Untitled (labelled "delta". The Jared Sparks House was located in the area known as the Delta, where Memorial Hall now stands. The Sparks house street address was 21 Kirkland Street.) 1863 - 1884

Curator: Here we have George Kendall Warren's photograph, a view of the area called "delta" where the Jared Sparks House once stood. It is now held in the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: It feels like a stage set, doesn't it? That dramatic bare tree, right at the fork in the road, as if deciding where the story goes next. Curator: That tree looms large, almost like a sentinel. And those roads leading off in different directions… delta, the fourth letter in the Greek alphabet, forms a triangle, suggesting change or a new direction. Editor: Yes, the intersection! It's about crossroads. Even the house seems to be shrinking back, yielding to the imposing tree. Curator: Perhaps the photograph captures not just a place but a transition, before Memorial Hall was built. Editor: It gives the landscape an elegiac tone. It's a photograph documenting a transition, now preserved as a memory.