The crowds at last weekend’s “No Kings” protest on the Ruth Steinkraus Cohen Bridge got us thinking about that very busy span.
In the 1930s — long before the bridge’s namesake came to town — it was much narrower than today.
Traffic was far less intense. We see just one vehicle, in the photo below:
The view looks east. There is National Hall, in the lower left. The buildings housing Stephen Kempson London, Arezzo and other businesses and apartments are at the lower right.
Nearly a century ago, the Saugatuck River lapped up against the backs of Main Street stores. It would be 2 decades more before Parker Harding Plaza was built, on landfill.
Just over the bridge, on the left, was the original Westport Public Library (before the Starbucks addition). Behind it is the YMCA (now Anthropologie); beyond that is the church that is now the Seabury Center), on the Church Lane/Elm Street corner.
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‘Jaws’ premiers 50 years ago today!
Now that’s a flashback!
Do we know the date of the photo …or circa?
Just “1930s.”
Even back then people in the westbound “left turn only” lane tried to cut into the right lane to go straight up Post Road West.
Remnants of the drawbridge structure on the eastern end of the bridge.