could I find out? Well, I love a good challenge so I set out to try and solve the mystery of where this image was made.

 

(Click on photo to enlarge)

 

  The photo looks like it was taken on a wooded residential street;  because the woman has a new car she’s probably got some money and lives in an upscale part of the city. She’s obviously posing for the camera, in a driveway, next to another driveway; the sun is full on the right side of the car so that’s probably facing south. Using a magnifying glass I could see part of a two-story brick house, with a curved protrusion (like for a bay window), with a wide white/light-colored band above it, and a small side window, on the right edge of the photo (see the red oval on the right side of photo). On the left edge of the photo (across the street) is another two-story brick house with a second-story side window that’s about four-feet to the left of a ground-floor side window; there looks to be a fancy wide frame around the front door (see the red oval on the left side of the photo). 

The first thing I did was Google Warrington Drive. Thank God it wasn’t “Main Street” or “4th Street,” or some other more common name, or I would have never even tried. Luckily, I came up with only nine possibilities (there may be more that did not show up in my search). Each time I found one I’d pull up a Google map of the street in question, put the “little man” on Warrington Drive, and move him along the street, checking to see if anything looked like a match to my old photo. 

There’s a Warrington Dr. in New Orleans but it’s a fairly short street, with very few trees around, and most of the homes are ranches or small two-stories; not a brick two-story house in sight. There’s another Warrington Dr. in Granada Hills, California; it’s very hilly, with lots of curves, and lots of Spanish-style homes. Katy, Texas, is a short street with mostly low and high-ranches; no solid brick here either. I looked at Grand Prairie, Texas; Indianapolis, Indiana; Mobile, Alabama; Lake Bluff, Illinois... nothing even came close to my old photo. There’s even a Warrington Drive in Henderson, Nevada, overlooking downtown Las Vegas, but it’s a brand new gated community so that’s definitely not it. 

And then I looked at Warrington Drive in Detroit, Michigan. The first thing that popped up was this view – pretty much typical for the entire length of the street: 

 Hummm... two-story brick homes in an obviously upscale part of the city, eh? It looks like we might have hit pay dirt! 

This Warrington Drive is quite long, with three distinct segments, but the area between W 7-Mile Road and Santa Clara Street had the most two-story brick houses, set back quite a bit from the street, with driveways and relatively generous space between the homes. 

And there, two houses south of W 7-Mile Road, on the east side of Warrington Drive, was a two-story, solid brick house, with a curved extension in the front, a wide white/light-colored band above those windows, and a small window set back about five or six feet from the front corner of the building.

 There’s a large amount of space between this house and the one to the right of it – with side-by-side driveways – which all seems to perfectly match the details of the old photo. 

On the opposite side of the street, exactly where you would expect it, is another house that appears to be the one on the left edge of the old photo. Of course, most of the older trees in the original photo are no longer standing after 75 years.

 There’s a ground floor side window near the front of the house and an upstairs side window to the left of it, as seen in the photo. Of course, there are other side windows but – because of all the tree foliage in the original photo from 1949 – I couldn’t see those before. There’s even a fancy frame around the front door (seen better in the upper photo) . 

So, do you think I located the spot where the old photo was taken?  I think I did!