Three people stand on a street next to a car with an open door. The Rijksmuseum acquired this snapshot two years ago, but nothing was known about it. Where and when was the photo taken? The architectural style suggests a city in the northeastern United States. The bare trees indicate autumn, winter, or early spring. Shadows from the figures and a streetlamp reveal the sun’s position—we are looking north or west.

Behind the car in the foreground, the hat of a fourth person is visible. Of course, it would be ideal to identify the people in the photo and the photographer, but first, the location and date need to be determined.

Formstone

The street has row houses with an elevated ground floor, a basement, and a small staircase with stone steps. The roofline features a cornice with brackets, pointing to an architectural style found in Philadelphia and especially Baltimore. A distinctive feature of Baltimore is formstone—stucco applied over a brick facade to imitate the colour and texture of natural stone. This could have been altered later, as formstone fell out of fashion and many homeowners chose to remove it in favor of a red brick facade.

Cadillac and Dodge

A 1956 Cadillac de Ville in the foreground provides the earliest possible date. A more significant clue is the 1950 Dodge Coronet, which has a yellow sign in the rear window reading “LOGAN KEARSE.” Kearse (1922–1991) was a Baptist minister and civil rights activist in Baltimore. The sign also says: “Vote LOGAN KEARSE; CONGRESS [4 or 6?]th DISTRICT.” It turns out that Kearse ran for the Democratic nomination for Maryland’s Fourth Congressional District seat in 1962. He ultimately lost the primary to George H. Fallon. The primaries took place on May 15, 1962, meaning the photo was most likely taken in the early months of 1962.

Avenue

But where exactly? Many neighborhoods in Baltimore struggled with a long-term housing crisis. Homes were abandoned, boarded up, and turned into derelict buildings. Many similar structures have been demolished over the past decades, which made the search more challenging. However, the exact location was identified—it is W Fairmount Ave in West Baltimore. On Google Street View, the street is now barely recognizable. Still, various details confirm the location, as the patterns of bricks and formstone match precisely with the buildings in the photo. The shadows also provide clues about the date and time. A preliminary estimate suggests the photo was taken around mid-April, just before 8:30 a.m.