We’re only going to be living in Downingtown for a couple more weeks. Every other day, I drive past a house at 118 Logan Ave. where we lived until I was 10 years old.
If I remember correctly, these houses were built with the intention of being used by the families of the people who worked at the Sonoco paper plant across the street. My grandfather used to work at that plant, and his office was only a short walk away.
The house is now completely boarded up. I walked around the ground and took pictures, since I don’t have any from when we lived there, and I still have memories of the place.
The house next door has long since been torn down. Grass grows now where the Reeves’ house use to be. The only thing left is the asphalt driveway, which was just dirt and rock when I was little.
I don’t remember the porch being so enclosed like this, but maybe that’s just the effect of the boards covering the openings. The metal fence we put up has also been (nearly) completely torn down.
I looked for evidence of the treehouse, but I couldn’t find it. I think they might even have dug up the concrete foundation where we planted the 4×4 “trees”. The 
concrete had my initials in it. It’s odd to think that when I put them there I thought they would last forever, and now I’m an adult with my own kids approaching that age and I’m a bit shocked by the fact that the permanent mark I had left on the world in the joy of my youth is just… gone.
Many of the houses on the old block are just boarded up. The paper mill in the background of some of these photos isn’t producing paper any more. They had a fire recently and decided to shut down operations at this branch rather than rebuid. I think they’re going to turn the whole thing into apartments.
