Street Scenes

Elm Street, Springfield Mass

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Looking east on Elm Street in Springfield, around 1892. Photo from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

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Elm Street in 2015:

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Elm Street still appears on city maps, although today it isn’t much of a street.  While it used to extend from Main Street to the Connecticut River, today it is a pedestrian walkway and parking lot for courthouse employees that dead-ends in front of the Hampden County Courthouse.  This area has gone through several major changes, the first of which came soon after the first photo was taken.  In the first decade of the 1900s, all of the buildings between Elm Street and Court Street were demolished in order to extend Court Square down to the river; only Old First Church was spared.  Later on, Columbus Avenue was built across this area, and in the 1970s the Hampden County Hall of Justice was built, with part of the building’s footprint covering what used to be Elm Street.

Despite all of the changes, several important buildings have survived from the first photo.  On the left, the steeple of Old First Church is still there, although the brick addition behind it was extensively modified in the 1940s.  To the right, the old Hampden County Courthouse is still there, although it isn’t visible from this angle.  Beyond it, the Court Square Theater was under construction in the first photo, and was added on to in 1900.  It can still be seen in the distance, along with the adjacent Byers Block and Chicopee Bank Building, which existed in the first photo although they aren’t really visible.  One prominent landmark, however, that has not survived is the massive elm tree on the right side of the street.  It was located in front of the Elm Street Grammar School (barely visible on the far right), and is believed to be the tree referred to by Oliver Wendell Holmes in The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.  Referring to notable elm trees that he has seen, he writes that, “The queen of them all is that glorious tree near one of the churches in Springfield. Beautiful and stately she is beyond all praise.”  When the tree was finally cut down, a cross-section of it was saved and is now on display at the Springfield Science Museum.

Main & Emery Streets, Springfield Mass

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Main Street looking south from Emery Street in Springfield around 1892.  Photo from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

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The scene in 2015:

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Aside from the railroad arch barely visible in the distance, I’m pretty sure there’s nothing in the 1892 scene that still exists today.  Unlike in other neighborhoods of Springfield, the North End retains very few historic buildings; just about the entire area between the railroad and I-291, extending a block on either side of Main Street, is new development from the 1970s.  The 1920 city atlas shows literally hundreds of houses and other buildings in this area, but today there is not one permanent resident within nearly a quarter mile of this spot.  Instead, there are commercial developments and highways.  The Springfield Republican offices are to the right, and across the street is the US Post Office.  Not visible to the left of the post office is a shopping plaza, and beyond the Republican building on the right is the Peter Pan bus terminal.  In the opposite direction, looking north along Main Street there are several professional offices, and then the sprawling I-291 interchange with I-91, both of which consume substantial real estate in the North End.

Put’s Bridge, Springfield Mass

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The old covered bridge across the Chicopee River from Springfield to Ludlow, taken from the Springfield side in 1897. Photo courtesy of the Hubbard Memorial Library.

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The present-day bridge in 2015:

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Alternately called Putts Bridge, this spot at Wallamanumps Falls on the Chicopee River has long been the site of a bridge connecting Springfield and Ludlow.  The early accounts are somewhat vague, but the first bridge was built in either the late 1780s or early 1790s.  Either way, a bridge was definitely here by 1794; prior to that, Ludlow’s 500 or so residents would have to get to and from Springfield by fording the river, a task that I can’t image was particularly pleasant or safe.  The bridge was constructed by Eli Putnam, hence the name Put’s bridge.  However, bridges here didn’t seem to have much of a lifespan; in the next 30 years, three additional bridges would have to be constructed on this site.

The 1822 bridge must have been different, because it lasted until this 1897 photograph.  By this point, though, the 75 year old bridge was starting to show its age, and the next year it was replaced with a new iron bridge.  However, the replacement didn’t even last half as long as its predecessor before it was replaced by the current bridge in 1930.  Today, this concrete and steel bridge carries Route 21 across the river, and it still serves as the primary connection from Ludlow to Springfield.  The one difference in the location of these two photos is that the covered bridge was at a substantially lower elevation, so the 1897 photo would’ve actually been taken partway down the hill toward the river.  I could’ve recreated the scene from here, but I chose this location since it represents what the surface of bridge today looks like, rather than just the underside of it.

East Street, Ludlow Mass

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Looking west on East Street from the corner of State Street in Ludlow in 1904. Photo courtesy of the Hubbard Memorial Library.

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East Street in 2015:

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This part of East Street in Ludlow hasn’t changed much in the past 111 years, aside from the obvious changes in transportation.  The road has gone from a dirt road to a paved, four lane route through town, and a row of parallel-parked cars contrasts with the horse-drawn carriage that is hitched up along the curb in the 1904 view.  The old Post Office Block on the right is still there, as is Library Park beyond it.  However, just out of view, the left-hand side of the street has changed a lot.  The area between the road and the Chicopee River is now a modern commercial development, but in 1904 it was part of the massive Ludlow Manufacturing facility, some of which survives to this day, directly behind where these photos were taken.

Glendale Road, Wilbraham Mass

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Looking north on Glendale Road in Wilbraham, toward the intersection of Monson Road, around 1914. Photo courtesy of the Wilbraham Public Library.

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Glendale Road in 2015:

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Topographically speaking, the town of Wilbraham is divided into two major sections: the western half of the town is part of the Connecticut River valley, and is mostly flat.  This was the area that was first settled in Wilbraham, as it provided decent farmland and a close proximity to Springfield.  However, the eastern part of the town is very different.  Just east of Main Street, the terrain abruptly rises, with a ridgeline over 500 feet above the center of town.  The land on the other side of this ridge is very different; it tends to be steeper, more rocky, and less arable than the valley, so this area was slow to develop.

It is this eastern section of town that is seen in these two views, an area known as Glendale.  When the 1914 photo was taken, it had a church, a cemetery, a school (out of view beyond the church), and a few farmhouses.  It was never really a village, just a crossroads.  The first photo was taken at a time when automobiles were beginning to become more common, but it’s unlikely that too many would’ve ventured out into this area, given the condition of the roads.  The ruts in the foreground indicate that the road probably got fairly muddy, and based on looking at the slope, it appears that this section of road would probably get washed out fairly easily in a rainstorm.

The only building in this scene is the Glendale Methodist Church, which was built in 1868 to serve the farmers in the eastern part of town, who would’ve otherwise had to venture up and down steep grades to reach the Methodist church in the town center.  Across Glendale Road from the church, on the left-hand side of the photo, is Glendale Cemetery, which is actually substantially older than the church itself; the earliest gravestone dates to 1787.  Today, the church building is still there, barely visible beyond the trees, but the congregation itself disbanded in 2006, and the building has been vacant ever since.  Glendale and Monson Roads are still there, although the grade of the intersection has been raised substantially by filling in some of the swampy area along the stream that passes under the roads.

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.