Church Lane, late afternoon (Photo/Dan Woog)
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“06880” WEATHER
All that brick work tells me that the original firehouse doors no longer open for vehicles. I sort of miss the way it was, but this also looks good. And nice lighting in the photograph.
My route home back in the day to Evergreen Ave., mid to late 60’s . . .
This view of Church street was as close to “dark-back-alley” as Westport had back in the 1960’s. We’d walk by this, the mile & half to Bedford Junior High on Riverside, (our next door neighbors could ride the school bus, but we were “too close”, if you can imagine that.) There were dirty forgotten “step-down”, store fronts like a SCM typerwritter store & some Tie-Dye Tee shirt maker Iremember on Church Street. This was before the YMCA’s previous pool expansion/addition. I also recall that there was a code to the Fire House alarm horn that sounded the whereabouts of the fire’s location, so that volunteers that were not at the firehouse knew where to go.
Yes, Westport’s development has always seemed to come with a price to the people of our community, but this “Before & After” part of town has come a long way up indeed.
Long before Church Lane had “dirty step-down storefronts” it had one classic step-down store called The Educational Toy Shop. That was in the 1930s and early 40s. Does anyone remember?