The 'before' picture comes from the Maine Memory Network website, here, and is circa 1900.
The after picture is circa February 2011. The crowd in the above picture was due to a parade of some sort. It's nice to see that the Longfellow Statue is still standing/sitting tall.
Lots of changes over the years. Looks like there used to be a streetcar line in the older photo.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment Andy. Yep, Portland and the surrounding area used to have a pretty extensive streetcar system.
ReplyDeletebut the biggest change - no elms. when i came to college in portland in the early sixties, i went to work in the Lafayette Hotel just up Congress St from the square. If you went to the sixth floor and stepped out on the fire escape, the elms were so thick, it looked like you could step out and walk across them just like a huge thick green lawn. Five years later, they were almost gone from Dutch Elm disease. Elms are a perfect small city (like Portland) tree as they are tall enough to tower over most buildings. what a loss.
ReplyDeletesecurity word def - "obgaven" - Archaic German for your first name as in "Vas ist sein obgaven?" Oh - that's Pedro.