Longmeadow Massachusetts

Belleclaire Avenue, Longmeadow, Mass

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Looking east on Belleclaire Avenue from the corner of Lognmeadow Street, on August 23, 1918. Image courtesy of the Longmeadow Historical Society, Emerson Collection.

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The street in 2016:

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This street is a block north of Bliss Road, which is seen in the previous post. Like Bliss Road, Belleclaire Avenue was part of the rapid suburban development that was occurring in Longmeadow in the first two decades of the 20th century. Most of the homes here were built around 1915, with a variety of designs that reflect the popular Craftsman-style architecture of the era. Since the first photo was taken, little has changed here. A few houses, like the one on the far right, were added soon after, and the trees have grown up, but otherwise the street looks much the same as it did almost a century ago.

Bliss Road, Longmeadow, Mass

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Looking east on Bliss Road from near Longmeadow Street, on May 14, 1918. Image courtesy of the Longmeadow Historical Society, Emerson Collection.

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Bliss Road in 2016:

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As Springfield grew in population in the early 20th century, so did Longmeadow to the south. From a population of just over 800 in 1900, the town more than tripled by 1920 as large tracts of land were subdivided and developed. This was the case here on Bliss Road, where most of the houses here were newly built when the first photo was taken. The two houses on the right are slightly older, dating to about 1905-1910, but the rest, including the row of Craftsman-style bungalows on the left, were built around 1915.

Very little has changed here in the past 98 years; the Bliss Road went from a dirt road to one of the main east-west roads in town, but otherwise the houses are all still standing, with a couple of new ones in the distance. Even small details, like the fire hydrant on the right side of the road, remain today, and I have to wonder if some of the telephone poles from the first photo are still there too.

Center Elementary School, Longmeadow, Mass

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The Junior High School, seen from the Town Green in Longmeadow on April 27, 1923. Image courtesy of the Longmeadow Historical Society, Emerson Collection.

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The building in 2016, now part of the Center Elementary School:

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This school was built in 1921 as the Longmeadow Junior High School, and seven years later another school building was built just to the right of here. The two buildings later became Center Elementary School, and today from this angle they look the same on the outside as they did in the 1920s, but everything on the interior is new. Both buildings were completely gutted in the mid-1990s, leaving only the exterior walls still standing, and an entirely new structure was built inside. They were also connected via a new library, which was built in the back of the school, below the grade of the road.. By preserving the exteriors, and by making the modern addition invisible from here, it helps to maintain the character of the Town Green area, which is a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places.

First Church of Christ, Longmeadow, Mass

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The First Church at the corner of Longmeadow Street and Williams Street, sometime in 1907. Image courtesy of the Longmeadow Historical Society, Emerson Collection.

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The church in 2016:

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It doesn’t look like it at first, but this is the same church building in both photos. In fact, Longmeadow’s First Church of Christ is one of the oldest church buildings in Western Massachusetts, although I’m not sure how much of the original building is still left at this point. Up until 1783, Longmeadow was part of Springfield, and for many years its residents attended church there, nearly four miles away. They finally received permission to build their own church in 1716, which lasted for about 50 years before it was replaced with the present church in 1768.

The church was originally located on the Town Green, but in 1873 it was moved to its present location and drastically remodeled, as seen in the first photo. This Gothic style appearance was popular in the mid-1800s, but by the early 1900s it had fallen out of fashion, so in 1932 it was remodeled again to restore it to a colonial style. I haven’t seen any photos of the church in its original appearance, but it probably still looked a little different than it does now. In particular, the front portico would have been virtually unheard of in New England in 1768; this element was added with the 1932 renovation and modeled after the one on Arlington Street Church in Boston. There are a few features that date back to the early years of the church, though – the bell was cast in 1808 by Paul Revere and recast by him in 1812 after it cracked, and the rooster on top of the steeple is even older than the building itself. Its origins are unclear, but it has watched over the center of Longmeadow since at least 1732.

First Church Parsonages, Longmeadow, Mass

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Looking south along the Town Green from Williams Street in Longmeadow, around 1902-1921. Image courtesy of the Longmeadow Historical Society, Emerson Collection.

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The view in 2016:

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The first photo shows two of the houses that have been used as the parsonage for Longmeadow’s First Church of Christ, which is located just out of view to the right of the photos. The building in the distance just to the left of center is the Cordis House, which was built in 1832 for Jonathan Condit, the pastor of the church. He briefly lived here, as did the next pastor, Hubbard Beebe, but in 1845 it was sold to Thomas Cordis, whose descendants continue to own the house.

The house on the right side of the first photo was built only 25 years later, but it shows a shift in architectural style from the fairly plain Green Revival design of the Cordis House to the far more decorative Italianate style that became popular in the mid 19th century. This parsonage was built in 1857, and was first occupied by John Wheeler Harding, who served as pastor from 1850 until 1891. Several other pastors lived here before it was moved in 1921 to build the Community House. The old parsonage is now located just to the south of the church, where it has been used as a church school, the residence of the church caretaker, and currently as a Montessori school.

Town Green, Longmeadow, Mass

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Facing north on the Town Green in Longmeadow, on July 5, 1903. Image courtesy of the Longmeadow Historical Society, Emerson Collection.

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The Green in 2016:

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Longmeadow’s Town Green is a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places, and it is surrounded by a number of buildings dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries. There have been some changes since the first photo was taken, particularly to the church and its parsonage. The church, surprisingly, is the same one from the first photo, just with some significant alterations, and the parsonage is the same building, just in a different location. It is located in about the center of the 1903 photo, just north of Williams Street, but it was moved to the other side of the church around 1921, where it is visible on the far right in the 2016 photo. The large Colonial Revial-style Community House, which was built on the old site of the parsonage in 1921, is the newest building in this scene and the only one that does not appear in the 1903 photo.