1900s

Market Street from State Street, Hartford, Connecticut

by

Looking north on Market Street from State Street, on April 22, 1906. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.

Market St. north of State

Market Street in 2016:

979_2016
Photographer William H. Thompson took the first photograph, along with many others, in the early 1900s, with the idea that they “would later be of historic interest.” A good portion of his photographs, which are available online through the Connecticut State Library, concentrate on the eastern part of the city. This neighborhood of about nine square blocks is bounded by Morgan Street to the north, State Street to the South, Main Street to the west, and the Connecticut River to the east, and his photographs provide, as he had intended, a valuable record of this section of Hartford. Unlike photographers like the Detroit Publishing Company, who focused on insurance buildings, monuments, and other prominent landmarks in Hartford, Thompson’s work captures the less glamorous, but far more historically interesting side of the city.

As it turned out, this entire section of the city was demolished in the late 1950s and early 1960s to build Constitution Plaza. Even when the 1906 photo was taken, this was not a particularly high-end section of the city, but it only got worse, especially after sustaining heavy damage from floods in the 1930s. By the 1950s, the working-class neighborhood was considered a slum, and any of the buildings that would have still been standing from the first photo were destroyed in the urban renewal project. Most of the streets themselves, including Market Street, are still here, but all of the low-rise residential and commercial development of the 19th century is gone, replaced with modern office buildings, hotels, and parking garages.

Central Row, Hartford, Connecticut

by

Facing west on Central Row toward Main Street, with the Old State House on the right, around 1903-1906. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.

Street scene

Central Row in 2016:

978_2016
Like many other street scenes from early 20th century Hartford, not much is left here in this view. The mix of three and four-story 19th century commercial buildings on the left has given way to modern skyscrapers, and today the only one remaining is the Putnam Building near the center of the photo, which was built around 1860 and has somehow survived despite being overshadowed by skyscrapers on either side.

On the right side, the only building still standing is the Old State House, which was built in 1796 and was probably the oldest one in the first photo. The building next to it, partially visible on the far right, is the old post office, which was completed in the early 1880s and demolished in 1933. Beyond the State House, at the corner of Main and Pearl Streets, is the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance building, which stood there from 1872 until 1964.

Main Street from Central Row, Hartford, Connecticut

by

Looking north on Main Street from in front of the Old State House, on November 25, 1903. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.

977_1903-11-25 csl

Main Street in 2016:

977_2016
Aside from a few buildings several blocks away in the distance, none of the buildings from the first photo are still standing. The Old State House, which is just out of view to the right, is still there, but otherwise this section of Main Street has undergone a complete transformation since the early 20th century. The buildings on the left side of the first photo were known as Bankers’ Row, and included some of the city’s most prominent financial institutions. Just out of view to the left, at the corner of Main and Pearl Streets, was the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance building. Next to it, starting on the left of the 1903 photo, was the 1850 State Bank building, the 1874 Phoenix National Bank building, and the 1870s Corning Building, home to the Connecticut Trust & Safe Deposit Company. On the other side of Asylum Street, near the center of the photo, is the Catlin Building, which was built in 1898 and, a few years after the first photo was taken, was purchased by the Hartford National Bank.

All of these buildings were gone by 1930, starting with the Phoenix National Bank, which was extensively rebuilt in 1906. The stone phoenix on top of the building dated back to 1827, when it was put atom the company’s first building, and it remained on top of the reconstructed building until its demolition in the early 1920s. The State Bank building was demolished around 1907 and replaced with a new building, which is also no longer standing, and the Catlin Building, just 13 years old, was replaced in 1911 with a new building that stood until 1990. The last survivor in the foreground of the first photo was the Corning Building, which was replaced in the late 1920s with the current building at the corner of Main and Asylum Streets.

The Linden, Hartford, Connecticut

by

Looking south on Main Street from the corner of Sheldon Street, around 1903-1906. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.

The scene in 2016:

976_2016
This view shows some of the same buildings as an earlier post, just from a different angle a block away. The building in the foreground here is The Linden, a Romanesque-style apartment building that was completed in 1891. Most of the other buildings in the distance beyond it are still standing, including the Hotel Capitol, built in 1875 a block away, and the South Congregational Church, completed in 1827. The only building not still standing from the first photo is the South Baptist Church on the far right. It was built in 1854 and demolished to build the present Central Baptist Church. Today, most of the buildings in this scene are part of the Buckingham Square Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Main Street and Capitol Avenue, Hartford, Connecticut

by

Looking north on Main Street from near the corner of Capitol Avenue, around 1903-1906. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.

974_1903-1906 csl

The scene in 2016:

974_2016
Very little has changed along this section of Main Street, which is part of the Buckingham Square Historic District. It consists of a number of historic buildings from the late 1800s, including several in this view. On the left is the Hotel Capitol, which was built in 1875, and on the other side of Capitol Avenue, in the center of the photos, are two slightly newer buildings. The yellow brick one to the left was built in 1895 by hotel owners Gilbert and Louis Heublein, and the one on the right is the Linden, which was built in 1891 as an upscale apartment building. The only building from the first photo that is no longer standing is the South Baptist Church in the distance on the right. Built in 1854 at the corner of Main and Elm, it was demolished in the 1920s after the congregation merged with another Baptist church. They formed the Central Baptist Church, which opened the present-day building on the same location in 1926.

Main Street, Laconia, NH (2)

by

Looking north on Main Street from the bridge across the Winnipesaukee River in Laconia, probably in 1907. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

972_1900-1910 loc

Main Street in 2016:

972_2016
This scene is a perfect example of urban renewal gone horribly wrong. What had once been a vibrant downtown with a variety of 19th century architecture was completely leveled in the 1960s, and it was replaced with nondescript one-story commercial buildings to the left and a parking garage on the right. Even the streets themselves were dramatically changed, with bizarre traffic patterns and an extremely narrow, one-way street here that looks more like a back alley than a Main Street.

The first photo is far more interesting than the present-day scene, and it was probably taken around the same time as the one in this earlier post, which shows the same view from about 150 yards further up Main Street. Some of the downtown businesses in this view include several drugstores, hardware stores, tobacco shops, and confectioneries, along with a photographer, tailor, paint store, sporting goods store, baker, harness maker, and a horse shoer. There are several advertisements posted on the building on the left side of the photo. One of them is a poster for the Cole Bros. Circus on Tuesday, July 23, which helps to establish the 1907 date since that day was a Tuesday in 1907. Below it is a larger advertisement for Folsom Opera House, which reads: “A Genuine Treat. The most perfect Moving Pictures ever examined. All the latest and best films including the funny chase pictures and animated pantomimic dramas. Wonderful Realism.”

Most of the buildings from the first photo were still standing by the 1950s, as seen in a photo on this Weirs Beach website. However, nothing in the block between Beacon and Pleasant Streets is still standing today, and most of the buildings further in the distance are also gone, although some were demolished before the 1960s redevelopment. The Eagle Hotel at the corner of Main and Pleasant Streets was demolished in the 1930s, and the Unitarian Church across the street from it, whose steeple is visible near the center of the photo, was destroyed by a fire in 1938. At least one brick building, barely visible on the left side near the center of the photo, is still standing. Nearly 250 yards away from the camera, this is the only identifiable building left from the 1907 scene along this section of Main Street.