Buildings

View from Sunset Rock, Catskill, New York (2)

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The view looking toward the Catskill Mountain House from Sunset Rock, around 1901-1906. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2021:

This view is very similar to the one in the previous post, but it shows more detail of the Catskill Mountain House in the center of the first photo. The Mountain House was built in 1824, on a ledge along the Catskill Escarpment. It was the first major mountain resort in the country, capitalizing on a newfound interest in mountain tourism along with the relative accessibility of this portion of the Catskills. From there, visitors could enjoy expansive views of the Hudson River Valley from the comfort of a fashionable hotel, and the more adventurous could explore the network of trails around the hotel that were laid out by the mid-19th century. Many of these led to scenic overlooks, including this one to the north of the hotel. Known as Sunset Rock, it offers panoramic views to the south and west, including the hotel itself and the adjacent lakes.

By the time the first photo was taken at the turn of the 20th century, the original Catskill Mountain House was still standing in the distance, although it had been expanded a number of times. It also faced an increasing number of competitors, most significantly the Hotel Kaaterskill, which opened on nearby South Mountain in 1881. To remain competitive, the Mountain House constructed the Otis Elevating Railway, a funicular railroad that brought guests up the escarpment, bypassing the old winding carriage road. The upper station of this railroad is visible in the center of the first photo, just down the hill from the hotel.

Today, more than a hundred years after the first photo was taken, this scene looks more like its natural state than it did in the first photo, although this came about as a result of the loss of the historic Catskill Mountain House. The hotel closed in 1942, and it deteriorated over the next few decades before being deliberately burned by the state in 1963. The site of the hotel, along with the surrounding landscape, is now part of the Catskill Park, which encompasses the entire region. As has been the case for the past two centuries, this area here remains one of the most popular spots for visitors to the Catskills. However, there are no longer any grand hotels here in the mountains. Instead, modern visitors have relatively spartan accommodations compared to their 19th century predecessors, including the North-South Lake Campground, located along the northern shore of the lake in this scene.

Rip Van Winkle House, Catskill, New York

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The Rip Van Winkle House on Mountain House Road in Catskill, around 1902. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2021:

The northeastern United States is home to a number of different mountain ranges that form the northern portion of the Appalachians. Colonial-era settlers knew of these mountains, but generally did not place much emphasis on them. Instead, these mountains were often seen through purely practical terms, as poor farmland, barriers to transportation, and places of refuge for wild animals. However, these attitudes began to change by the early 19th century, and many Americans began to appreciate mountains for their untamed natural beauty, in contrast to the rapidly-growing industrial cities of the northeast.

Writers and artists of the period also drew inspiration from the mountains, particularly the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Catskills here in New York. One of these early works was “Rip Van Winkle,” an 1819 short story by Washington Irving. Set in the pre-revolutionary period, it tells the story of Rip, who goes for a hike in the Catskills to escape his nagging wife. While in the mountains, he encounters the ghosts of Henry Hudson’s crew, who offer him liquor. He drinks and falls into a deep sleep, only to awaken 20 years later. Upon returning home, he finds that his wife is dead and society has been transformed by the American Revolution.

In the story, the narrator describes the place where Rip falls asleep as being “a hollow, like a small amphitheatre, surrounded by perpendicular precipices, over the brinks of which impending trees shot their branches, so that you only caught glimpses of the azure sky and the bright evening cloud.” Irving had never actually been to the Catskills when he wrote the story, so the setting was not based on any specific location, but it did not take long for at least one enterprising individual to capitalize on the story’s fame.

In 1824, the Catskill Mountain House was built on a ledge along the Catskill Escarpment, overlooking the Hudson River Valley. Travelers reached it by way of a carriage road that connected it to the town of Catskill. Along the way, the road passed through this ravine, where it made a U-shaped turn and crossed this brook before heading further up the slope toward the Mountain House. The geography of this ravine resembles the one described in the story, so at some point someone opened a small cabin here, which was styled as the Rip Van Winkle House. Here, travelers could obtain refreshments for themselves and their horses on their way up the escarpment.

