Another digging-out day on Chestnut Street, but clear and bright, with the trees bearing the brunt of yesterday’s storm. Here are a few images of the street on days after the storm: today and in 1899. The historical images, from Loring family archives in the Schlesinger Library at Harvard, are looking up and down the salt-free (and obviously car-free) street. The eastward perspective has a nice view of the facade of Samuel McIntire’s majestic South Congregational Church, which stood from 1804 until its destruction by fire in 1903. When I look at this photograph, I can appreciate the gaping hole that was opened up on the street by that fire only several years later, a hole that was not really filled by the construction of a new and less-impressive Gothic Revival church which itself burned down in 1950, not to be replaced. A sidewalk view of the street best approximates the feeling of 1899, though of course, and sadly, there are no Elm trees. There are also several images of stately houses on the sunny side of the street today, where the mix of sunshine and snow-covered trees created some interesting shadows.
