Here is 619 East Green Street, the Charlie Thomas house, in the 1980s when photographed for the National Register application for East Wilson. The small attached cinderblock building, Bea’s Flower Shop, was demolished a few years later.
I photographed the house in 2017 when I first featured it in this series. The photo below, taken in October 2025, shows the toll of eight more years.
Two months later, I photographed 619 again.
I do not begrudge a renovation that returns a decaying house to livable condition, and I understand the hard choices that must be made when updating and making efficient a house more than 100 years old, but I am saddened by the loss of architectural detail here. The original bracketed, turned porch posts replaced by plain four-by-fours are a particular loss, as are the reduced-size windows.
I am always saddened when the beautiful architecture of older homes is not preserved. I often think of the pride the original owners especially black owners must have felt just to be able to afford such an elegant home in that era. It is truly sad that so much of our history is being lost to time.