Alley (Galveston)

Most people stay on Main Street while shopping. As you probably had expected by now, today’s fieldtrip had the back alley as its destination. You might wonder what is interesting about an alley. We didn’t just go to an average alley, went to the alley of ‘the Strand’. This is one of the main shopping areas on Galveston Island, which is about an hour drive south of Houston. This area has an 100+ year history, which we hoped would result in a few interesting photos.

The photo below displays one of those 100 year old building. I was a bit amazed by the gigantic size of the wall/beam anchors. And why are the anchors in the building on the right nearly twice as large as the building on the left?


My personal assignment is to get at least one reflection shot during every fieldtrip.


Maintenance is usually not a priority in the alley.


Most houses in the US have an electricity meter on the outside of the building. This is just one of the numerous examples of relative fragile items in public which hardly get demolished. Similar items in public in Europe need to be constructed like a tank otherwise they won’t survive the following weekend.


Galveston Island suffered a lot of damage during hurricane Ike. I think the repair man working on the electricity system below took a few short cuts to go home early.


This shutter must be quite old and I think only the right shutter is keeping it in its place. As a risk engineer I didn’t stay here more than needed just to take the photo. All the wooden shutters in this alley were covered with metal. The reason was not very clear to me, because it accelerated the wood to deteriorate.


This old door has quite a long history of replacing the door handles. In the past someone cared about the door and filled the empty holes from the screws. The guy making the last changes didn’t care anymore and just replaced the lock leaving the wood more vulnerable to deterioration.