This photo is over 100 years old.
The buildings look different. So does the transportation. The trees are gone; the street is now paved.
But more than a century later, there’s no mistaking the gentle curve of Main Street, as it heads north toward Elm Street.
Some things never change.
(Photo courtesy of Mary Gai)
WOULD BE INTERESTING TO SEE A SIDE-BY-SIDE MAIN ST PIX FROM THE FIFTIES . . .
Walk through the Metro North railroad tunnels from the northbound trains to Railroad Place or reverse and you will see Miggs Burroughs’ lenticulars.
Friday Flashbacks are my absolute favorite!!! Thank you for sharing this, Mary!
Wonderful picture; there is some familiarity to what we see today…and isn’t it wonderful? No traffic and no parking problems. 😊
I think the photo is quite a bit more than 100 years old – you did say “over 100.” Still, the tall building with three upper levels of five windows each, was still standing in the mid 1950s, and may still be there today (with alterations).
I agree with the first commenter, it would be great to see a side by side photo from the fifties or sixties. I remember Westport from the late sixties when I was an au pair in Westport in 1967 and 1968.
I would place this photograph in the 1990s. There are no automobiles which were common, even though not dominant, by 1919. There also were streetcar tracks by then. In the 1890s there was a common type of bicycle with a hugh front wheel–I can’t be sure if the bike in the photograph has that or not, but the 1890s were the heyday of bicycles.
Wonderful pic Mary
There are electric power poles seen in the photo. That would make me guess that the photo was taken sometime in the first decade or two of the 1900s.
I believe those are telephone wires?
Or maybe telegraph wires and poles which date back into the 1800s.
Look at this picture from 06880 back in 2012….. https://06880danwoog.com/2012/07/08/from-house-of-morgan-to-liverpool/
We may confuse electric power poles with utility poles and telegraph poles that appeared in mid 19th century. A number of historic photos in Eve Potts’ wonderful book “Westport, a Special Place” show poles in some very early photos, one in particular shows a train wreck in Saugatuck in 1895 with poles.
I believe the Saugatuck train wreck was in 1912.
That was the SECOND train wreck. The FIRST was in 1895 and was worse. The engine actually fell down an embankment.
Look closely, you may see an “entitled” parker or two.
I see sidewalks. “In 1907, a small group of Westport Women organized for the purpose of cleaning the town streets, caring for and planting trees and laying sidewalks. They called themselves “The Women’s Town Improvement Association”, later the name was changed to The Westport Woman’s Club”.
Seems to date this photo as after 1907.
There were sidewalks before 1907.
Here is a link to a Dan Woog article on March 16, 2015. Please note paragraph 4, https://06880danwoog.com/2015/03/16/westport-woman. I curated an exhibit at the Westport Historical Society in 2007 (the 100 year centennial celebration of the WWC and the sidewalk issue was the subject of an entire wall panel.There may have been wooden sidewalks here and there but the cement sidewalks downtown were one of the first things the Women’s Town Improvement Association, (later known and the Westport Woman’s Club) made happen for downtown. They lobbied and when they were told no they raised money and built the sidewalks themselves. Evidently the men in charge at the time did not believe it could be done because of the inclines. The issue was of course important to women because their dresses and skirts swept the manure filled and muddy streets.