Small-Boat Harbour and Waterfront Parking, Pacific Northwest, 1950s

Archive & AtlasEstablished · MMXXIII

Small-Boat Harbour and Waterfront Parking, Pacific Northwest, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Small-Boat Harbour and Waterfront Parking, Pacific Northwest, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-ACEB58

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Somewhere along a Pacific Northwest inlet — the dense fir-covered hillside rising straight from the water, the white clapboard commercial buildings crowded to the shoreline, and the small working dock are the regional signatures — a row of postwar American sedans sits in a waterfront lot while their owners are presumably doing something useful nearby. In the 1950s, small coastal communities like this one measured their prosperity by how many cars could fit between the water and the road, and this lot is doing well. The boats moored at the dock are working craft rather than pleasure vessels, which meant the town still had a reason to exist beyond scenery — a distinction that would become harder to maintain over the following decades as these harbours were gradually reimagined as marinas for people in deck shoes. The hillside houses visible across the inlet, perched on the rocky slope with the studied casualness of people who believe their view entitles them to a certain amount of inconvenience, are the real subject of the picture whether the photographer knew it or not: every working waterfront in this region was quietly becoming the backdrop for someone's vacation property.

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