A couple times a month, I make a trip to one of the Dispensaries here in town. The downtown store is closer, but I like to make an expedition out of it, so I generally go to the Verizon Drive location, just across Dirksen Parkway.
I like to get creative with the route, and usually take Ash. which takes you all the way there, through Springfield's East Side. It's a little calmer than South Grand, and I like how the scenery changes as you make your way through the neighborhood.
On the way back, I sometimes cut over to Laurel at Taylor Avenue, taking it the rest of the way back home. And there's a place that always seems to catch my eye. It's a corner lot, with a big brick house and lots of yard.
This stretch of Laurel, around 15th Street, is pretty run-down, except for what looks like an Elementary School and this house right across the street. I got curious this last time and looped back to South Grand to take 15th from there to Laurel, and it looks like a DMZ. Houses with boarded-up windows on either side of the street until you get up the block aways to this house and the school right across from it.
I got the impression driving by it that this place had seen some great times. Big and roomy- a family home. And then there's all that yard. It looks like a place I'd like to live in- but more back in its heyday. I imagine when it was built--40s or 50s--
the neighborhood surrounding it was much nicer, and safer.
Looking at it from the front, it looks like it could house a couple families. Maybe it has something to do with the School across the street, those being the only nice buildings on the block.
Just a place I pass by a couple times a month on my way home from the Weed Store. Piqued my curiosity so I thought I'd share. I'm sure it would have a few stories to tell.