Street Scenes

East Longmeadow Rotary (2)

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Another view in downtown East Longmeadow, looking up present-day Route 83 from the rotary, around 1900-1910.  Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The view in 2014:

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This view shows the scene looking north on North Main Street in East Longmeadow, toward Springfield, from the rotary.  The house on the far left appears to be the same in both photos, but otherwise everything else has changed, showing the increase in commercial development in the center of East Longmeadow over the past century.  Another change seen here is the trolley tracks, which are visible in the lower left of the first photo.  As mentioned in this post, streetcars once connected Springfield and its surrounding towns, much in the same way that PVTA buses now do.

East Longmeadow Rotary (1)

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The view looking up modern-day Route 83 in East Longmeadow at the rotary, between 1900 and 1910.  Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The same scene in 2014:

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Reportedly, the rotary in the center of East Longmeadow holds the record for most roads in a single intersection.  I don’t know whether this is actually the case, but either way its seven roads make it an unusual and confusing intersection.  It contains a rotary-like feature, but unlike conventional rotaries, the traffic in the rotary doesn’t necessarily have the right of way – sometimes rotary traffic does, sometimes incoming traffic has to yield, and sometimes incoming traffic has to stop.  One thing it does lack, though, is a traffic light.  Although I can only imagine what a traffic light with seven different streets would be like.

A century ago, the intersection still had seven roads, but with far less traffic, and at much lower speeds.  However, it did have one thing that modern-day drivers don’t have to contend with – trolleys.  Part of one trolley is barely visible on the far left of the first photo.  This location on the rotary, directly in front of town hall, was the southern end of one of the many streetcar lines that linked the towns in the Connecticut Valley at the turn of the century.

Sumner Avenue, Springfield Mass

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Looking east on Sumner Avenue, Springfield Massachusetts, from near the intersection with present-day Washington Road, around 1900-1910. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The same view in 2014:

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Sumner Avenue is the primary thoroughfare across the southern part of Springfield, passing through the Forest Park neighborhood.  At the time that the first photo was taken, this was a prominent, expensive neighborhood with large, ornate houses, similar to the ones seen on Maple Street and other parts of the city.  However, like many of these other areas, the neighborhood has declined, with most of the wealthy residents moving to Longmeadow or somewhere else outside the city.  Today, most of the houses are still there, though, including the Smith Platt House on the extreme left, and the Lathrop House next to it.

Maple Street Homes, Springfield Mass

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Several homes on Maple Street in Springfield, around 1905. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The same view in 2014:

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Around the turn of the last century, Maple Street was one of the best places in Springfield to live. This side of the street was particularly desirable, because of the view looking toward downtown Springfield and across the Connecticut River. Today, that isn’t the case. Although the view is still there, it is no longer one of the city’s premier residential areas, and the two mansions in the first photo no longer exist.

Located directly across the street from the former MacDuffie School campus, this area was right in the path of the June 1, 2011 tornado that tore across western Massachusetts. These houses, however, were gone long before then.  The one on the right was at the time the home of businessman and city library president Nathan D. Bill, and was built in the 1880s as the Andrew Fennessy House. It was destroyed in a suspicious fire in 1969, after having been vacant for several years. Today, only the concrete driveway is still there, and can be seen better on Google Maps. The house just beyond it was built in 1882 and belonged to Walter H. Wesson, the son of Daniel Wesson, co-founder of Smith & Wesson. In 1982, this historic house was also heavily damaged in a fire, and was subsequently demolished.

State Street from the Armory, Springfield, Mass

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The view looking east on State Street from the sidewalk along the Armory grounds, sometime in the late 1800s. Photo from Springfield: Present and Prospective (1905).

The scene in 2019:

The buildings in these photos are the same as the ones in the previous post; the only difference is that they are seen from the opposite direction.  Although these two photos were taken well over 100 years apart, many of the buildings are still there, including the Gunn Block and the two adjacent buildings in the background, which date to the 1830s, and the three buildings in the center of the photo, which likely date to around the time of the Civil War.  Even one of the businesses from the first photo almost made it to the present-day; the sign for William Kavanagh is barely visible on the sign above the awning on the building to the far right.  Today, the building is gone, having long-since been replaced by a newer Kavanagh building, with a newer sign.  However, Kavanagh Furniture closed in 2008, although it was probably the longest-lasting of all of the businesses from the first photo.

 

 

State Street from Walnut Street, Springfield, Mass

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State Street looking west from Walnut Street, around 1895. Photo courtesy of James Ward Birchall Collection.

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The view in 2019:

As with the photos in this post, the historic Gunn Block (far left) is visible, along with the other two adjacent buildings, which also date back to the 1830s, making them among the oldest commercial buildings in Springfield; only Byers Block at Court Square and the Guenther & Handel’s Block on Stockbridge Street are of similar ages.  Further down State Street is another historic block of buildings; I couldn’t find specifics on these buildings, but based on the architecture they likely date to around the 1860s.