Commercial Buildings Archives - Page 45 of 76

153-157 Boston Road, Springfield, Mass

December 14, 2015 by Derek Strahan

A commercial block on Boston Road in Springfield’s Pine Point neighborhood, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The building in 2015:

Springfield’s Pine Point neighborhood was developed in the early 1900s, and consisted primarily of middle class, single-family homes. This section of Boston Road was the commercial center of the neighborhood, and the first photo shows a variety of businesses here, including two grocery stores, a dry goods store, and a dry cleaners. Just out of view to the left was the first Friendly’s restaurant, which opened a few years before the photo was taken. These buildings were probably built around the 1920s or 1930s, and although the stores have changed, the buildings themselves are still standing.

Collins House and Livery Stable, Wilbraham, Mass

December 9, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Warren Collins home and livery stables, on Boston Road in North Wilbraham, possibly around 1872. Image courtesy of the Wilbraham Public Library.

The scene in 2015:

These buildings can be seen in the distance of the c.1900 photo in the previous post, which explains the history of the Collins Inn that once stood nearby. This location was directly across the street from Wilbraham’s only railroad station, and it was from here that Warren L. Collins operated a stagecoach line to the center of town, two miles away. The livery stables in the background were probably used to house the horses for this line. Given the nature of livery stables, it probably would have also been used to care for the horses of the inn’s guests.

The one thing that is in question about this photo is the date. A copy of this image can be found online here, which is where the 1872 date comes from. However, that date might be a little too early; the 1873 atlas of Hampden County includes an inset map of North Wilbraham, which was labeled as Collins Depot. Neither of these buildings appear on the map, and a different building on the other side of the street is labeled as the livery stables. Additionally, the Collins Inn was not built until 1874, and the 1964 History of Wilbraham book suggests that Collins built this livery stable at some point after opening the inn. So, it seems more likely that the photo was taken either a little later in the decade or maybe in the 1880s.

Either way, there is not much left from the old photo. Both the stables and the small house in the foreground are gone, but the basic business model is still going on here today. Instead of feeding and caring for horses, the present-day business performs a very similar function, providing fuel and repairs for cars. There also appears to be at least one surviving element from the original photo; the building on the far left looks like it is the same one that was standing there.

Collins Inn, Wilbraham, Mass

February 11, 2016December 7, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Collins Inn at the corner of Boston Road and Chapel Street in North Wilbraham, probably in the 1890s or early 1900s. Image courtesy of the Wilbraham Public Library.

The scene in 2015:

The historic center of the town of Wilbraham has always been along Main Street in the town’s approximate geographic center. When it was first settled in the 1700s, this was the ideal place for farming, but as changes in industrialization, transportation, and communication came about in the 1800s, the village of North Wilbraham gained prominence. Its location on the banks of the Chicopee River and along the main road from Springfield to Boston made this area an important spot for industry and transportation. In 1839, the Boston & Albany Railroad opened through here, with the North Wilbraham railroad station being located right across the street from here.

The building in the foreground of the first photo was the Collins Inn, which was opened in 1874 by Warren L. Collins. It sat directly across Boston Road from the railroad station, and across Chapel Street from the Hollister Block, which at the time was used as a drugstore and post office. In addition to the inn, Collins also operated a livery stable on the site, and ran a stagecoach line from here to the center of Wilbraham, about two miles away.

Aside from transportation, though, the Collins inn also offered Wilbraham another connection to the outside world – the telephone. The telephone was invented in 1876, and within just four years a line was established from here to the center Wilbraham, at a cost of $30 per year for subscribers. However, a few years later the cost increased to $100 per year (equivalent to over $2,400 today), and the service was discontinued because of a lack of families willing to pay. When phone service was re-established in 1904, the Collins Inn became the town’s telephone exchange office for the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company, serving 21 customers in Wilbraham.

The telephone exchange remained here until 1914, when it moved to a different building across the street. Around the same time, the Collins Inn closed, although the building itself remained standing for some time. The 1964 History of Wilbraham book indicates that it was still standing at the time, although today its former location is now a parking lot.

John Brown’s Fort, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia

November 16, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The fire engine house at the Harpers Ferry Armory, more commonly referred to as “John Brown’s Fort,” as seen around 1860. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Civil War Collection.

The same view in May 1939. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, FSA/OWI Collection.

The scene in 2015:

This small, seemingly nondescript building was built in 1848 at the entrance to the Harpers Ferry Armory, and was used as a guard house and fire engine house. Normally, such a building would not be the subject of an 1860s stereocard, but it gained widespread fame just a few years earlier, due to its role in John Brown’s raid on the armory.

On October 16, 1859, northern abolitionist John Brown led a group of 22 men who attempted to take the armory and start a slave rebellion. They succeeded in taking the armory, and took a number of Harpers Ferry citizens hostage, but the plan quickly unraveled and they ended up barricading themselves in this building, surrounded by local militiamen and other armed townspeople. Eventually, Colonel Robert E. Lee, still fighting in the US Army at the time, led a detachment of Marines, who succeeded in taking the building and capturing John Brown and most of his men.

