Lost New England

Bliss Street Parking Garage, Springfield Mass

July 21, 2015March 29, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The garage at 16 Bliss Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The building in 2015:

Some then & now scenes are remarkable in how much they have changed, while others are remarkable in how little they’ve changed, like this scene on Bliss Street. The two photos were taken over 75 years apart, yet nothing seems to have changed except for the cars. Even the fence around the parking lot looks like it is the same one from the 1930s. The building in the foreground is a parking garage, which was built in 1928, presumably to accommodate workers for the State Building, which was built in 1929 and can be seen behind the parking garage on the left-hand side of the photo. The State Building at 95 State Street was built as the annex to 1200 Main Street, which at the time served as the main offices for MassMutual.

Although this particular scene has been virtually unchanged since before the Great Depression, it will be changing very dramatically this year. All of the properties are within the footprint of the planned MGM casino, and the parking garage is currently scheduled to be demolished in June. The State Building was originally slated to be demolished, but as of March 2015 it appears that it will be preserved as office space for MGM. If the casino is finished according to the current plans, the location where this photo was taken will be part of the main gaming floor of the casino.

Dwight House, Springfield Mass

July 22, 2023March 27, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Dwight House on Howard Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Photo courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The scene in 2015:

The scene in 2023:

This scene is soon to change even more dramatically than it did between the first two photos – all of the buildings in the 2015 scene are within the footprint of the planned MGM casino. Most of the buildings will be demolished, except for the old MassMutual building in the background. Strangely enough, the building in the old photo will end up outliving almost all of the ones in the present-day photo; its former site is now a parking lot across Howard Street from Red Rose Pizzeria, but the building itself was dismantled and moved to Deerfield, where it sits on Old Main Street in Historic Deerfield.

The house in the first photo, the Dwight House, was built in 1754. It was originally owned by Colonel Josiah Dwight, and later by his son, Colonel Timothy Dwight. It was originally located on Main Street, but was moved to Howard Street around 1890, where it was photographed in the first view here. By the 1930s view, it was divided into a duplex and was used as a tenement, and at this point was probably the oldest building in the city. However, developers were eyeing the property, so in 1950 it was dismantled and moved to Deerfield, as seen in the photo on the Historic Deerfield website. This arrangement preserved the building, but it also creates the odd situation of a city’s oldest building being located over 30 miles from the city.

2023 update: The casino was built on this site soon after the second photo was taken, as shown in the third photo.

Brooklyn Bridge Construction

September 16, 2015March 27, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Brooklyn Bridge, before the construction of the walkway, probably taken around 1880. Photo courtesy of the New York Public Library.

The scene in 2013:

The Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883, but before the roadway could be built, the towers were connected by a narrow walkway. Although intended for the workers, it was also open to the public, and was a popular destination, to the point where bridge management had to start issuing passes in order to cross. Of course, this was in the days before OSHA regulations and other safety measures, but it actually wasn’t as dangerous as it looks. Some publicity-seeking daredevils even jumped off of it and into the East River, with varying success rates. Upon completion of the bridge, the present-day walkway opened, which can be seen around the turn of the last century in this post. Thankfully, modern-day bridge pedestrians need not balance themselves on a narrow catwalk, nor ascend and descend the two 272-foot tall bridge towers in order to cross the river.

Hanging Around the Saloon, Chicopee Mass

August 23, 2017March 27, 2015 by Derek Strahan

A group of workers hanging around outside of the Cyran & Gierlasinski Cafe on Grove Street in Chicopee, on June 29, 1916. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress.

The scene in 2014:

Social reformer and photographer Lewis Wickes Hine visited Chicopee several times in the 1910s, documenting child labor conditions in some of the city’s factories. The first photo here shows a group of workers hanging around a saloon at the end of the workday. It’s probably safe to assume that the cafe was Polish; the names of Cyran & Gierlasinski leave little room for doubt. By the late 1800s, Chicopee had become an industrial center, and many of the workers were immigrants, either French-Canadian or Polish. To this day, many Chicopee residents are of French-Canadian and Polish ancestry, some of whom are probably the descendants of the men in the 1916 photo. Today, the Cyran & Gierlasinski Cafe might be gone, but the Polish influence is still present; the site is now the parking lot for the main offices of the Polish National Credit Union.

Homestead Building, Springfield Mass

September 16, 2015March 26, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Homestead Building, at 82-86 Worthington Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Photo courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust

The building in 2014:

According to the Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System, this building on Worthington Street was built in 1903, although its architectural style makes it look more like something built in the 1880s, like a scaled-down version of the Chicopee Bank Building. The building was the home of Phelps Publishing Company, which produced the Springfield Homestead newspaper as well as several other weekly publications. In 1932, the building was sold to Blue Line Transportation Company, as seen in the first photo. From here, passengers could take buses to cities around New England and beyond; the Worthington Street side lists Hartford, New York, and Boston as destinations. Most recently, the building was used as a nightclub, which closed in 2014 following a shooting outside the building.

There’s another building that appears in both photos, although it isn’t as obvious. The tall, “L” shaped building that seems to loom over the Homestead Building was built in 190, and in the first photo it was home to the Springfield Photo Engraving Company. The building is still there today, although in 1949 it was trimmed down to three floors and now blends in with the Homestead Building.

Mt. Washington Cog Railway

September 16, 2015March 26, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Mt. Washington Cog Railway, near the summit, probably in the early 1870s. Photo courtesy of New York Public Library.

The scene in 2013:

The first photo was probably taken within a few years of the opening of the Mt. Washington Cog Railway. By the mid 19th century, the White Mountains had become a popular summer destination, and Mount Washington in particular became a favorite destination. The only problem was getting to the top; this was first solved by the Mount Washington Carriage Road (today the Auto Road), but even before the road opened, another man had an even more ambitious idea – to build a railroad to the top.

Railroads were still in their infancy in America in 1852, and many major cities still did not have rail connections, but Sylvester Marsh had a plan to build a cog railway to the top, something that had never been done up the side of a mountain before. The New Hampshire legislature gave him a charter in 1858, with one legislator reportedly remarking that they should give him a charter to make a railway to the moon, indicating how impossible it seemed to build a railroad to the top of the tallest peak in the Northeast.

The railroad was completed to the summit in July 1869, only a couple months after the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. It is about 3 miles long, with an average grade of about 25%, and it set the stage for future mountain-climbing railroads such as the one up Pikes Peak. The locomotives in the first photo indicate that it is an early photo of the railroad; they appear to be the George Stephenson and the Hercules, which entered service in 1869 and were replaced in 1878 and 1874, respectively.

The present-day scene here is remarkably similar; the trains are still operating (most of the locomotives are modern biodiesel ones, but several date back to the 1870s), and there seems to be as many people riding in the 2013 photo as there were nearly 150 years earlier, although clothing styles have changed a bit. It’s not visible from here, but the road to the top is also still there, although it is no longer the Carriage Road but the Auto Road. There are a lot more buildings at the top than there were in the 1870s, although the Tip Top House is still there; it is older than either the Auto Road or the railroad.