City Hall in Albany, between 1900 and 1910. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.
City Hall in 2009:
Albany’s current City Hall was built in 1883 to replace an earlier building that burned in a fire. It was designed by noted architect Henry Hobson Richardson, and not much has changed about its appearance in the past 100 years, other than the addition of the clock face on the tower.
The view of Easthampton from the Summit House atop Mount Tom, between 1905 and 1915. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.
The scene in 2019:
The Summit House no longer exists, so I wasn’t able to perfectly re-create the early 20th century photo, but the 2019 photo shows the remains of the promenade that is in the foreground of the older photo. President William McKinley once walked along it, but now all that remains is the concrete that once supported the wooden boardwalk and the rusty metal railings that tourists once admired the view from alongside. The Summit House from the older photo was built in 1901, replacing the 1897 structure that had burned just three years later. The 1901 building also burned, in 1929, and the third one was closed in 1938. The site of the summit houses is now off-limits; it is the site of numerous radio and TV antennas for the Springfield area.
Cape Neddick “Nubble” Light, as it appeared between 1900 and 1910. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.
The same scene in 2011:
Not much has changed in 100 years; the 1879 lighthouse, keepers house, and outbuildings remain as they were in the early 1900’s, and the rocks clearly haven’t gone anywhere either. The only significant changes are the enclosed walkway between the house and tower, and demolition of the bell tower seen to the right of the lighthouse in the old photo. On a curious note, the Voyager spacecraft, launched in 1977, carries several photographs of notable man-made structures in the event that it should ever be discovered by extraterrestrials, including the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, and this lighthouse.
The view of Cape Neddick from Long Sands Beach in York, Maine, between 1890 and 1910. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.
The same view in 2011:
In the past 100 years, Cape Neddick went from being almost deserted, to being covered with vacation homes. The only readily-identifiable structure in both photos is the Cape Neddick “Nubble” Lighthouse, located at the end of the peninsula on a small, rocky island known as the Nubble. However, with close examination, at least one of the cottages from the old photograph still exists – the one with the tower in the center of the roof on the far-left side of the photo.
Union Oyster House in Boston, sometime in the 19th century. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library:
The historic building around 1898. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library:
In 1930, courtesy of Boston Public Library:
Sometime between 1934 and 1956. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.
The Union Oyster House in 2010:
The above four photos show over 100 years of the history of the oldest restaurant in the United States, the Union Oyster House in Boston. Although the restaurant opened in 1826, the building itself is far older, having been built around 1704. The second floor was once used as the publishing office of the Massachusetts Spy in the 1770’s, and in 1796 the future King Louis Philippe of France lived in exile, also on the second floor. Since becoming a restaurant, the Union Oyster House (originally Atwood & Bacon Oyster House, as seen in the 1898 photo) has served many notable patrons, including Daniel Webster, John F. Kennedy, and other members of the Kennedy family.
The White House, as it appeared in either the 1880s or 1890s. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.
The same view in 2012:
The White House doesn’t look all that different from what it looked like in the late 19th century, and yet almost everything about it has changed. The East Wing and West Wing, which aren’t visible in the 2012 photo, didn’t exist at the time of the first photo, nor did the third floor on the roof, or the second floor balcony behind the pillars. But, the most dramatic changes in the past 120 or so years came in the late 1940’s, when the badly-deteriorated wood frame was in danger of collapse. The entire interior was gutted, the wood frame was replaced with steel, and the interior put back into place afterward (see this photo of bulldozers and dump trucks at work inside the White House). The exterior, however, remains much the same as it did after the reconstruction following its burning during the War of 1812.
