H and H Coffee Factory — South End and West Flank from the Rail Siding at Dusk, February 2019
The 1932 Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Co. plant sits with its long axis running roughly north–south, parallel to the rail line that still serves the property. The short end walls face north (the street front) and south; the long flanks face east and west, and the west flank is the one that looks directly onto the tracks. This February 2019 photograph was taken from between the rails of that siding, standing south of the building and looking north.
At this vantage the south end wall fills the right foreground and catches the last of the sunset pink on its troweled white stucco, the terracotta-pantile coping along the top of the parapet, and the small corner finials that step up at the end pilasters. Receding to the left, the full length of the west flank drops into cool shadow — but the row of tall multi-pane steel-sash industrial windows along the second floor is clearly legible, six bays wide above the smaller barred first-floor openings. Behind the chain-link yard fence a few agave plants and a stack of pallet wood line the ground along the building; a red dumpster is tucked against the south wall.
This is the companion to the rail-context shots already in the gallery. The railroad crossing, the freight train passing the building, the two trains pass, and the covered hopper car on the siding all document what moves through the line; this one steps back and shows the building itself in that setting, from an angle — the south end plus the full west flank — that isn’t visible from the street front.
It also pairs with a later dusk frame of the same south face — the 14 March 2021 sunset shot. In that later one the sun is already close to the spring equinox and setting close to due west, so the south face sits in ambient shadow rather than catching direct sunset light the way it does here in late-winter February, when the sun still sets south of due west. Same wall, a few weeks of the year apart, and the sun’s azimuth is what flips the light on it.
