Commercial Buildings

East Court Street, Springfield Mass

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Looking east on East Court Street in Springfield, probably in the early 1890s. Photo from Picturesque Hampden (1892)

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The street, now called Falcons Way, in 2015:

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The land that the MassMutual Center now sits on was once the site of dozens of assorted buildings.  Along the busy and prominent Main and State Streets, one could find banks, publishers such as G & C Merriam (of Merriam-Webster Dictionary fame), and the elegant YMCA building.  However, along Dwight and East Court Streets sat less glamorous, more utilitarian buildings, including ancient colonial buildings being used as laundromats.  Here on East Court Street, most of the occupations themselves are as obsolete as the buildings that once housed them here – the signs reveal that one could procure services from wagon and carriage makers, horse shoers, and farriers (although I’m not sure what the distinction is between a horse shoer and a farrier).  Within just a couple decades, these industries would go the same way of blacksmiths and coopers, and by the 1970s all of the dozens of buildings in the four square block area would be demolished to make way for the MassMutual Center.

Hanging Around the Saloon, Chicopee Mass

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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.

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The scene in 2014:

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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

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

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The building in 2014:

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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.

Main & Court Streets, Springfield, Mass

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Looking north on Main Street in Springfield, toward Court Street, around 1882. Photo from Springfield Illustrated (1882).

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Main Street in 2014:

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This scene is similar to the view in this post, except this one shows the view further down Main Street.  The building in the foreground is the home of the Springfield Five Cents Savings Bank, which is still there today, although its Main Street facade has been completely replaced.  However, the arches over the windows on the Court Street side clearly show that it is the same building.  Further down Main Street in the 1882 photo is the home office of the Springfield Republican, and beyond that is the Mass Mutual Building.

The commercial block furthest from the camera is the Union Block, which is seen in this post from the other side.  Two thirds of this building still exists today, although it is hard to see it in the shadows of the 2014 photo.  Finally, the steeple of the First Baptist Church, which can be seen more clearly in this post.  The church was built in 1847 and demolished in 1888, and today its former location is now Harrison Avenue where it intersects with Main Street.

Plymouth, Vermont

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The village of Plymouth, Vermont, in August, 1924. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

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Plymouth in 2014:

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The first photo was taken when President Calvin Coolidge vacationed in his hometown of Plymouth, Vermont.  The first scene shows many visitors, most of whom were probably there hoping to catch a glimpse of Coolidge.  After all, this was part of his image as president; that he was a humble, down-to-earth New England farmer and a friend of the common man.  Certainly the setting did little to detract from this image; most of the “center” of Plymouth can be seen in this view, with the general store/post office in the foreground, the church visible behind it, and the Coolidge Homestead to the right.

All of these buildings are part of the Calvin Coolidge Homestead District, and each one has some significance to the president.  He lived in the house to the right from age four until he left for high school, he and his family attended the church across the street, and he was born in the back of the post office/general store.  This building was built in the 1850s, and Coolidge’s father owned it from the 1870s until 1917.  During his 1924 visit, Coolidge used the upper room in the store as his “Summer White House.”

Bellows Falls, Vermont

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The Square at Bellows Falls, Vermont, around 1907. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2018:

The village of Bellows Falls is probably best known to baseball fans as the birthplace of Hall of Fame catcher Carlton Fisk, but historically it has been a significant settlement along the Connecticut River.  As the name implies, it is located at a waterfall on the Connecticut River, where the river passes through a narrow gorge.

The waterfall benefitted the village in several ways; first, the narrow width of the river made it easy to bridge.  In fact, the first bridge across the Connecticut River was built here in 1785, which made this a major transportation center, originally for stagecoaches and later for trains; it became a major railroad hub in the 19th century.  The falls also attracted many industries to Bellows Falls, and in the 19th century many industries developed along the river, powered by a canal that took advantage of the river’s 52-foot drop in elevation.

This scene shows the center of the village, much of which has changed in the past 108 years.  It retains its small-town appearance, but most of the buildings in the first photo have since been destroyed in a succession of fires, the first of which occurred in 1912 and destroyed several of the buildings on the right-hand side.  The two buildings just beyond the gabled brick building on the right date to the 1800s, but only the shells of the buildings survived the fire.  Closer to the camera on the right is the Hotel Windham, which was built in 1933 to replace the previous building, which burned in 1932.  On the left, the old post office and library, with its distinctive tower, burned in 1925, and was replaced with the present building the following year.

The only two surviving buildings on the square that are visible in both photos are the 1875 Centennial Block on the far left-hand side, which was itself damaged by a fire in 1978, and the wood commercial block in the distant center of both photos, which dates to around 1890 and is probably the only building in the 1907 photo that never had a fire.