It seems unclear as to exactly when the Rip Van Winkle House opened here, and some sources  cite dates in the 1830s or 1840s. However, there was some sort of a structure here as early as 1826, according to a description published in the New-York Mirror in that year:

Two miles from the summit is a small hut, or shantey, as they are called here, whose occupant, by universal consent, bears the name of the immortal sleeper. Whether a genuine descendant or not is a point upon which I will not stake my veracity. His hut is in a singularly romantic situation; built in a deep angle of the rock, with a perpendicular ascent of fifty feet directly above him. He keeps refreshment or travellers, and is supplied with water by a spout which is laid from his window to a spring in the rock behind him.

This original “shantey” was still standing when the first photo was taken at the turn of the 20th century, but by this point it had been joined by a second building, which had been constructed in the late 1860s. This new building was a boarding house, with rates of $10 per week in 1869. It was hardly an opulent hotel, especially when compared to the much larger Catskill Mountain House two miles away, but the intent seems to have been to generate business based on this site’s purported connection to the story. At some point, the owner painted “Rip’s Rock” on a nearby boulder, claiming it to be the spot where Rip slept for 20 years, and this ravine took on the name of Sleepy Hollow, further connecting it to Washington Irving’s literature.

The Rip Van Winkle House remained in business throughout the rest of the 19th century, but it began to decline after 1892, with the opening of the Otis Elevating Railway. This funicular railway provided a direct connection to the Mountain House, eliminating the need for a long stagecoach ride up winding mountain roads. This meant far less business for the Rip Van Winkle House, which ultimately closed shortly after the first photo was taken. The buildings remained vacant for many years afterwards, before finally burning around 1918.

Today, some 120 years after the first photo was taken, the old stagecoach road is still here. Now primarily used by hikers and snowmobilers, it still follows the same route that 19th century visitors to the Mountain House would have taken up the mountain. Here at the site of the Rip Van Winkle House, the buildings have been gone for over a century, but there are still some remnants, including the stone foundations. Aside from the loss of the buildings, though, this scene is not significantly different from the first photo. This remains a quiet, secluded spot partway up the escarpment, and it is an ideal place to stop and rest alongside the stream, although perhaps not for as long as 20 years.

Middle Street, Hadley, Mass

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The view looking north on Middle Street towards Russell Street in Hadley, around 1900. Image from History of Hadley (1905).

The scene in 2021:

Hadley is one of the oldest towns in western Massachusetts, having been first settled by European colonists in 1659 and incorporated as a town two years later. Its terrain is mostly flat, and it is situated on the inside of a broad curve in the Connecticut River, giving it some of the finest farmland in New England. The main settlement developed in this vicinity, with a broad town common on what is now West Street. This common was the town center during the colonial period, and it was the site of three successive meetinghouses beginning in 1670.

The third meetinghouse, which is shown here in these photos, was completed on the town common in 1808. This location was a matter of serious contention, as by the turn of the 19th century much of the town’s development had shifted east toward what is now Middle Street. Tradition ultimately prevailed, and the third meetinghouse was built on the common. However, this proved to be only temporary, because in 1841 it was relocated. The intended location was to be a compromise, located halfway between the common and Middle Street, but the movers ignored this and brought the building all the way to Middle Street, to its current location just south of Route 9.

Architecturally, this meetinghouse reflects some of the changes that were occurring in New England church designs. Prior to the late 18th century, the region’s churches tended to be plain in appearance. Many did not have steeples, and those steeples that did exist tended to rise from the ground level on the side of the building, rather than being fully incorporated into the main section of the church. This began to change with prominent architects like Charles Bulfinch, who drew inspiration from classical architecture when designing churches and other buildings. Bulfinch’s churches tended to feature a triangular pediment above the main entrance, with a steeple that rose from above the pediment, rather than from the ground.