To many northern abolitionists, John Brown was a hero, but to southern slaveowners he was a dangerous radical and a criminal. He was executed on December 2 in nearby Charles Town, but the failed raid helped to set the Civil War in motion a little over a year later. The first photo was probably taken within three years of the raid, and in it the building still bears some of the scars from the fight.

Unlike most of the armory buildings, this one actually survived the war, and over time it became a tourist attraction and a symbol of the abolitionist movement. However, many residents feared that it would become a major draw for African-Americans to visit the town, so they were looking for ways to get rid of it. Finally, in 1891 the owners decided to dismantle the fort and reassemble it at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. It was a colossal failure at the exposition, though; the move cost $60,000, and just 11 people paid the 50 cent admission fee to view the fort.

The fort underwent further dismantlings and reconstructions, before eventually moving to its present-day site about 150 feet to the right of here. However, it doesn’t have much real historic value, because of the number of times it has been reconstructed and the amount of original materials that has been lost over time.

After the fort was moved from here, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad built new railroad embankments through the site of the fort, so today it is at a substantially higher elevation than it was in the first photo. The monument, seen in the last two photos, was added by the railroad and marks the original location.

Harpers Ferry, West Virginia (2)

November 16, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The town of Harpers Ferry, photographed around 1862. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Civil War Collection.

The view in 2015:

These two views of Harpers Ferry are remarkably similar, considering how much damage the small town sustained during the Civil War. The Library of Congress estimates that this photo was taken around 1860, which seems a little too early. This photo is half of a stereocard from a series called “War Views,” and since the war didn’t start until 1861, it seems unlikely that it was taken before then. Instead, it was probably taken around 1862; the tents in the foreground were part of a “contraband camp” that the Union army established on the grounds of the former armory in March 1862 to house escaped slaves from the Confederacy.

A number of notable buildings are visible here, with the most prominent being the Armory fire engine house, better known as “John Brown’s Fort,” seen in the center of the photo and explained in more detail in this post. To the left of the “fort” is the Gerard Bond Wager Building, a three and a half story brick building that was completed in 1838. Prior to the Civil War it was used as a grocery and dry goods store, and it is still standing today and is operated by the National Park Service as a museum.

Beyond the Gerard Bond Wager Building is St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church, which was built in 1833 and is still standing today, although with some extensive alterations. It survived the Civil War, but it was renovated in 1896 to bring its exterior in line with the then-popular Neo-Gothic architectural style. The original brick walls were replaced with granite, the steeple was removed, and a new asymmetrical facade was built with a taller steeple on the left side.

Another church in the original scene was St. John’s Episcopal Church, seen on the top of the hill to the right. It was built in 1852 and sustained damage during the war, eventually being repaired in 1882. However, it was subsequently abandoned in 1896, and today the picturesque ruins are still there, although they are hidden from view by the trees in the 2015 photo.

The last of the prominent historic buildings in these two photos are the four in a row next to each other, seen just below St. John’s Episcopal Church. All four are still standing today, and the left-most of these is the Harper House, which is the oldest surviving building in the lower town. It was completed in 1782 by Robert Harper, the town founder who not coincidentally operated a ferry here. He died the same year it was completed, and it was later used as a tavern, a private residence, and by the start of the Civil War as a tenement house, accommodating up to four families. To the right of the Harper House is Marmion Hall, which was completed in 1833, and the last two buildings to the right were built in the 1840s as the Marmion Tenant Houses. These last two were, prior to the war, rented out to armory workers, who were just a short downhill walk away from their jobs.

Today, railroad tracks cover much of the former armory site, and nearly all traces of the historic site are long gone. However, the town that grew up here because of the armory is, for the most part, preserved in its pre-1860s appearance. Much of the lower town is now part of the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, and is run by the National Park Service.

Berkeley Building, Boston

November 7, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Berkeley Building at the corner of Boylston and Berkeley Streets in Boston, around 1908. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The building in 2015:

Not to be confused with the old John Hancock Building a block away, which is also known as the Berkeley Building, this building was completed in 1905 and is an excellent surviving example of Beaux-Arts architecture in Boston. It was designed by Stephen Codman and Constant-Désiré Despradelle; the latter was a noted architect and professor at MIT, which at the time was located diagonally across from here. Over a century later, the building is still in good condition, with even the original 1905 storefronts still intact.

Also of note in the first photo is the group of rowhouses just to the right of the Berkeley Building. These were built in 1861 and were among the first houses to be built in the newly-filled Back Bay area. Over time, Boylston Street became a major commercial center, and most of the original homes were demolished. These ones survived into the early 20th century, but the first photo shows drastic changes on the ground level to create storefronts. The one in the middle would be demolished soon after the first photo was taken, but the houses on either end are still standing today, although they are mostly hidden behind 20th century alterations.