The Deleted Years

Untold ordinary stories of the built environment

The early-to-late 2000s are sometimes called “the deleted years,” referring to the churn in technology—broken or obsolete devices, new operating systems, etc.—that left many digital files destroyed or marooned on old or inaccessible devices.

I’ve compared this once or twice here to the erosion of knowledge of the built environment—the everyday landscapes where you (or I) might ask “What used to be here?” or “What did this building used to be?”

In many cases, that answer doesn’t exactly exist.

I think of this, particularly for seemingly plain roadside/suburban landscapes, as stories nobody thought were worth telling until they could no longer be told. An antique is an antique because we didn’t see it as valuable. It’s a social construct; antiques exist in our minds, not in the objects themselves. They are regret for taking something for granted, for seeing its value only in its scarcity.