Springfield Massachusetts

View from the Arsenal Tower, Springfield, Mass (2)

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The view looking west from the top of the Arsenal tower at the Springfield Armory, around 1882. Image from Springfield Illustrated (1882)

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The view in 2015, photographed with permission from the Springfield Armory National Historic Site.

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At first, this view looking toward the North End of Springfield does not appear to have seen many dramatic changes. In contrast to the downtown view in the previous post, the scale of this scene remains largely the same, with mostly low-rise commercial and industrial buildings. However, most of the buildings from the first photo have since been demolished. There is a group of surviving Victorian-era buildings on the far left in the Quadrangle-Mattoon Street Historic District, which includes the North Congregational Church and the nearby townhouses on Mattoon Street. The rest of the buildings in the scene, though, are mostly gone. Probably the most significant change happened in the 1960s, when most of the buildings on the right side of the photo were demolished as part of the North End urban renewal project. Much of this area now includes the interchange between Interstates 91 and 291.

Although little survives from the 19th century in this scene, this section of Springfield still includes a number of historic buildings. Just to the left of the center is the Apremont Triangle Historic District, which includes historic early 20th century buildings such as the 1910 Hotel Kimball building, which is visible just beyond the steeple of the North Congregational Church. To the left of it is the 1916 YMCA Building, and to the right is the 1924 Tarbell-Waters Building. Another historic building in this scene is the 1916 Willys-Overland Block, which is the boarded-up building just to the left of the center, and just beyond it on Dwight Street is the old 1932 post office.

For other then and now views from the Arsenal tower, see the other posts showing the view facing southwest, northwest, south, and north.

View from the Arsenal Tower, Springfield, Mass (1)

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Looking southwest toward downtown Springfield from the Arsenal tower, around 1882. Photo from Springfield Illustrated (1882).

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The view in 2015, photographed with permission from the Springfield Armory National Historic Site.

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When the first photo was taken around the early 1880s, Springfield was in the midst of a period of rapid growth. In the previous 20 years, the city’s population had more than doubled to 33,340 people by 1880, thanks in no small part to the presence of the Armory where the photo was taken. The Main Street corridor in the distance had become a major commercial center for the entire region, and the slope in the the foreground at the base of the Armory hill had developed into an affluent residential area. Most of the buildings in the first photo were built in the 1860s or 1870s, including most of the houses seen here. Other major landmarks visible here include St. Michael’s Cathedral, which is easily visible on the left side, and St. Michael’s Hall, in the center. Just to the left of St. Michael’s Cathedral is the tower of the old library building, and to the left of it is the steeple of the Church of the Unity. Further in the distance, beyond St. Michael’s, is the Hampden County Courthouse, with the steeple of Old First Church barely visible to the right of it, along with the tower of the old City Hall building in approximately the upper center of the photo.

As dramatic as the population increase had been by the time the first photo was taken, the growth would continue at an even more dramatic pace over the next 50 years, with the population reaching almost 150,000 by 1930, almost 4.5 times the 1880 population. Much of this growth was in the suburban parts of the city, but the downtown area also saw significant development. However, unlike many other comparably-sized cities in the northeast, Springfield’s skyline did not see many dramatic changes until later in the 20th century. From 1908 to 1970, a state law prohibited any buildings taller than the 125-foot steeple of Old First Church, with the exception of the Springfield Municipal Group Campanile tower. Since 1970, though, downtown Springfield has grown upward, starting with the 29-story Baystate West, now named Tower Square, which is visible on the far right of the photo. Other skyscrapers soon followed, including the Chestnut Park apartment building on the left side of the photo, and Monarch Place, just to the right of the center.

Many of the historic structures from the first photo are now gone, including the old library, the Church of the Unity, and St. Michael’s Hall. Many of the Victorian single-family homes and duplexes are also gone, having been replaced by apartment blocks as the city grew in the first half of the 20th century. Some, however, are still standing, including the two brick houses on Byers Street in the foreground that have towers on their roofs. A few blocks further down the hill, mostly hidden by the trees, is the Quadrangle-Mattoon Street Historic District, which includes many buildings that were standing when the first photograph was taken. The Armory itself, including the Arsenal tower where these photos were taken, is also a historic site. It closed in 1968, and is now the home of Springfield Technical Community College as well as the Springfield Armory National Historic Site.

For other then and now views from the Arsenal tower, see the other posts showing the view facing west, northwest, south, and north.