Bulfinch does not appear to have played a hand in designing Hadley’s church, but its builder was clearly influenced by his works. It has a pediment with a steeple above it, and it also has a fanlight above the front door, and a Palladian window on the second floor. Other classically-inspired decorative elements include pilasters flanking the front entrance and dentils around the pediment. As for the steeple itself, it does not bear strong resemblance to the ones that Bulfinch designed, but the builder likely took inspiration from other 18th century New England churches. In particular, it bears a strong resemblance the steeples of churches such as Old North Church in Boston and the First Church of Christ in Wethersfield, Connecticut.

Aside from moving the church to this site, the other major event of 1841 that solidified Middle Street as the town center was the construction of a town hall here. Prior to this point, town meetings were held in the church, as was the case in most Massachusetts towns in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Massachusetts was slow to create a separation between church and state, and not until 1833 did the state outlaw the practice of taxing residents to support local churches. Here in Hadley, this soon led to a physical separation between the church and the town government, although as shown in this scene the two buildings stood side-by-side on Middle Street.

While the church features Bulfinch-inspired architecture, the design of the town hall reflects the Greek Revival style of the mid-19th century. This style was particularly popular for government and other institutional buildings of the period, as it reflected the democratic ideals of ancient Greece. The town hall is perhaps Hadley’s finest example of this style, with a large portico supported by four Doric columns, along with Doric pilasters in between the window bays on all four sides of the building.

The first photo shows Middle Street around the turn of the 20th century, looking north toward the church, the town hall, and Russell Street further in the distance. The photo also shows a house on the foreground, just to the right of the church. Based on its architecture, this house likely dated back to about the mid-18th century, but it was gone by 1903, when the current house was built on the site. This house was originally the home of Dr. Frank Smith, and it was designed by Springfield architect Guy Kirkham.

Today, the town of Hadley is significantly larger than it was when the first photo was taken more than 120 years ago. Russell Street is now Route 9, a major east-west thoroughfare that has significant commercial development thanks to Hadley’s position at the center of the Five Colleges region. Likewise, Middle Street is far from the dirt road in the first photo, and it is now Route 47. However, much of Hadley has retained its historic appearance, including its extensive farmland and its many historic buildings. Here on Middle Street, both the church and the town hall are still standing. They have seen few major exterior changes during this time, and the church is still an active congregation, while the town hall remains the seat of Hadley’s town government. Both buildings are now part of the Hadley Center Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

City Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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The northeast corner of Philadelphia City Hall, seen from the corner of Market and Filbert Streets, around 1905. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2019:

Throughout most of the 19th century, Philadelphia’s municipal government was located in the old city hall building, adjacent to Independence Hall at the corner of Chestnut and Fifth Streets. Built in the 1790s, when Philadelphia had a population of barely 30,000 people, this building had become too small for the rapidly-growing city by the mid-19th century. The result was a new city hall, shown here in these two photos. It would be everything that the small, plain Federal-style building was not: it would be massive and architecturally opulent. Upon completion, it also held the title of the tallest habitable building in the world, marking the only time that a building in Philadelphia would hold this distinction.

The site of the current city hall had previously been a park, known as Centre Square. This park had been a part of William Penn’s original design for the city’s street grid, and it proved to be an ideal location for city hall, at the intersection of the north-south oriented Broad Street and the east-west Market Street. The building was designed by John McArthur Jr., a Scottish-born architect who spent most of his life in Philadelphia. His design featured a Second Empire-style exterior, which was particularly popular for government buildings in the United States during the post-Civil War era. Work began in 1871, but it would ultimately take 30 years to finish, at a cost of $25 million, thanks to construction cost overruns and governmental corruption.

City Hall is laid out in the shape of a square, with seven floors surrounding a central courtyard. In the middle of each side of the building is a large, ornate pavilion that rises above and projects outward from the rest of the building, as shown on the rights side of this scene. On the ground floor of each pavilion is an open archway leading into the courtyard. Along with these pavilions, the building also features matching turrets at each of the four corners. However, by far the most distinguishing feature of City Hall is the tower here at the northern side of the building. It rises 548 above the street, and it is topped by a 37-foot statue of William Penn that was designed by sculptor Alexander Milne Calder.

