Looking for photos of Avery St in the 1900s. Where do I look?

**detroitrbychoice** · September-22-14, 09:36 PM

Im rebuilding a house on Avery, and Im trying to find exterior photos / blueprints of it. Anything. I know it was called National Street back then. So far Ive tried:

The Burton Historical Collection
Shorpy.com
Placepromo.com
The virtual motor city collection at the Reuther Library.
Google.
Manning brothers historic collection [[never got a reply from them)

Im all out of ideas. Anything else you guys can think of ?

**Bucket** · September-23-14, 06:57 AM

You can view high-res historic aerials of Avery Street, as well as the entire city and the suburbs, here. It'll give you an idea of the footprint of the house you're looking to rebuild.

You could also try asking the neighbors on the block. There are Woodbridge residents that were born and raised in the neighborhood and have been there for decades. They could potentially have a photo of the home before demolition. Good luck to you.

**Detroitnerd** · September-23-14, 08:28 AM

The Burton's Print Collection is organized by street name. Might get lucky.

**detroitrbychoice** · September-23-14, 10:27 AM

Originally Posted by Detroitnerd

The Burton's Print Collection is organized by street name. Might get lucky.

First thing I tried. No entries for Avery or National. Even looked at nearby streets....

**izzyindetroit** · September-24-14, 07:16 AM

The Detroit Building Department.

**Jimaz** · September-24-14, 11:32 AM

Originally Posted by Bucket

You can view high-res historic aerials of Avery Street, as well as the entire city and the suburbs, here. It'll give you an idea of the footprint of the house you're looking to rebuild.

I've used those DTE aerial photos before but today I couldn't get them to work correctly on two different computers with two different browsers.

I was able to get http://141.217.90.50/photos/part1/ma...omb49Index.pdf to display but clicking on HA-3-116 didn't work. So I copied "http://141.217.90.50/photos/part1/macomb/1949/" and appended "ha-3-116.pdf" to get a URL that went right to the photo.

[[Just in case that helps someone else.)

**mtburb** · September-24-14, 12:26 PM

You can try this site to see if the house you're looking for was still there in 1976, but unfortunately, the search function there has been broken for some time, returning a "Variable passed to each[[) is not an array or object in /home/placepro/public_html/includes/search_results.php on line 29" error.

**Brock7** · September-24-14, 01:38 PM

Yes, the search at PlacePromo doesn't seem to be working, but there are photos of adresses on Avery starting on page 4 going through to page 8 of the Detroit list. Check nearby adresses as the photo may include your house.
Start here: http://placepromo.com/search_results...iption=&page=4

**detroitrbychoice** · September-25-14, 07:06 PM

Originally Posted by Jimaz

I've used those DTE aerial photos before but today I couldn't get them to work correctly on two different computers with two different browsers.

I was able to get http://141.217.90.50/photos/part1/ma...omb49Index.pdf to display but clicking on HA-3-116 didn't work. So I copied "http://141.217.90.50/photos/part1/macomb/1949/" and appended "ha-3-116.pdf" to get a URL that went right to the photo.

[[Just in case that helps someone else.)

Awesome! Found the file, but its just an aerial. Doesnt really tell me anything about the front unfortunately.

**detroitrbychoice** · September-25-14, 07:08 PM

Originally Posted by Brock7

Yes, the search at PlacePromo doesn't seem to be working, but there are photos of adresses on Avery starting on page 4 going through to page 8 of the Detroit list. Check nearby adresses as the photo may include your house.
Start here: http://placepromo.com/search_results...iption=&page=4

I got the place promo photo. The picture has asbestos siding on the front that was put on in the 70's I think....so no original detail.