First Friendly’s Restaurant, Springfield, Mass

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The original home of Friendly Ice Cream, at 161 Boston Road in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Building Department.

The scene in 2019:

The first photo was taken only a few years after S. Prestley and Curtis Blake opened the first Friendly Ice Cream location here in Springfield’s Pine Point neighborhood. In 1935, the two brothers, aged 20 and 18, respectively, borrowed $547 from their parents and opened the ice cream shop, charging 5 cents for a two scoop cone as the sign on the side of the building indicates. The business soon proved to be popular, and in 1940 they opened a second shop in West Springfield. By the early 1950s, they had 10 locations in the area, and when the Blake brothers sold the company in 1979, it had grown to over 500 restaurants. Today, the company operates 380 restaurants along the east coast from Maine to Florida.

 

 

The buildings in the first photo were probably built in the 1920s or early 1930s, when Pine Point was growing as a middle class residential neighborhood. As seen here and in this earlier post, these commercial buildings are all still standing, but the change in use has reflected some of the changes in the neighborhood over the years. The original Friendly’s has long since closed, and its storefront is now a pizza restaurant, and to the right the First National supermarket has been divided into two smaller storefronts. Directly across the street from here was Nora’s Variety Store, a Pine Point fixture for many years that, likewise, has closed, and now stands vacant.

Nora’s Variety Store, Springfield, Mass

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A mixed-use commercial and residential building on Boston Road in Springfield’s Pine Point neighborhood, on October 12, 1938. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

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The building in 2015:

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This building is probably best known as the longtime home of Nora’s Variety Store, but on a more personal note it is also where my grandmother was born. It was built sometime between 1899 and 1910, when the Pine Point neighborhood was first being developed, and it was apparently a two-family home. My great grandparents, Frank and Julia Lyman, moved here around 1915, and they lived here for about two years.

Frank was originally from Wilbraham, and he attended Wesleyan Academy before becoming a machinist. He worked for Pratt and Whitney in Hartford, and later for the Otis Elevator Company in Springfield, and he also spent some time in New York City, where he met his wife Julia Brown. She was the daughter of Irish immigrants, and prior to her marriage she worked in the biographical department for the New York World newspaper. By the time they moved to Springfield they had two young children, Elizabeth and Edith, and their third child, my grandmother Evelyn, was born here in 1917. Soon after, the family moved nearby to a house at 37 Coleman Street, where they lived for many years.

During the 1920s the house had a number of different tenants, who rarely seem to have lived here for longer than a year or two. Then, as this section of Boston Road became increasingly commercial, the house was altered with the addition of two storefronts, as shown in the first photo (an earlier photo on a different blog post, taken from a different angle, shows a the front of the house prior to this addition). This photo was taken in 1938, and by this point the storefronts were occupied by the Boston Road Variety Store—which later became Nora’s Variety Store—on the left, and a shoe store on the right.

Today, nearly 80 years after the first photo was taken, much has changed on Boston Road. Many of the late 19th and early 20th century homes have been demolished over the years, including the one on the far right side of this scene, where a car dealership is now located. Nora’s Variety Store was located here in this building for many years, but it ultimately closed in the early 2000s, and the storefront is now vacant. The building itself has also changed, including the addition of artificial siding, which probably occurred sometime during the mid-20th century. However, the building is still easily recognizable from the first photo, and it stands as a reminder of the days when Boston Road was still predominantly a residential street.

153-157 Boston Road, Springfield, Mass

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

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The building in 2015:

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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.

Alexander House, Springfield, Mass

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The Alexander House on State Street in Springfield, around 1905. Image from Springfield, Present and Prospective (1905).

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The site in 2015:

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The Alexander House was one of many elegant homes that once lined this section of State Street between Chestnut Street and the Armory.  Most of them have long since been replaced, but the Alexander House is still standing, just in a different location.  Its history is explained in more detail in this post, which shows is current appearance around the corner from here, but it was built in 1811 and is one of the oldest existing buildings in the city.

Former owners of the house included portrait artist Chester Harding as well as former Springfield mayor Henry Alexander, Jr., for whom the house is named.  However, its future was threatened in the early 2000s, when a new federal courthouse was proposed for this location.  So, the house was moved about 100 yards away, behind the courthouse on Elliot Street.  The large trees that once stood in front of the house couldn’t be moved, though, so architect Moshe Safdie literally built around them, designing the courthouse so that the trees could be saved as a central element.