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Church Street looking North from City Hall UTM: 18 0642158 E, 4926345 N 204 feet |
L.L. McAllister |
A.L. Bushey |
McAllister captured this image on June 25, 1943. The roadwork is part of the Salvage Project Rail-Removal Project to remove the antiquated streetcar tracks from Burlington’s streets. The method of removal shown in this photo appears to be the use of “paving breakers” to break through the concrete pavement in preparation for re-paving.(1) The city was slow to remove the tracks, as they had not been in use for nearly fourteen years. Streetcar service in Burlington ceased on the afternoon of August 4, 1929. The city bid farewell to its streetcars by lighting one afire on Main Street that afternoon. As the trolley burned, the twenty buses of the Burlington Rapid Trust Company paraded down Main Street and encircled City Hall Park. There the fleet was christened by the Mayor’s wife, Mrs. J. Holmes Jackson, as she broke of bottle of Dorn’s Venetian ginger ale, champagne being in short supply as Prohibition was still in effect, over the bumper one bus.(2) The corner of City Hall, constructed in 1928, enters the frame on the left. City Hall is discussed in photo pair #12. The building next to City Hall is the Ethan Allen Engine Company Number 4, which is discussed in photo pair #10. (1) 78th Report, 177, 180. (2) “Ancient Electric Car Burns As Taps Sound For Trolleys,” The Burlington Free Press, August 5, 1929, sec. A, 1. |
The buildings at this viewpoint have changed very little. City Hall stands as it was built, the window trim of the Ethan Allen Engine Company is now painted dark, and the building across the street with cast iron lintels still stands, although the brick walls have been painted red. |
Historic Burlington Project Depression Era Streetscapes: Old North End | Burlington 1890 | Burlington 1877 | Burlington 1869 | Burlington 1853 | Burlington 1830 Produced by University of Vermont Historic Preservation Program graduate students in HP 206 Researching Historic Structures and Sites - Prof. Thomas Visser - in collaboration with UVM Landscape Change Program Historic images courtesy of University of Vermont Library Special Collections, Louis L. McAllister Photograph Collection |
