Transportation

North End Bridge, West Springfield Mass

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The view looking east over the North End Bridge from the West Springfield side of the river, around 1900-1910.  Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The bridge in 2014:

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The North End Bridge was the second road bridge to be built across the Connecticut River in Springfield, and opened in 1877.  Both views show the bridge looking east from West Springfield toward Springfield.  This bridge was particularly significant to West Springfield residents, as it directly connected downtown West Springfield to the north end of Springfield and, more importantly at the time, Springfield’s railroad station.

The old bridge was described by King’s Handbook of Springfield in 1884 as being “one of the handsomest highway bridges in the United States.”  In 1923, though, it caught fire and was completely destroyed. Two years later a new bridge was completed, and it remains in use today, carrying US Route 20, the longest road in America, over the Connecticut River.  The road on the far left-hand side just before the bridge in the first photo is Riverdale Street; it didn’t look like much at the turn of the last century, but today it is part of Route 5, and is a major north-south route through the Springfield area.  It does not actually pass through this intersection anymore, though.  The 2014 photo was taken from the center of a rotary, which was built atop a tunnel for Route 5.

As an incidental historical note, there is a sign on the bridge in the first photo, which is barely legible.  In higher-resolution copies of the photo, it reads: “No person shall ride or drive a horse or mule on any part of this bridge at a rate faster than a walk under a penalty of two dollars for each offence.”  Today, the bridge traffic usually travels at a significantly higher rate of speed than a walk, except during rush hour.

28th Street Subway Station (2)

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Another view of the 28th Street station, around 1904. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The station in 2014:

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One of the now-closed exit stairways in the 28th Street station. The first plot was probably taken around the time it opened, on October 27, 1904. Notice the mosaic of the station name to the left, which is still there after 110 years.

28th Street Subway Station (1)

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The 28th Street subway station on the Lexington Avenue line, around the time that it opened in 1904. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The station in 2014:

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The 28th Street station on the Lexington Avenue Line was part of New York’s first subway line. The station opened on October 27, 1904, and the first photo was probably taken around that time.  Notice the lack of turnstiles – when the subway first opened, employees would stand at the entrance (between the curved iron railings on the right-hand side) and collect fares. Also, the station originally had separate stairways for entering and exiting – exiting passengers didn’t need to pass back through the fare collection area. Overall, not much looks the same today, although the mosaics on the walls are still there. Otherwise, the changes seem to be for the worse, although I’m sure the present-day photo would look far better than a photo from the 1970s or 80s.

On a different note, I am fairly certain that these two photos show the same platform (uptown), but it is difficult to distinguish the two with any degree of certainty, so the 1904 photo could actually be of the downtown platform. Either way, they look almost identical, so a photo of either one would still accurately reflect the changes over the past 110 years.

Subway Station 23rd Street & Lexington Ave, New York City

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The entrance to the 23rd Street subway station on Lexington Avenue, around 1905. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The station entrance in 2014:

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The subway station is still there, but the elaborate entrance and exit kiosks are long gone.  The 23rd Street station was opened in 1904, along the Lexington Avenue Line, the first subway line in New York.  In the intervening years, this intersection has remained remarkably unchanged, even down to the “East 23rd Street” lettering on the corner of the building above the station entrance.

Grand Central Terminal, New York City

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Grand Central Terminal, between when it opened in 1913 and around 1920. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The same view in 2019:

Grand Central Terminal in New York City was built in 1913 on the site of a previous station, and although it is no longer the inter-city rail hub that it used to be, it is still a major part of rail transit in New York City, as seen in the 2019 nighttime photo of the concourse.  The concourse has undergone renovations and restorations along the way, which included building a staircase on the opposite end – using stone from the same quarry as the original structure – but it retains a very similar appearance, even down to the constellations on the ceiling, which can be seen in both photos.  The first photo is dated by the Library of Congress as being between 1910 and 1920, but it was likely taken around the time that it opened, to show the world for the first time what this station would look like.

South Street Docks, New York City

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The view looking north along the South Street docks along the East River around 1900, with the Brooklyn Bridge in the background. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The scene in 2014:

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There isn’t much left to remind visitors of the bustling seaport that lower Manhattan once was, and South Street itself, which was teeming with activity in 1900, is now a quiet street underneath the elevated FDR Drive (named after a person who, when the first photo was taken, was just starting his studies at Harvard).

The first photo shows the docks of the New York and Cuba Mail Steamship Company, also known as the Ward Line. They went out of business in 1954, and their docks are now home to the South Street Seaport, which owns a number of historic ships, including the Peking, the 1911 sailing ship visible in the second photo. The only actual structure from the 1900 photo that still exists today is the Brooklyn Bridge, seen in the background of both photos.