26° North of The Equator
I have been spending some time looking at historical aerial photos of South Florida, to coincide with my reading (and now completion) of “A Prehistory of South Florida”. I noticed that it seemed like Hollywood was very near to the 26th parallel north, so I opened Google Earth to look and see. To my surprise I discovered that 26°N, exactly, runs through the back yard of the people across the alley. We are at 25 degrees, 59 minutes, 58.2 seconds (the house with the pin next to it). The recently updated Google Earth images seem to have been taken in the Winter of 2006, as I can see evidence of my planting, but not too much, and the shadows indicate the sun is in the southern sky:
I also discovered a visual record of our house being built, from above:
1949. Dead center of the image, no house. Our two neighbors to the east are built, though.
1952. Dead center of the image, house! Construction debris is visible in the back yard. I find it when I dig.
The 1957 photo is not a good, but I can see one new feature on the lot: the shed. It still stands today, and is put to good use.
I found “A Prehistory of South Florida” to be one of the most interesting books I’ve read in some time. It gives one an odd, in fact eerie sense to know that there was human habitation here for a long, long time before we arrived (perhaps as far back as 9,000 BP). The book also chronicles the arrival of the 4′9″ Ponce De Leon and the devastating consequences for the native Tequesta population over the following centuries, and the arrival of competing tribes pushed from the north.