apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I went on the Logan Circle House Tour here in DC a couple of weeks ago. One of the (fabulous) condos on the tour was in an old building that had been converted and added onto. There were some exposed brick walls that had small bits of graffiti on them, some of it allegedly from the 1800s or early 1900s (don't ask me how they could tell.)

It was practice in my old dorm to write your name on the soffet that was in the cupboards before you moved out.

I remember when I went into the Louve, the tour guide showed us the walls that were built in the 1500s, and there were lots of marks made by the builders, sort of an "I was here." Or at least that's what the tour guide told me.

In one of my college apartments, everyone maked the inside of the closet with how much they were charged in damages for the year.

My husband made a small heart with our initials on it in front of our BK home several years ago before the cement settled...as we were walking away, we received a furious lecture/talking to from a longtime resident who made us feel terrible about "destroying" the new sidewalks they had waited so long for. we felt awful, and i've never marked anything in cement again! but i love the idea of the handprints if i own a place someday with cement.

When I was little my parents built their own house, and my sister and I wrote our names on dozens of the bare studs, pre-drywall.

Also, in one of their more recent houses, my parents found a letter written to future residents from the previous family hidden in the back of bathroom drawer.

Catiaelizabeth: I hope this wasn't the letter:

http://consumerist.com/consumer/bad-news/family-finds-a-secret-room-filled-with-toxic-mold-in-new-house-319249.php?mail2=true

Catiaelizabeth - what was in the letter?

I left my business card behind the baseboard of my old house. My dad, a construction worker, said it was common for workers to leave handprints in cement and signs studs at the construction sites.

at the Met there's graffiti on the Temple of Dendur, passing soldiers from the 1600 to 1880's left their marks.

My husband and I moved cross country in October and driving through Wyoming there are a few cliffs with names and dates from the 1800's you can see from the road

upenn has an old sprinkler system (a 15' diameter, 10' tall tank) in the roof of one of their buildings. It's empty now, but was never removed. It is not easy to get to, requiring permission, keys, or luck and climbing for about 15 feet on the exterior of the building once you are quite a few stories up... but written on the tank are names and dates of a few brave souls.... they come in spurts, a lot from the 70's, a few from the early 80's... after you've scratched your name in you can look through some of the missing ceiling pannels (that allow for banners and lights to be hung from the rafters)to view crowds of people in an auditorium far, far below you. just watch your step...

my dad is a sculpture & he always had my little brother & i helping out. we were only little kids so helping was just stuff like softening the clay, applying clay to the wire frame, & carving. on one memorial at a state capital, he let us carve our names on the inside of the fireman's hat. so, if we ever wanted to, we could reach inside w/ some putty & see our names. it's a bit of proof.

my name was painted on a wall in the cellar of my childhood house. years later, after my parents had sold the house, i was invited in by the present owners and was brought down to the cellar - their daughter had insisted on leaving my name uncovered when they repainted the walls. it was touching to see my name still there, and to meet the girl who had preserved it.

Everyone at the brand new theater I work at got to sign a girder before it was installed.

I wrote my name on the back of a sink that I installed in my then co-op. When I moved out - I left a photo that I had found when I moved in - hidden at the top of one of the kitchen cabinets. It was of several drunken slightly dressed women and two men. The note I left with the photo said something along the lines of...."I always called them the porn queens".

I have to object strenuously to the parallel that is being drawn between the desecration of a cultural monument that is 1000s of years old, and the inscription of one's name on a piece of property that belongs to the person doing the inscribing. They are hardly the same, and if every person who passed by the Temple of Dendur and other monuments over the millenia inscribed their names, there would be nothing left.

Fio,

My statement was not to give similarities between desecration of a monument and putting your initials in cement, the question posed was

"...Have you? What have you done? Or have you come across someone else's territorial markings from the past? If so, what were they?..."

the graffiti on the Temple of Dendur qualifies as a marking from the past.

When I stripped the wallpaper in our Vistorian house there was a name on the wall and a 1930s date - I had to plaster over it though :(

I agree that notes like this are fascinating insights into the past.

In the basement of my 1940's home there are some handwritten notes of when the house was purchased and when the unattached garage was built. I'm going to add my "year bought" note there as soon as I get time from the remodeling I've been doing since I moved in.