Storm-Damaged Waterfront Outbuilding, New England Coast, 1950s

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Storm-Damaged Waterfront Outbuilding, New England Coast, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Storm-Damaged Waterfront Outbuilding, New England Coast, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-4DFA5C

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Sometime in the 1950s, on a narrow road at the edge of a coastal inlet in New England, someone photographed a small red outbuilding that had been knocked askew and relieved of its windows, which were now replaced with boards in the provisional way of people who intend to get around to a proper repair eventually. Scattered timber and a tarpaulin-covered debris pile in the scrub grass suggest a storm had recently reorganized the property without anyone's permission, the kind of northeast coastal event that periodically reminded waterfront communities that building at the edge of a tidal flat was an ongoing negotiation rather than a settled matter. A clapboard house stands back from the water behind bare autumn trees, close enough to suggest it survived better, which may be why whoever owned it found the outbuilding worth documenting rather than simply bulldozing. The boarded windows and propped framing have the look of a structure someone had decided was salvageable on Tuesday and would reassess by Thursday. In mid-century coastal New England, the line between a building under repair and a building quietly giving up was maintained largely by optimism.

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