Dan Antion

2019 in Review – #ThursdayDoors

This is the last opportunity to share some doors until after the ball drops in Times Square and we enter the third decade of this millennium. Norm is taking a couple of weeks off for the holidays, and he has suggested that we take today to look back at 2019 and post some of our favorite doors. That’s 50 weeks worth of doors to choose from and it wasn’t easy to narrow the selection to 20 doors.

Since the doors already have a caption, I’m going to skip the gallery and put them in-line so I can briefly let you know why I chose them.

Horace H. Ellsworth House – 1873

This photo was crowdsourced. It received a lot of wonderful comments, albeit most of the people who like this picture, like the porch.

Hopefully, you will find this color scheme more acceptable.

The week before I posted this photo, I featured a Victorian house that was painted in a very bland color scheme.

I love this barn!
This house sits next to the blue-banded Victorian I shared a few weeks ago.

This is the house I wanted to feature the week after the bland Victorian. Unfortunately, this house is on a busy street, and I had to wait for the right time to get the picture.

Brad’s comment: “I am a lifelong kitchen fan….this is one of my favorites…Harold Lloyd mansion kitchen ….Ortiz…Herald-Examiner [ca. 1973]”

My friend Brad Lewis provided several doors in 2019. He has an amazing ability to locate interesting historic photos, especially from the New York City area.

This looks like Dr. Seuss built it.

I used to walk with a friend at lunch during nice weather. We walked by a house that has about 25 bird houses. I featured those bird houses one week, but this is the one I liked the best.

I recently captured a couple of pictures of Snoopy feeding her children.

Keeping with the birdhouse theme, this is our birdhouse and our bird. We bought the house and installed it to attract blue birds. This bird took over. She sits on the roof a lot, so we call her Snoopy.

The Old Manse Boathouse, from the North Bridge.

The Old Manse (Concord, MA), the onetime home of Ralph Waldo Emerson is a place that I toured (the grounds) one day while working in neighboring Burlington, MA. It turns out I have a lot of followers who like Emerson. The house is beautiful, but I like the boathouse more.

  • The boiler door is open so…
  • The steam engine can move on its own, and the large drive wheel on top can power machinery of all sorts.

On vacation with my brother in Minneapolis, MN, we visited a museum in the old General Mills flour mill.

The Robbins House. Two families lived here, Each occupied the area on either side of the door.

I don’t often make a social statement on my blog, but this house moved me. As I said in the post, when I think of slavery, I always associate New England with the abolitionist movement. I wasn’t aware of how often New Englanders were slave holders.

It may not be the best looking door, but I’m kind of partial to it.
The blacksmith shop is an impressive building.

This is the blacksmith shop at Old Sturbridge Village. We have toured OSV many times, but this shop either wasn’t open, or we didn’t circle around to this area of the village. This was the first time we saw the blacksmith.

Brad said the dress code was casual, so I didn’t bother to stop in.

Brad Lewis is not normally in New York, but he visits now and then and I was able to meet up with him in June.

I love that door!

On Faith’s birthday, we visited Northampton, MA. We hiked along a rail-trail, had lunch in a brew pub and played a game of mini-golf. We saw this old warehouse along the rail-trail.

Inside the main entrance.

An errand in August took me to an office inside the old G Fox department store. I hadn’t been inside since they closed this store, once the flagship of G Fox. G Fox became Filene’s and eventually Macy’s.

  • I have featured a version of these doors before. We keep returning.
  • This is why we keep returning.

Faith, my brother and I ate here when we visited Pittsburgh in August. Faith loves to have lunch at this little deli.

The field next to this barn is barren and the barn looks to be packed to the gills.

I’ve often featured tobacco barns, but until this year, I hadn’t had the opportunity to see them full of drying tobacco. I dedicated an entire post to full tobacco barns.

This boat is of a similar style to the one I worked on in the early 70s, It’s built on a barge and pushed like a barge would be, but a powerhouse tug.

While in Pittsburgh, Faith and my brother and I took a boat in Gateway Clipper fleet on our way to PNC Park. I promised Teagan R. Geneviene that I would get some photos of riverboats (not a lot to ask me) for her story “The Delta Pearl” – if you aren’t reading that, you should be.

I need to return to this park on a weekend when the facilities are open.

On one of my last trips to Burlington, MA for work with the New England Chapter of AIIM International, I had to switch hotels during the day. The gap between checkout and check-in afforded me the chance to visit this restored railroad depot.

East 7th Street between 2nd Avenue and Cooper Square 1976 – Wallach/Colmer

This photo was also shared by Brad Lewis, and it is my favorite door from 2019. I think my regular readers understand.

Thank you so much for visiting my blog. If you are one of my regular readers, I truly appreciate your visits and I love you comments. If you’re interested in seeing more doors, please skip on up to Norm’s page.

73 comments

  5. You chose well. You always have such a great selection of doors, I’m amazed you were able to narrow it down. After all, each one has its own story that makes it special.

    But the last one! I paid no attention to the door…..only the beautiful Maddie look-alike!

    You thanked us for following. I thank you for your informative, funny, thoughtful blogs and allowing me to tag along even though I have no blog. This blogging community is amazing. I love reading the comments you get. Some are so insightful while others are hysterical. All are interesting. I have made some wonderful cyber friends Dan, not the least of which is you. Looking forward to your blogs next year as a retiree. Perhaps 2020 will be a year of “vision” for all of us!
    Ginger

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • Thank you so much, Ginger. You are a wonderful part of this community. I love seeing your comments and I love seeing them on other blogs that I follow.

      It was hard to get to 20 (I cheated with the two mini-galleries). I was trying for 12, but I just couldn’t make that happen. These are the last doors for 2019, but I’ll be out here to wish you a Merry and a Happy.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  7. Excellent choices Dan. I love’em all so it’s impossible to try to pick a favorite. It was indeed a very good year for doors.
    All the best to you and the family for the holidays my friend, and much health and happiness, and perhaps a visit north in 2020? Cheers!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Thanks Norm. And thanks again for making this possible. I hope you have a very Merry Christmas a happy and healthy new year. No travel plans yet, I’m still enjoying absence of a trip on my calendar, but who knows, a year is a long time.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  12. Frist let me thank you for the shout-out for the Delta Pearl, Dan — because there’s so much I love in this post that I might forget my manners.
    I’ve always loved looking at Victorian houses. Several years ago, I made a valiant try to get a job in a tiny Oregon town mostly because I was so charmed by the fact that they had several Victorian homes in my meager price range. Gazeboes have captured me since childhood, along with any turret… Trying to control myself here — moving on. The barn and the boathouse are definitely favorites with me. Plus that vintage kitchen full of doors! This is the kind of post that I could keep coming back to, again and again. Well done. Hugs on the wing!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  26. Hi Dan – the tobacco barn is interesting to see … while I love your other houses, painted or otherwise … and including the birdhouse. The converted warehouse looks interesting … and great to see various places and ‘doors’ .. fun – thanks – cheers Hilary

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  31. Absolutely a good year in doors for you, Dan — and for us, thanks for sharing. A few of these are so memorable — Robbins House, the barn, setter on the stoop. Really good collection here.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Add your thoughts or join the discussion. One relevant link is OK, more require moderation. Markdown is supported.

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.