Like a batty old relative pulling out the photo albums for the umpteenth time, I'll take a moment to mark today as the eight-year anniversary of my tracking the changes that were starting to take place south of the freeway. The 63 photos I took while Mr. JDLand drove me around aren't a complete archive of every building in the neighborhood at that time, because frankly all I was doing that day was getting a few shots for myself and not planning the launch of an obsessive compulsive project that would suck up almost all of my free time and energy for years to come. But I came home and put them on my web site so my father could see them, made up a page with some links so I could easily go back to sites to check for updates, and off we went.

And now maybe it's just as noteworthy to mark Jan. 19, 2003 as the day I took the shot of the Little Red Building standing alone, since that's become the somewhat iconic shot of where the neighborhood was compared to what it was about to become.

Anyway, it's been quite a ride for eight years, with a lot of words and a lot pictures (about 50,000 of them), and I hope that people are continuing to find the site useful and interesting. Thanks for reading, commenting, and sending me news and tips! Hopefully 2011 will be a bounty of news and happenings.

[PS: Is it a sign of a marriage that's getting long in the tooth that I swore the anniversary was actually tomorrow until I saw the "Today in (Recent) Near Southeast History" box on the right side of the home page? So--oops--I guess my State of the Hood is going to be posted on my eight-year-and-one-day anniversary. And I'll also note that today is not the actual JDLand.com anniversary, because I've had my own web site since late 1994 and bought the JDLand domain name in 1996. Old-timers may remember that I didn't even give my Near Southeast stuff the main JDLand.com URL until 2007.]

Within the past few weeks the city has received raze application permits for the five old buildings on the east side of 1st Street between K and L--the three little car repair shops on the north end of the block, and the Market Deli buildings on the south end. This stretch is all owned by Akridge, with these five buildings having been bought at various times in 2008 to go along with the mid-block empty lot with the Akridge sign that they've owned for a long time. (They also own the empty lot on the northeast corner of the block, at New Jersey and K, and at one time had an agreement to buy the lots on the southeast corner, at New Jersey and L, but that was allowed to expire with no sale.) There's so far never been any announcement from Akridge about what they plan to do with the site.

Razes aren't always immediate after the filing of a permit application, but keep your eyes out. And, if you feel like seeing the 160 buildings that have already been demolished in Near Southeast since 2003, browse the gallery.