While the current renovation of the Broadway lamp posts and fountains are going on I thought some might like to see what Broadway use to look like. There are no dates on these but I'm guessing that my friend "john doe smith" sent me pictures of post cards going back to the early part of the 2oth century. John did note on the post card in color that it was "09". We all know the fountains don't look like that today and Wellsville was pretty much a farm in 1809. My bet is that they were both captured on paper around 1909.
Since John sent them to me I've been trying to figure out their locations. I think the one in black & white is between 5th & 6th Street looking east. You can see a line of telephone poles in the back ground that would probably have been between 5th & 4th where the street narrows. Because of the hillside in the background in the one in color I think it is looking west but I can't figure out where it is exactly.
Apparently somewhere along the line the fountains have been radically changed. There are no statues present today. The trees lining the park all look like new saplings. They are probably the same trees the village had cut down last year. Wellsville was a properous community back then and that probably contributed to the fountains being so elaborate in these pictures. I wonder if the lamps were gas or electric.
1 comment:
Great pics! As you say, the trees shown in the pics are surely those that were recently removed. In fact, the park looks remarkably similar to what it looks like today (aside from the working fountains).
Certainly Wellsville was a more prosperous town in the past, and that may explain the attention to aesthetic detail with the statues. However, I think it also speaks of a different time. In the past, people built things with both function and beauty in mind. One was rarely considered without the other. Only recently have we moved almost exclusively in the direction of utility.
Again, thanks for posting the pics!
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