Cool: Old Houston Photos Mashed with Their Present-Day Houston Equivalent

By Richard Connelly Fri., Apr. 6 2012 at 7:00 AM

Houston Press staffer Abrahán Garza likes to meld Houston's past and present together.

He goes around town matching up old postcards to present-day sites, something he saw on the Web a year or so ago.

"I'll find a remnant in the old photo I will try to match it up perfectly," he says. "It's definitely a plus when it's an existing window or a doorway. I love when locations still have the original awnings, windowpanes or doors. I believe it's sad when I find a location that is now a parking lot where once stood a beautiful, interesting building with detailed, thought-out architecture that no one would ever know about today."

Some of the results so far:

9. Upstairs on the Square and Huber Seafood House & Oyster Bar (212 Travis Street), 1975

8. Main and Capitol streets in 1943. The Flying Saucer is at this current location on the left.

7. Main Street at Capitol Street in the 1930s.

Tags:

Old Houston

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Laurie Bennett

Always great to see someone else interested in history! I agree with Mojo; would love to see Galveston!

Katy

These are pretty fantastic.

They also make me feel better about Houston's sense of history. I always joke that they tear the whole city down and rebuild it every 25 years, but here we have examples of areas of downtown that are remarkably unchanged!

Mojoboogie2

Very Nice! Would be cool to try around Downtown Galveston.

susyq

Love these old post cards! I believe there is a book that has side by side photos of old and new Houston. I used to work at Half Price Books and saw it there. I especially like the dude in the kilt with the sandwich board from the 60's.

Brenda Garcia417

Great job and thanks for reminding us of how beautiful Houston once was!

Tunnel Mole

More, please! Great work--

Vivek Bara

Amazing ones takes you back in time

Kylejack

Really nice, Abrahán. J.R. Gonzales at the Chronicle was doing a similar thing called Then and Now for a while, but hasn't posted much recently.

Breakdead16

This is much better.

Kylejack

Both are great, and we are fortunate enough to have both. This one really blew me away. http://blog.chron.com/bayoucit...

David Houston

I like this a lot. I'm very into old photos and digitally restoring them. My wife's grandfather was an active Houston photographer from the turn of the last century up until about 1930/40. We have two albums of his photos, maybe 300 in all. The old hats, clothes and buildings are great to look at. Many pictures of his Army days in WW1 with his Texas comrades. One or two controversial images with racial segration issues, which make you look twice at them and shake your head. One is a fascinating image of a man being hanged at a public execution. One of a posse on horseback posing over dead bodies! [some of this is alarming stuff]. One may be an image of actress Clara Bow. An image of a building after the Galveston disaster, (he was a volunteer there). Also one or two older pictures which we think his father took from about the 1860's, an image of Confederate soldiers marching we think in Houston, and a picture we think is related to the Spanish-American war. I should go through them and see if there is at least one photo I could this with.

Cholly97

It's like ghosts coming alive. So fun to see these pictures.

Natalie Silva

abe rocks.

rollerderbymx

surreal

BKHTX

I love this!!!

Jeff

Pure awesome.

dvdgrz06

Aw man heck yea, these have got to be the best past/present photos i've ever seen. JUST TAKE A LOOK AT THE PERFECTION INVOLVED with alining the buildings to the exact.Nice job Abe.