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Worthington and Main: 1908

Springfield, Mass., circa 1908. "Worthy Hotel, Worthington and Main Sts." Dozens of errands frozen in time on this  8x10 glass negative. View full size.

Springfield, Mass., circa 1908. "Worthy Hotel, Worthington and Main Sts." Dozens of errands frozen in time on this 8x10 glass negative. View full size.

 

On Shorpy:
Today’s Top 5

"The mosque"

It even has a crescent moon on top. I would love info on the architects and original builders.

[Interestingly, Googling Fuller Block Springfield Mass. turned up a number of hits, including this one. -tterrace]

Onions? More like icing

I wonder if there's any rhyme or reason to the choice of "toppers" on the roof of the Fuller building - DRoy, you seem to know about this building, care to comment? Did they just think them pretty or do they serve some some purpose?

Onions On Top

The extravagantly topped building is the Fuller Building, also known as the Fuller Block. Built in 1887 at a cost of $125,000 it included passenger elevators, steam heat, mail chute, and running water in each suite of rooms. It boasted Georgean marble floors, marble staircaise, as well as marble wainscoting. Attracted many prominent tenants and businesses. At the time it was one of the largest and finest commercial office buildings in Springfield. It was renovated in 1986.

Canopies/Awnings

What strikes me about this photo is the number of huge canopies over the windows. I suppose that in an age without A/C, keeping the place cool was best done by keeping the place shaded. There are even partially retracted ones on the "mosque" building. When did they go out of fashion, I wonder?

[More generally known as "awnings." - tterrace]

Yes, I realized that after posting.

Year of photo

The license plate on the car in the photo was issued in 1906 and expired at the end of 1907 so the photo was taken sometime in that two year period rather than in 1908.

Not a mosque

I think it says "Lewis House."

[JOHNSON'S BOOKSTORE. - Dave]

Love these Springfield Pictures

It's fun for me to see a couple of pictures of Springfield posted today. I grew up there in the 1950s/early 1960s and many of those great old buildings still survived then. It surely wasn't quite like the scenes portrayed here, but it was closer than today, after extensive "urban renewal", which I consider merely "urban destruction".

The onion-domed building on the left in this picture can be seen from the other direction on Main Street in a 2009 post on Shorpy: https://www.shorpy.com/node/5442

Urban mass transit!

What we need more of today - I count seven streetcars in a single split-second exposure.

Still there!

Along with a few others, from Google Streetview:

http://goo.gl/maps/wKoQo

1:38 In the afternoon

Wonder what the two men in the foreground are talking about? So much daily life to see. I always wonder, what did they do when they got home? Ever notice when you look at the same spot today on Google, there are not as many people out and about as there were then? Must be a mix of time of day, people were outdoors more and that all the stores were in the city -- they didn't have the suburban Walmart.

Now an Apartment Building

Looks like the Worthy as well as the building two doors down are still there!

A mosque, or Zag-A-Zig ?

Curious what the Byzantine-like structure in the background is.

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