Top: 1947, Bottom: 2012. Top image courtesy NC Dept. of Archives and History

Pictured is 302 S West Street, the building currently houses Flanders Gallery. In 1947, Swift and Company, a meat warehouse, occupied the space.

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‘Raleigh, Then and Now’ is a new monthly column in which photographer Ian F.G. Dunn presents his temporal diptychs. Historical photographs are used to re-photograph a scene from the exact location and angle the original photographer used. This has proven to be no easy task. Lenses used by our ancestral photographers were much different than today’s lenses and often distorted the image, sometimes making it incredibly hard to achieve an exact present-day photograph.  Other issues include lighting and changes in topography and infrastructure. Many of the historical photographs are courtesy of the North Carolina State Archives and will be credited as such.