That's why I thought it was interesting that the Lorain Journal published the pair of photos of the two houses above, one at 623 West 30th Street and the other at 1442 West 34th Street. The photos of the two recently-sold homes appeared in the paper on March 6, 1954.
So why did these homes receive special attention? Well, a lucky realtor had just helped a Lorain couple sell the house on W. 30th Street and then purchase the brick house on W. 34th.
These days, it's probably not unusual for a realtor to do double duty. We did the same thing when selling our 1940s colonial on Nebraska Avenue; the same realtor was used to find another house, which ended up being in Sheffield Lake less than a mile away.
But what's interesting to me is that my parents made almost the same move that the couple in the ad did. My parents' first house (which was given to them by my father's grandfather) was on W. 30th Street near Broadway, not far from the one in the top photo. When they sold it (it was simply too small) they built a new house on West 30th St., west of Ashland Avenue and not far from the house on W. 34th in the photo.
I guess there must have been a strong urge by homeowners living in the older neighborhoods to be a part of the rapid growth on the West Side. Many iconic businesses (like Willow Hardware and Whalen Drug) and shopping centers were springing up to replace farmland, and it was probably hard to resist the new roads, schools, etc.
And what about the two homes in the 1954 article? They both still look great and are in neighborhoods that remain nice, seventy years later.
