Brown's Garage, Stephentown, N.Y. 23.

Brown's Garage, Stephentown, N.Y. 23.

Two men stand in front of a vehicle in the open bay of an early gas and service station on a summer day. The scene is at the edge of a dirt road, now NY Route 22, near the Massachusetts line. This image is part of a series made by one of the three Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company photographers assigned to New England or upstate New York. The glass plates would be sent back to Belfast, Maine, and processed into postcards at the printing plant on High Street. The gas station and garage was a popular subject for Eastern photographers of this era, as they were a relatively new building type and business that evolved to fuel, service and repair early motor vehicles. The gas pump at this particular establishment is housed in a little multi-sided frame building to the side. Two men, one in shirtsleeves (perhaps the proprietor) and the other in work coveralls, pause to pose for the Eastern photographer shooting from across the road. A plethora of signs advertising motor oil - Polarine, Monogram, and Mobiloil brands , and Goodyear Tires - decorate the building in random places. The scene is a true slice of life on a quiet stretch of early highway.