Talk:Goodall House (Macon, Georgia)

location puzzle

User:Bubba73, I noticed the coordinates being changed in the article, and that it was an unusual change to use the NRHP document's coordinates rather than an updated set of coordinates. Hey, on Google maps / Google street view, I can't see anything resembling this house (i.e. the house depicted in photos accompanying the NRHP nomination document), at the new/restored coordinates or at any address like 618 Orange Street. Is the building gone? Is the address incorrect? Something is off. --doncram 19:10, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

More: The Google street view allows me to zoom in on the front of the small one-story house, which turns out to have house number 619 on it, despite being on the side of street that Google thinks has even numbers. I am thinking that 618 was located across the street where there is a park now (with new brick walkways and newish trees), and thus the Goodall House was demolished (I assume it was not moved). --doncram 19:17, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

I think that is probably right. I;m trying to match the map at the end of the NRHP form with the current map, and they don't match very well. It looks like they have made major changes in the roads. The NRHP map shows it on a block with the intersection of Orange and Daisy on the SW corner, but that area is now in the park. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 19:24, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

(ec) Yes, I made a minor change in the coordinates to match the NRHP form. I'm planning to go through Macon in about a week, so I was trying to find it. I have looked a lot at the map at the end of the NRHP form, the photos with the NRHP form, satellite view, and street view, and I think that it is no longer there. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 19:19, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't think that the updated coordinates are correct, so I changed them to what the NRHP form says. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 19:26, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

(ec) For more confusion, this modern commercial building at 618 Orange Street, for sale in 2013 doesn't look like anything in sight. Oh, okay, comparing to the old map, it looks like it is not there. There have been street realignments i guess. Browsing in street view along Orange Street Lane (across the park), i don't find the house. Good luck on your picture-hunting for other NRHPs, if not this one! --doncram 19:31, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

(ec) Well, I'm not so sure about it being in what is now the park. The Bibb County list still has the other coordinates, but that is the location of a house at the corner of Orange and Daisy that is definitely not the right house. The NRHP shows the Goodall house as two houses up Orange from it. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 19:32, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

The building at the corner of Orange and High, 32.83679°N 83.63781°W / 32.83679; -83.63781 if you look at the street view from High st, it has the address 618 Orange, so I think that is where is was - not in the park. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 19:54, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Disposition of house

@Bubba73 and Doncram: TLDR version: I edited the article to detail what happened - the house was demolished in 1975 in order to build that doctors office building. In fact, the uproar over the loss of this house motivated the creation of what is now "Historic Macon Foundation" who issue grants and such to keep stuff like this from happening.

I was in Macon on Saturday, and one of the things I did while at Washington Memorial Library was to use their resources to try to narrow down what happened to some demolished buildings on the Bibb NRHP. I did discover what happened to Leroy Napier House (moved) and Solomon-Curd House (burned in 1977). I'm working on an article for the former and noted both on the county list.

Back to this house, the librarians gave me a good way to research stuff like this, for towns like Macon that have a city directory. I went through the reverse listings for Orange street in the Macon city directories and it is clear that the house was being rented out as apartments in 1972 and 1973, but shows "Vacant" in 1974. Then, in 1975 and 1976 there are no listings at all for 618 Orange. In 1977 the medical building "Internal Medicine Associates" appears. Notably, if you look in the alphabetical listings, Internal Medicine Associates is listed at 724 Hemlock, before moving to 618 Orange. The Washington Memorial Library right in the middle of Macon is a great resource for this if you are in town. Cheers. --Krelnik (talk) 13:29, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for doing that. I, of course, didn't make it to the Macon meeting. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 15:54, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, User:Krelnik, me too. I added further note at wp:NRIS info issues GA (because there is apparent error in effect, in NRIS still listing this as NRHP-listed, despite being demolished) pointing to this Talk page. Good for the community to have gotten engaged with the Historic Macon Foundation. Hmm, your point about how to research what happened is good to note, should be added to wp:NRHPHELP. To expand on your point of using city directories, there are "Sanborn maps" (Sanborn map? which were perhaps fire insurance-related? yes, see article Sanborn Maps) prepared every few years for many areas in the U.S. including in New York State for some long period, which have commonly been used to establish date ranges when a building appeared or disappeared, to be used like a city directory in the same way, and this should be described too. I will try to add something later and will ping for your attention to fix it up further, if possible. --Doncram (talk) 20:59, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

When I first moved to this city in 2002, I knew that my great uncle had lived here decades ago (in Windsor Park Historic District). I remembered what his house looked like, but I didn't know where it was. I went to the library and asked if they had old phone books, so I could look it up. They referred to the city directory instead, and that worked. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 21:03, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

I thought "city directory" was meaning telephone books. Now I am confused. What is a city directory? I.e. produced/published by whom for what purpose? --Doncram (talk) 22:37, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

A City directory lists about the same information. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:14, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I suppose, before telephones, or before every household had a telephone, that it would be useful nonetheless to have a directory of properties with names of residents and businesses, and it could have been published by the city if not by a commercial venture or a chamber of commerce or whatever. And it could have served the role played by county assessor websites nowadays (and that emerged, when, in the 1990s?), which allow lookup of all property owners and some information about structures. [oh, duh, i didn't see Bubba73 had already linked to city directory article]Hmm, there is a Wikipedia article City directory which is very inadequate IMHO. Ancestry.com has a page, About U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 with "This database is a collection of directories for U.S. cities and counties in various years. The database currently contains directories for all states except Alaska. / Generally a city directory will contain an alphabetical list of citizens, listing the names of the heads of households, their addresses, and occupational information. Sometimes a wife's name will be listed in parentheses or italics following the husband's. Other helpful information might include death dates for individuals who had been listed in the previous year's directory, names of partners in firms, and forwarding addresses or post offices for people who had moved to another town." Another website offers searches of city directories and census records and so on for a fee, and states "City Directories, arguably one of the most over-looked resources by genealogists, have been around since the 1700s." I guess it shows that I don't do geneological research, not to know about these. --Doncram (talk) 07:21, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

There were companies that published these directories for the various cities, the one that did Macon's was R.L. Polk but I suppose there were probably others. The best part of a city directory vis-a-vis a regular phone book is many (including Macon's) have a section organized by street & number, so you can look up what was at a location. Of course, the book is not going to tell you what type of building was at that address, just how it was being used. (So if a building was demolished and very quickly replaced, that might not be evident from city directories). Still, the name & number of the tenants or business can be useful - it can tell you how many apartments an old house was divided into, etc. Over on Solomon-Curd House the Macon directory revealed that it was being used by a business called "House of Hines" prior to its loss, and Googling that name quickly leads to stories about the house burning. --Krelnik (talk) 13:49, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Okay i am mid-edit at wp:NRHPHELP#City directories in NRHPHELP's "Other resources" section. --Doncram (talk) 15:40, 6 November 2018 (UTC)