Transportation

Lower Manhattan (2)

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The view of Manhattan from New York Harbor, around 1913-1920. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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A similar view in 2012:

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There’s a lot going on in the first photo.  New York City has always been a busy port, but it was especially so in the early 20th century.  The top photo shows three major ships – the two battleships, and the passenger liner to the right.  In addition, there are several US Navy torpedo boats visible.

The two battleships are two of the five Virginia-class battleships, which were built by the US Navy between 1905 and 1906.  By the time this photo had been taken, they had already been rendered obsolete by new advances in battleship design, but they remained in commission until 1920, and were scrapped or sunk as target ships by 1923.  As for the ocean liner, it is German, as evidenced by the flag on the stern, but I don’t know its exact identity.  The 2012 photo, on the other hand, shows the type of shipping that is most common today.  New York is no longer a destination for trans-Atlantic ocean liner traffic, nor is it a major military base, but today it is a major port for container ships, such as the Charles Island that is seen in the photo.

New York’s skyline has obviously changed in the past 100 years, although a few landmarks are still visible.  the angle isn’t exact between the two photos – the 2012 one was taken slightly to the east of the first one, but they show the same general view.  Both photos show the Whitehall Building, which is fairly prominent in the first photo, just above the stern of the lead battleship.  Today, its distinctive shape is still visible, just above the middle section of the container ship.  Another major building in the first photo is the Singer Building, seen just behind and to the left of the Whitehall Building.  It was demolished in 1967 to make way for the far less architecturally significant One Liberty Plaza, which is the large, black, rectangular building just above she ship’s bridge.  Also in the 2012 photo is the new World Trade Center.  At the time that the photo was taken, the two tallest buildings were still under construction.

Grand Central Terminal, New York

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Grand Central Depot in 1871. Image courtesy of New York Public Library.

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The newly reconstructed Grand Central Station around 1900. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The present-day Grand Central Terminal in 2019:

The three photos show the three different versions of the railroad station on 42nd Street.  Originally built in 1871 and named Grand Central Depot, it was a joint effort between three New York railroads, hence the term “grand central.”  It was extensively rebuilt from 1899 to 1900, as shown in the second photo, but it didn’t last for long.  Starting in 1903, it was demolished in stages and replaced with the current structure, which was completed in 1913.  This building itself was threatened in the 1960s – it was designed to be able to support the weight of a tower above it, and several proposals were considered, one of which would have kept the original structure, while stripping it of most of its historic significance. Ultimately, the city declared the building a landmark, thus preventing it from being altered or demolished.

 

Union Station, Washington DC

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Union Station in Washington, DC, between 1910 and 1920. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The same building in 2012:

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Union Station was built in 1907, by the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.  Since then, a lot has changed in the city, but the building has remained the same.  Neither the Pennsylvania nor the Baltimore & Ohio Railroads exist anymore, but the station is now a major Amtrak hub, and is the southern terminal of the Northeast Corridor, which stretches from DC to Boston, and is the busiest passenger rail line in the country.  The modes of transportation to the trains, however, has changed a lot in the past 100 years.  While the first photo shows trolleys unloading passengers at the station, they have been replaced by cars and buses in the 2012 photo.

Boston Navy Yard Dry Dock

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The USS S-48, entering Dry Dock 2 at Boston Navy Yard in 1929. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

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The same view in 2021:

Although no longer an active military base, this part of Boston Navy Yard looks much the same as it did in the 1920s, thanks to its preservation as part of the National Park Service’s Boston National Historic Park.  The yard was opened in 1801, and was very active during World War II, when it built a number of destroyers and other smaller warships.  It closed in 1974, and was then turned over to the NPS.

 

The submarine in the first photo is the USS S-48, which was launched in 1921, in the days before the Navy gave real names to its submarines.  Even though it was only a few years old when the photo was taken, the S-48 had already experienced several mishaps; during builder’s trials, a manhole cover was left unsecured, which is generally a bad thing on a submarine.  A few years later, it grounded off the coast of New Hampshire and was out of service until a few months before this picture was taken.  The S-48 would serve in World War II, but by then the obsolete submarine was used primarily for training purposes, and was scrapped shortly after the war ended.

Springfield Skyline (3)

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The view of Springfield from West Springfield, between 1900 and 1910. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The view in 2014:

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The most obvious difference here is the lack of a covered bridge – this bridge was replaced by the current Memorial Bridge (just to the right of the scene in the 2013 photo) in 1922. The first bridge across the river in Springfield was an uncovered, six span bridge that was built in 1805. It collapsed in 1814, and was replaced by the covered bridge, which was completed in 1820. The designer was Isaac Damon, the same architect who designed Springfield’s Old First Church.  This bridge far outlasted its predecessor, and even the present Memorial Bridge hasn’t reached the 102 years that the covered bridge made it to.

The bridge was finally demolished – or, to be more accurate, dismantled piece by piece to reuse the wood – in 1922, upon completion of Memorial Bridge. Although there are no visible traces of the bridge itself, it’s still easy to pinpoint its location; there is a Bridge Street in Springfield, and another one directly across the river in West Springfield. Neither street currently leads to a bridge, but they were once the approaches to the old covered bridge.

Long Wharf, Boston

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Long Wharf in Boston, around 1910. Image courtesy of Boston Public Library.

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Long Wharf around 1930. Image courtesy of Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

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The same view in 2024:

Boston’s Long Wharf was originally much longer than it is now, although the wharf didn’t get shorter – the city grew outwards. At the beginning of the 18th century, a longer wharf was needed to extend further into the harbor, in order to accommodate deeper oceangoing ships. Originally, it started where Faneuil Hall is today, but as time went on, the city expanded by filling in Boston Harbor, sometimes with dirt and rocks, and sometimes with sunken ships and construction debris. Either way, the city ended up filling in much of the space between Long Wharf and other wharves, and the city built up around it. In the 1930’s, the wharf was much the same as it is today, but at the time this part was used by the United Fruit Company, hence the cargo ships. Today, the cargo ships are gone, replaced by ferries to other parts of Boston and surrounding communities. Some of the older buildings remain, including the granite 1848 Custom House Block, which is visible on the far left of both photos.  The cargo ships in the two photos, however, do not exist anymore. I don’t know what happened to the Vera, the steamer in the first photo, but a ship of the same name was sunk by a German U-boat in World War I. The same fate definitely did happen to the ship in the 1930 photo, the Oriskany, though; it was sunk by a U-boat in 1945 off the coast of England.