Although the interior was not completed until 1901, portions of the building were in use by the late 1870s. The tower topped out in 1894, surpassing Germany’s Ulm Minster as the tallest habitable building in the world. As such, it became the first non-religious building in recorded history to hold this distinction, and it would also become the last non-commercial building to do so. Its height was eventually surpassed by the Singer Building in 1908, and since then all of the record holders have been modern skyscrapers. Because of this, Philadelphia City Hall has a unique position on the timeline of the world’s tallest buildings, representing a transition from the cathedrals of the 19th century to the skyscrapers of the 20th century.

Despite its record-setting height, the size of City Hall is somewhat deceptive when viewed in photographs. Part of this was intentional on McArthur’s part, as the arrangement of windows gives the appearance, at first glance, that there are only three floors above the ground floor. This illusion affects the apparent scale of the tower as well, and it is hard to tell from a photograph that the statue is actually 37 feet tall, rather than simply being life-sized. As a result, photographs do not fully capture just how massive this building is. However, it is quite the imposing building when seen in-person, and this would have been even more so for the people in the first photo, which was taken when City Hall was still the world’s tallest building.

Unfortunately for architect John McArthur, the many construction delays meant that he did not live to see the completion of his magnum opus; he died in 1890, at the age of 66. These delays also meant that, by the time it was completed, the design of City Hall was hopelessly out of date. By the late 19th century, tastes had shifted away from the highly ornate features of Second Empire architecture, and City Hall was seen as a relic of an earlier era. This criticism started even before the construction was finished, with the Philadelphia Inquirer declaring it to be an “architectural monstrosity” that “always will be until that bizarre French roof is ripped off and a couple of substantial stories added.”

City Hall would continue to face criticism after its completion, both for its design and also for its location in the middle of a major intersection. As early as 1916 there were calls for its demolition. The Inquirer reiterated its criticism of the design, which the newspaper believed “belongs to a thoroughly discredited era of architectural merit.” Furthermore, the building “blocks our two chief streets and hampers developments which are essential to the welfare of the people and to Philadelphia’s progress.” Consequently, the Inquirer argued, “everyone will agree that where it stands now is an obstruction and a nuisance and the only open question relates to the expediency from a practical and business-like viewpoint of its obliteration.”

This proposal ultimately gained little headway, but the building survived several more serious proposals to demolish it, including one in the 1950s. However, this plan failed in part because of the enormous expense of demolishing such a large masonry structure; the demolition costs would have been roughly equal to what it had cost to build City hall a half century earlier.

Despite the long history of criticism of City Hall, it retained the title of tallest building in Philadelphia throughout most of the 20th century, thanks to an informal gentleman’s agreement that no building should rise higher than the statue of William Penn. However, its height was ultimately surpassed by One Liberty Place in 1987, and other skyscrapers soon followed. Because of this, City Hall is now only the 12th-highest in the city.

Today, more than 120 years after its completion, City Hall remains in use by Philadelphia’s municipal government. It is the largest city hall in the country in terms of interior floor space, and it also stands as the world’s tallest freestanding masonry building in the world. Several other masonry structures are taller, including the Washington Monument, but these do not qualify as buildings and so are listed in a separate category. Over the years, the views on City Hall’s architectural design have changed, and the building is now highly-regarded as a masterpiece of Second Empire architecture. As a result, in 1976 it was designated as a National Historic Landmark, which is the highest level of federal recognition for a historic building.

Philadelphia Arcade, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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The Arcade Hotel on the north side of Chestnut Street, between Sixth and Seventh Streets in Philadelphia, in January 1858. Image courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia, Frederick De Bourg Richards Collection.

The scene in 2019:

In 1819, the Burlington Arcade opened in London, becoming one of the earliest precursors to the modern shopping mall. It soon inspired similar buildings here in the United States, including ones in New York, Providence, and here in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Arcade, shown here in the first photo, was designed by John Haviland, an architect who was responsible for many important buildings in early 19th century Philadelphia. Work on the building began in 1826, and it was completed a year later, at a cost of $112,000.

