West Main Street, West Winfield, N.Y. 38.

West Main Street, West Winfield, N.Y. 38.

Scene at the end of a commercial Main Street in a small town. Late 19th- and early 20th-century frame buildings and a church with a tall steeple frame the wide, unpaved street before it narrows into a shady residential neighborhod. Utility lines criss-cross above between poles and buildings, with a street light suspended at the center. 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 Eastern photographer would have found the village of West Winfield in the center of New York state, half way between Syracuse and Albany. His image includes a cluster of men outside a lunch room, at the right. At the far right is a gas station, marked by two pumps on the edge of the street, and signs advertising Exide (batteries) and Chevrolet. Some early cars stand by the undefined street edge. The scene is quiet. As in so many of the Eastern's images of early 20th-century small downtowns, there is always a garage, and an ice cream shop.