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Manchester, New Hampshire, circa 1910. "Elm Street." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.
Citizen Shoe -- I think that's a bar now.
Manchester Hardware Co., probably a bar.
Magoon, Charles S. -- if it's not a bar, Magoon's is a pretty good name for one.
You get my drift. Better than it was in 1996 when I moved there, when everything was "For Rent."
With the assistance of the ever-so-helpful Sampson & Murdock city directory for 1906, found at the ever-so-helpful Internet Archive, I was able to work out that we’re looking at the 900 block of Elm facing north; the photographer is standing in front of City Hall (908-920 Elm).
On the west side of the street and walking away from the photographer, we find:
Moving over to the right (east) side of the street, again moving away from the phographer:
Most of the buildings are still there and relatively undisturbed today.
To the northwest, Manchester Hardware is now Pearson’s Jewelry; upstairs offices have been converted to apartments. Someone slathered a tedious stucco façade over the original brick front. The optician’s has become a Ben & Jerry’s. Mrs. Chamberlin’s boarding house rooms are walk-up offices. Goodwin’s undertakers is now a pizza joint.
Looking northeast, it’s observable that the tea company has turned into a copy shop; Dodge’s Shoes is a bar, Clark Brothers has morphed into a board-game pub and bar, with a perfectly hideous façade cover-up that all right-thinking people should assault with pitchforks and billhooks. Wathen’s Clothing (which I believe to be the source of the “Everything Must Go” sign barely visible) has decided it likes being an Indian restaurant.
From Google Maps
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.9914005,-71.4630468,3a,88.6y,8.35h,86.9t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sOuCcXVEUf8SW67_YRzR3kA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
The corner business on Spring and Elm is now a Ben and Jerry's. The building is the same. It has lost a bit of its charm, though.
[This might be a good time to learn how to embed a Google Street View! - Dave]
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