1900s Archives - Page 65 of 133

Talcott Street from Main Street, Hartford, Connecticut

September 6, 2016 by Derek Strahan

Looking east on Talcott Street from Main Street, on April 22, 1906. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.

Talcott Street in 2016:

This first photo was taken just a block away from and on the same day as the one in the previous post, and it shows Talcott Street facing down the hill toward Market Street, where a photo in another earlier post was taken. As mentioned in that post, the buildings that dominate the present-day scene were originally the home of the Hartford-based G. Fox department store. The company was located here when the first photo was taken, in a much smaller building just out of view to the right. The one-story building on the right side of the first photo was a Woolworth store, and on the left side was the North Baptist Church.

Just over 10 years after the first photo was taken, the G. Fox building burned down, along with the neighboring Woolworth building. Based on the photos here, it appears that the section of the building along the Talcott Street side was preserved and incorporated into a new Woolworth building, but G. Fox completely rebuilt, opening the present-day building in 1918. The facility was later expanded to include a warehouse on the left side of Talcott Street and a bridge connecting the two buildings. At some point, the North Baptist Church building was also demolished, and is now a parking lot.

As for G. Fox, the company was a major Hartford retailer for nearly 150 years, before closing in 1993. Their former building here has since been converted into the Capital Community College, and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as one of several historic department store buildings still standing in downtown Hartford.

Temple Street from Main Street, Hartford, Connecticut

February 9, 2018September 6, 2016 by Derek Strahan

Looking east on Temple Street from Main Street, on April 22, 1906. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.

Temple Street in 2016:

Of all the street views that photographer William H. Thompson took in downtown Hartford during the early 20th century, there are very few buildings that survive today. One of the few is the Cheney Building, seen on the left here at the northeast corner of Main and Temple Streets. Only a small portion of this massive building is visible here, but it clearly shows the Romanesque details of the building, which was designed by prominent architect Henry Hobson Richardson. Although better known for grand public buildings such as churches, city halls, libraries, and railroad stations, he also designed some commercial buildings, including this one here, which was completed in 1876.

For many years, the Cheney Building was home to the Brown Thomson department store, and was one of several department stores along this section of Main Street. The company was later purchased by G. Fox, whose flagship store was directly adjacent to the building. G. Fox expanded into the Cheney Building, and remained here until the company closed in 1993. Today, although all of the 19th century buildings around it are long gone, the Cheney Building has been restored, and is now a Marriott hotel, with stores and restaurants on the ground floor.

State Street from Main Street, Hartford, Connecticut

September 4, 2016 by Derek Strahan

Looking east on State Street from Main Street in Hartford, on April 22, 1906. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.

The scene in 2016:

The 1906 photo here shows several prominent buildings at the western end of State Street, including the Old State House on the far right and the post office building next to it. On the left side of the street, the long four-store building near the foreground was the United States Hotel. It was built in the early 1800s, and for much of the century it was one of the finest hotels in the city. The eastern part of the building was demolished in the 1890s to build the First National Bank Building, which was completed in 1899 and dominates the left side of the first photo. By the time this photo was taken in 1906, the rest of the hotel was still standing, but had been converted into offices in 1901.

Built in 1796, the Old State House was probably the oldest building in the first photo, and today it is the only one that has survived relatively intact. The old United States Hotel building was demolished in 1924, and the post office followed in 1933. In the early 1980s, the entire left side of the photo was redeveloped as State House Square, and the only remnant of the old commercial buildings here is the First National Bank Building, whose facade was incorporated into the construction of the modern office building.

Main Street, Hartford, Connecticut (2)

February 9, 2018September 3, 2016 by Derek Strahan

Looking north on Main Street from State Street in Hartford, on January 30, 1904. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.

Main Street in 2016:

These photos were taken from nearly the same spot as the ones in the previous post, just looking a little further to the left. This view shows the commercial development along the east side of Main Street north of State Street, including the mid-19th century Exchange Block on the right. Beyond it, there are several other buildings from around the same time period, all of which have long since been demolished. The site of these buildings has since been redeveloped into State House Square, which now stands on the right side of the photo.

Most of the other buildings from the first photo have since been demolished, but a few are still standing. The tall building in the center of the first photo was built only a few years earlier, in 1898, and was the home of the Sage-Allen department store. The company closed in 1994, and for almost a decade the building’s fate was in limbo, but its facade was ultimately preserved and incorporated into a new development.

Another prominent building, which has survived more or less intact from the first photo, is the Cheney Building at the corner of Temple Street, just beyond the Sage-Allen Building. This brownstone building was designed by prominent architect Henry Hobson Richardson and completed in 1876, and for many years it was the Brown-Thomson department store. A third department store, G. Fox, was also located along this section of Main Street. Their building, barely visible in the first photo beyond the Cheney Building, burned in 1917, and was replaced with their much larger flagship store, which is still standing in the distance of the 2016 photo.

Exchange Block, Hartford, Connecticut

September 3, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The Exchange Block at the northeast corner of Main and State Streets, on December 6, 1903. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.

The scene in 2016:

This location at the corner of Main and State Streets, directly opposite the Old State House, has long been an important commercial center for the city. Known as the Exchange Block, it dates back to the 1830s, when it replaced an earlier building destroyed in a fire. By 1903, when the first photo was taken, the signs here indicate a wide range of businesses and professional offices, including a coal company, cigar store, clothing store, tailors, lawyers, a real estate broker, a dentist, and a physician.

The oldest portion of the building appears to be the section in the center, with Greek Revival architecture that likely dates back to the 1830s. The left side of the building has more of an Italianate design, and was probably built or renovated around the 1850s or 1860s. This part of the building was demolished in the 1920s, and everything else from the first photo was gone sometime between the 1930s and 1984, when construction began on State House Square, the office building that now stands on the site here.

Ferry Street, Hartford, Connecticut

September 3, 2016 by Derek Strahan

Looking east on Ferry Street from Front Street (now Columbus Boulevard) around 1903-1906. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.

The scene in 2016:

As the present-day scene shows, Ferry Street no longer exists, but it once extended east from Front Street to Commerce Street, at the banks of the Connecticut River. Because of its proximity to the Connecticut River and the railroad tracks, this section of Hartford was largely industrial. There were some tenement houses on this street, but in the days before zoning laws they were interspersed between stables, storehouses, foundries, and related businesses. The most visible of these from the first photo is the building on the left, which according to the sign was a “carriage and wagon factory,” with “horseshoeing and general blacksmith” work done here as well.

Unfortunately for whoever owned that business, carriage and wagon making, horseshoeing, and blacksmith work were all on their way to becoming obsolete by the time the photo was taken. Many of these buildings were probably damaged or destroyed some 25 years later during several floods in the 1930s, which caused considerable damage in this neighborhood and furthering its decline. Many of the older buildings in the first photo were probably gone by the 1950s, but any that were left would have been demolished in the Constitution Plaza urban renewal project, which was completed in the 1960s. The entire neighborhood was leveled and rebuilt, and some streets, such as Ferry Street, were completely eliminated in the process. Today, the One State Street office building is located where Ferry Street used to be.