In the architectural sense, an arcade is a series of arches, and this building featured four large arches here on the Chestnut Street façade. The Arcade extended the width of the block to Carpenter Street (modern-day Ranstead Street), and on the interior it featured three floors The first two floors each had two parallel hallways, or “avenues,” that were topped by skylights, and these avenues were lined by shops and offices on either side. On the third floor was the Philadelphia Museum, which had been established by prominent artist Charles Willson Peale. In total, the Arcade could house 80 shops and professional offices, and it also had a restaurant in the basement.

The intent was that this section of Chestnut Street would become the commercial center of the city, with the Arcade as an upscale shopping center that would attract high-end tenants and affluent customers. From the beginning, however, the Arcade struggled to fill vacant spaces in the building, and an 1829 report lists just 33 tenants here. In general, the ground floor primarily housed retail shops, selling goods such as books, boots and shoes, clothing, confectioneries, dry goods, lamps, and tobacco. The second floor also featured several stores, but it was primarily office space, with tenants such as lawyers, editors, employment services, an engraver, and a bookkeeping teacher. Overall, these businesses here in this building offered customers a variety of goods and services, but these were hardly the exclusive boutique shops that the Arcade’s founders had envisioned.

The decline of the Arcade continued over the next few decades, especially after the Philadelphia Museum moved to a new location. The building was eventually purchased by Dr. David Jayne, who converted the upper floors into the Arcade Hotel. It opened in 1853, and it provided accommodations for men only, at a rate of 50 cents per night. Guests could also eat here at the hotel, for 25 cents per meal for breakfast or supper, or 50 cents for dinner. The Arcade Hotel had nearly 200 guest rooms, and it also featured a saloon, a reading room, and a smoking room, in addition to the dining room. The saloon was located here at the front of the building, with a balcony that was likely added during the hotel renovations.

The first photo was taken a few years later, showing the Chestnut Street façade of the building. It was still in use as a hotel at this point, with storefronts on the ground floor, but it would only stand here for a few more years. In 1863, it was demolished and replaced by three new commercial buildings. These buildings, in turn, have long since been demolished, and most of this block is now One Independence Mall, a high-rise office building that has a parking garage here on the lower floors.

Fifth and Minor Streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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Looking north on Fifth Street near the corner of Minor Street in Philadelphia, in February 1859. Image courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia, Frederick De Bourg Richards Collection.

The scene in 2019:

The first photo shows a row of commercial buildings along the west side of Fifth Street. Of these, the most significant is Robert Smith’s Brewery in the center of the scene. This brewery underwent many name changes over its long history, but it dated back to the colonial era, when Joseph Potts opened a brewery here around 1774. Potts operated it until 1786, when he sold it to Henry Pepper. By this point Philadelphia had become a leading producer of beer, and this brewery remained in the Pepper family for many years. Robert Smith, a native of England who had learned the trade as an apprentice at the Bass Brewery, joined the firm in 1837, and eventually took over the business in the following decade.

As was the case in most early American breweries, this facility produced ale. Americans began to acquire a taste for lagers by the second half of the 19th century, thanks to an influx of German immigrants with surnames like Busch, Coors, Miller, and Pabst. Here in Philadelphia, though, Robert Smith continued to have success brewing ales. He remained here for nearly 30 years after the first photo was taken, and eventually incorporated the business as the Robert Smith India Pale Ale Brewing Company in 1887. A year later, he moved to a new, larger facility at the corner of 38th Street and Girard Avenue. Smith ran the brewery at the new location until his death in 1893.

Smith’s brewery business was ultimately acquired by the Christian Schmidt Brewing Company, the largest brewery in the city. With the exception of the Prohibition era, Schmidt continued brewing Smith’s popular Tiger Head Ale until the company closed in 1987. In the meantime, the original brewery here on Fifth Street was likely demolished soon after Robert Smith moved to the new brewery, and it was definitely gone by the mid-1950s, when this entire block was demolished to make way for the Independence Mall. As a result, there are no surviving buildings from the first photo, and even Minor Street itself is gone. This site is now the southeastern section of the Independence Mall, and it is located only a few hundred feet to the north of Independence Hall.