Derek Strahan

Aside from running the Lost New England blog, Derek Strahan is the author of two books: Lost Springfield, Massachusetts and New England Then and Now, along with being the host of the Western Mass History podcast. Derek is a graduate of Westfield State University, with degrees in English and Regional Planning, and he currently works as a land use and environment planner in Western Massachusetts. Derek also serves on the board of directors of the Springfield Preservation Trust, and he lives in Western Massachusetts with his wife Melissa and their two sons.

Court Square, Springfield (4)

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Taken from the same spot as the previous photo, this 1909 photo shows the old Hampden County Courthouse, the Springfield Institute for Savings building, located where the present courthouse is today. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Panoramic Photographs Collection.

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Compare it with this 2012 photo, taken from approximately the same location:

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The old 1874 courthouse (now the juvenile and housing court) survives largely intact, although the third floor with its Gothic dormers has since been removed, and the Hall of Records in the center of the 1909 photo has been demolished.  The Springfield Institute for Savings building, on the right-hand side of the photo, has also been demolished, and Elm Street has been truncated, in order to build the modern Hampden County Hall of Justice.  One other interesting addition is the statue in the 2012 photo; it is a statue honoring William McKinley, and at the time of the 1909 photo it was residing in Forest Park across the city.  I do not know when it was moved to its present location.

Court Square, Springfield (3)

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Long before it was the Hampden County Hall of Justice, East & West Columbus Ave., I-91, and a parking garage, the land behind Old First Church was an ordinary city block, until the early 20th century, when it was cleared to create an extension of Court Square.  Although this open space was itself carved up for the various projects that followed, the 1909 photo below shows a view of it shortly after it was cleared. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Panoramic Photographs Collection.

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This 2012 photo was taken at close to – although not exactly the same spot.

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The original was taken from what is now East Columbus Ave., so instead of standing in the middle of the road I took it from the sidewalk, looking at the last remnant of the western extension of Court Square:The rear section of Old First Church factors heavily in both of these photos.  As the only surviving building from the 1909 photo, it nonetheless has undergone renovations.  While the church itself is largely the same as it was in 1819, the brick addition, which was built in 1874, shows changes between the two photos.  Although it first appears that a third story was added, there was in fact no changes to the height of the structure.  Rather, it appears that the entire section was gutted, and rebuilt to allow for three floors.  If you look closely, you can see the bricked-up places where the old windows used to be, in between the modern windows.  A plaque on the inside of the church indicates that this renovation was done in 1947.  Presumably during the same renovations, the brick steeple on the right-hand side was removed.  The church’s main white steeple is there in the 1909 photo, although it is mostly hidden behind the small tree in the center.  Other than the church though, all of the other buildings in the photo have since been demolished, some of which were where City Hall was built only a few years later.

Court Square, Springfield (2)

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Shown below is a 1909 photo of Court Square looking east, taken at the same time as the photo in my previous post. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Panoramic Photographs Collection.

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Fast-forwarding 103 years to 2012, the scene has changed dramatically.

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Unlike in the photo of the south and west ends of Court Square, these photos of the west (and a little bit of the north) sides of Court Square have almost nothing in common.  The old Chicopee Bank building, seen in the 2012 photo on the far right, is barely visible behind the tree on the right-hand side of the 1909 photo, and the Miles Morgan and Civil War monuments in Court Square are still there.  But other than that, everything else has changed, with the most notable difference being the MassMutual Center. Built in 1972 as the Civic Center, it replaced several city blocks, including the buildings in the center of the 1909 photo, although some of those were long gone before 1972.  Among the buildings seen in the 1909 view is the old Springfield Republican building, which is the tall building just to the left of center along Main Street.

Court Square, Springfield (1)

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Here’s an interesting photo of Court Square, taken in 1909. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Panoramic Photographs Collection.

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From the same angle, taken in 2012:

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Notice the difference? Because there isn’t a whole lot that has changed along the south and west sides of Court Square in the past century.  In fact, other than cosmetic changes to some of the fountains and such in Court Square, the only real difference is the added wing of the old Hampden County Courthouse, which is visible in the 2012 photo just behind and to the left of the church.  In the 1909 photo, if you look close, you can see the construction for the wing, but at this point when the photo had been taken, it had not yet been completed.

The prominent building in the center of both photos is the former Court Square Hotel.  Built in 1892, it was added on to in 1900, with the sixth floor being added, along with the right-hand part of the building (the front facade used to be symmetrical until the addition).  Just to the left of it is a small brick building, barely visible behind the gazebo in the 2012 photo.  This building, known as Byers Block, was built in 1835 and is the only surviving one of a number of identical buildings that used to run along Elm Street in the mid 19th century.  The oldest building in both photos, however, is Old First Church.  Built in 1819, it was nearly 100 when the old photo was taken, and externally still looks essentially the same today.

Miles Morgan Statue, Springfield

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This photo, taken around 1908, shows the Miles Morgan statue on Court Square.  The statue itself was created in 1882, commemorating one of the early founders of Springfield, and is one of two notable statues dedicated to Springfield’s founders (the other, located next to the main library, is of my ancestor, Samuel Chapin). Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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This photo, taken in June 2013, shows what the same scene looks like today.

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The statue remains, but everything else around it has changed; none of the buildings in the 1908 photo still exist today.  Most of the ones in the background are on the current spot of the Sheraton, and the vacant lot in the foreground is, of course, no longer vacant. Just a few years earlier, Springfield City Hall sat on that site, and within a few more years, the new Springfield City Hall would be built, as part of the Municipal Group that includes City Hall, Symphony Hall, and the Campanile Tower. The old city hall, though, was not intentionally demolished – on January 6, 1905, it burned down, and the alleged culprit was, of all things, a monkey that overturned a kerosene lantern. Like Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, this may or may not have been the case, but either way the outcome was the same, and Springfield ended up needing a new city hall. See this post for a view taken around the same time, but facing the other direction. For another once-prominent Springfield landmark, notice the white, nearly windowless building on the far right in the distance. The side of it reads “Gilmore Opera House.” Built in 1865, it became the Capitol Theatre in 1920, and it was demolished in 1972.

Christ Church Cathedral, Springfield

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Taken between 1905 and 1915, this photo shows Christ Church Cathedral as it appeared a century ago. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The same view as of December 2012:

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Not much has changed in these two views; even the art building of the Springfield Museums is still there, and the building barely visible to the far left also appears to be the same in both photos. The one major difference, of course, is the tower of the church. Originally built in 1876 with a tower (although I have yet to find an image of the original tower), the tower cracked within a year and was taken down for safety reasons. It would not be rebuilt until 1927.