Main St., Bristol, Conn. 84.

Main St., Bristol, Conn. 84.

View of a bustling downtown scene with pedestrians. This image is part of a series made by one of the three Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company photographers assigned to cover New England or upstate New York. The quest for images that would be saleable as postcards resulted in the documentation of small towns and small town life at the turn of the 20th century. As the photos were shot, the glass plates were promptly sent back to Belfast, Maine, and processed into postcards at the printing plant on High Street. Here the Eastern camera man has captured a moment on Bristol's Main Street during a busy weekday. Men in business suits, and a woman and a child make their way up and down the sidewalks. Striped canvas awnings shade the storefronts on the eclectic collection of late 19th century commercial buildings across the street, whose architecture ranges from Renaissance Revival to faux-Dutch gable to Neo-Classical. A railroad bridge crosses in the background. Signs advertise "Ice Cream/Suits/ Dresses/ Orios". Appropriately for Bristol, where clock making was the historic economic mainstay, a large clock hangs off one of the storefronts, likely identifying a clock and watch retailer. Trolley tracks run in the street and the system's electric cables crisscross overhead. Of note is the presence of the bare utility poles at the right. One explanation is that the City was in the process of replacing these original tree-trunk utility poles (probaby put up three decades previous) with more modern, engineered poles as seen on the left side of the street.