Houston Time Portal
  • Main Street
    • Commerce
    • Congress - Levy's
    • Congress - Union Bank
    • Franklin - Stayton
    • Main at Franklin
    • Preston - Foley Bros
    • Preston - Kiam
    • Texas - Capitol Hotel
    • Texas - Binz
    • Capitol - Stowers
    • Capitol - Great Jones
    • Rusk - Oliver
    • Rusk - Automobiles
    • Rusk - Carter Building
    • Walker - 5 High Ones
    • Walker - Beatty
    • Lamar - 1940's
    • Polk - North
    • Bell - Homes
    • Gray - Homes
    • Dallas - Fox
    • Preston - Czech
  • Other Streets
    • Congress - East
    • Congress - South
    • Congress - Casino
    • Preston at Bagby
    • Preston at Travis
    • McKinney at Fannin
    • McKinney at San Jac - W
    • Lamar at Fannin - N
    • Texas at Milam - E
    • Texas at Milam - NE
    • Texas at Fannin - W
    • Texas at Fannin - Armory
    • Texas at Fannin - SW
    • Texas at Crawford
    • Texas at Jackson
    • Travis Street
  • Transportation
    • Interurban Station - Banners
    • Interurban Viaduct
    • Grand Central Station
    • Cotton Barge - Spear
    • Allen' Landing - Grombach
    • Union Station - S
    • Union Station - N
    • Allen's Landing - Maud Gentle
    • Cotton Barge - Grombach
    • San Jacinto Bridge
    • Bayou Scene
    • Viaduct
    • William Windom
    • Cotton Barge - Myrtle
  • Business Life
    • Produce Row
    • First National Bank
    • Houston Land & Trust
    • South Texas Bank
    • Post Building
    • Woolworth
    • Preston at Fannin
    • Munn's
    • Paul / Settegast
    • Cafe Sauter - Northeast
    • Cale-Lane
    • Waddell's
    • Market Square
    • Dowling Statue
    • Main at Elgin - Sears
    • Cotton Exchange
    • Model Laundry
    • Texaco Building
    • Lumberman’s Bank
  • Worship
    • Shearn Methodist
    • Christ Church
    • Methodist at Main
    • Methodist at Clay
    • German Lutheran Church
    • Methodist at Bell
    • 1st Presbyterian
    • Central Christian
    • 2nd Presbyterian Church
    • St. Joseph’s Church
    • Beth Israel
    • Adath Yeshurun
    • Glenwood Cemetery
  • Home Life
    • Stratford Hotel
    • Milby Hotel
    • Bristol Hotel
    • Cotton Hotel
    • T. W. House
    • Jones Mansion
    • Hathaway
    • Joseph P. Carter
    • Taub House
    • Rusk Residence
    • Savoy
    • Beaconsfield
    • Rossonian
    • Oxford Apartments
    • Macatee Hotel
    • The Waverly
    • Leeland Apartments
    • Darlington
    • Courtlandt
    • Westmoreland
  • Civic Life
    • St. Joseph Infirmary
    • YWCA
    • Auditorium Entrance
    • Auditorium from Capitol
    • High School
    • Fannin School
    • Rice University Admin
    • YMCA - 1908
    • YMCA - 1941
    • Thalian Club
    • Jail
    • Coliseum
    • Bell Telephone
    • Carnegie Library
    • Courthouse
    • Opera House
    • Fire Station
    • Post Office
    • Southern Pacific Hospital
    • Pythian Castle
    • Harriet Lane
    • Confederate Monument
    • City Park - Downtown
    • Park Gate
    • Kellum Noble House
    • Brownie
    • Gazebo - Sam Houston Park
    • St Agnes
  • Camp Logan
  • Galveston
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Houston from the east taken from a letterpress cut used in publishing. Printed at The Printing Museum in Houston, TX by the author. Click on image for the building key.

Houston Time Portal

I am a haunted man. My ghosts are not fleeting apparitions lurking just out of sight in the midnight darkness, no, indeed. They appear to me in the midday hustle and bustle of downtown. They are huge visions, sometimes twelve or thirteen stories tall, and they fill a very three dimensional space, they have perspective, they even cast shadows.

You see, my ghosts are the vestiges of entire buildings now long destroyed or defaced. Once, on the cusp of the nineteenth and twentieth century, these edifices were the pride of prosperous men of commerce in Houston. Now they are gone altogether, stone and iron replaced by glass and steel. Or they are transformed into something unrecognizable, a flashy aluminum facade slipped over a time-worn face.

My witches’ portal into this hidden world is the viewfinder of my camera. Through that narrow window I see my phantoms forcing their contours into the present. Sometimes these lost structures strain to manifest within the vast bulk of a forty or fifty story glass tower, at other times they more easily fill an empty parking lot.
When conjuring, I hold my camera to my face intently for long minutes, then pull my camera down to look at the paper rectangle in my hand. This slip of cardstock is a vintage postcard from about 1909, captioned with an address, a convergence of streets, or the name of a building. I look at it intently, memorizing the pattern of windows, the angle from the street, the direction of the shadows. Then I look again through the viewfinder at the landscape confronting me a century later. I see my ghost building on the corner, four stories tall. It stares out at me through the glassy reflections, pushing itself into my mind. Yes, there it is!

​"Look at me! Remember me!" it exhorts.
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Business Life
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Street Life
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Transport
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Civic Life
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Home Life
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Main Street
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Worship
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Camp Logan
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