North Street at the intersection of Elmwood Avenue, during street construction. August 18, 1930
-same angle before construction-

This image, captured by Louis McAllister in 1930, shows the five-point intersection of North Street, Elmwood Avenue, and Intervale Avenue (not pictured, but stemming northeast from the right side of the image). McAllister’s image captures a time when the neighborhoods represented by this intersection were thriving; when businesses flourished and provided goods and services for a less affluent but no less vital and constituency of the greater Burlington area. 

At the left of the frame we see the building at the corner of Elmwood and North Street. 201 North Street is a one and one half story wood framed, gable roof building that extends two bays deep on the gable end with projecting store front windows along the east eave.  An entrance on the gable end carried customers from North Street into what was then Turners Drug Store. Between 1889 and 1926 the building converted from a residence to a commercial building offering the sale of paints and hardware. [1]

Adjacent to Turners (and connected to it by a billboard at the building’s upper stories) is a more commercially design structure. The Central Fruit Store at 193 North Street stands two stories tall with a simple paired bracketed cornice and projecting first floor storefront running the length of the building’s three bay street façade. At the time of the photograph John M. Dillingham shared part of the building with the Central Fruit Store for the operation of a barbershop. [2] In 1903 Arsene Boucher, who operated a barbershop at 169 North Street occupied the buildings as an undertaker until 1905 when Napoleon St. George became involved in the building. He is listed with “liquors” next to his name, however the business directory does not mention his name in connection to any of the listed liquor sellers. [3]   Prior to 1905 Mr. St. George’s employment is listed as “paper hanger”. [4] On a 1906 Sanborn Insurance Map “N. St George Bottling Works” was printed on the footprint of the building at 193 North Street [5] , however the directory for that year makes no mention of Mr. St. George’s business there. By 1908, 193 North Street is listed as “vacant” and Napoleon St. George’s address is shown at 77 Intervale Avenue. [6]   The nature of business being conducted within the walls may be unclear for that short time the Napoleon St. George occupied that space, however the change in occupancy is evidence of the ever changing and fevered entrepreneurial feeling of the Old North End in the early 20^th Century. [7]

The next building clearly visible in the image is that occupied by the Bloomberg Shoe Store at 191 North Street.  A nearly three and one half-story façade faces the street, apparently masking a large gable roof.  Both the second and first story contain large display windows.  The business is ornamented with numerous signs indicating the type of merchandise that awaits the customer. The proprietor, Hyman Bloomberg, lived next door at 189 North Street, a house which is hidden from view by his store. [8]

The last structure clearly visible on the left side of the frame, while occupying three address (183, 185, 187) bares a façade that would lead one to believe that it were a continuous building. However a Sanborn Insurance Map from 1939 reveals that structure was more likely two smaller structures that underwent expansions and additions to eventually merge into one three story unit tied together by a two story projecting porch, with a storefront on the first story and what appears to be an open porch on the second story. [9]   While this is the last structure clearly visible on the left side of this image, we are presented with a distant glimpse of the seventy-foot tower belonging to the former Lawrence Barnes School at the corner of Murray and North Streets. [10]  

Built in 1897 as a result of a overcrowding of the Burlington schools following an period overall of city growth, the school educated the youth of the North End until its demolition in 1957 to make way for a new 14 classroom elementary school that would purportedly accommodate “approximately 180” more students. [11] Finished in November of 1958 the new Lawrence Barnes Elementary School construction costs included over $15,000 for “razing and surveying”. [12] This money may have been used to compensate the owners of two homes that were apparently demolished to make room for the new school at 123 and 127 North Street. [13]

The current photograph (click here), taken in October 2005, reveals a very different streetscape.  Every clearly visible structure on the left side of the 1930 image is gone.  The electrical lines have been buried, and streetlights reminiscent of the ones installed during the 1930 street work have returned. The structures at the south corner of Elmwood Avenue and North Street (from 181 to 201 North Street) were consumed by the second in a string of fires that plagued North Street between 1972 and 1978.  On February 29, 1972 the Burlington Free Press ran the headline, “4-Alarm Fire Sweeps North Street Block.” [14]   It was latter determined by Vermont State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation that the blaze started in the rear of the Burlington Paint and Tile Company at 181 North Street. [15] A second headline from that day declared the “8 Buildings are Destroyed in North Street Holocaust” including Burlington Paint and Tile, an attached building; 191 North Street, which was operating as a union hall; a private residence at 189 North Street; 193 North Street, at the time a barber shop; John’s Bar B-Q, which occupied building on the corner of North Street and Elmwood Avenue, as well as three buildings along Elmwood Avenue.  In all 28 people were left homeless by the inferno. [16]

Replacing the destroyed buildings are structures, which with the exception of 193 North Street, bare little resemblance in massing and style to their predecessors. On the corner of North Street and Elmwood now stands a two story, vinyl clad commercial building with its entrance on the Elmwood façade.  A modernized take on the Mansard roof projects slightly above the second story.  T. Ruggs Tavern, and the Off-The-Top barbershop occupy the building.  193 North Street makes a valiant effort to pay homage to the building it replaces by the use of a simplified bracketed cornice and projecting first story storefront style window, however in this interpretation, the building has been converted to a residences.  This may have been done in an effort to maintain the pattern of the North End’s conversion of storefronts to apartment. The next building, at 191 North Street, is a two story gable roofed structure extending two bays on the North Street façade with a recessed central entrance and name plaque below the second story fenestration. 193 North Street currently houses CVOEO, the Central Vermont Office of Economic Opportunity.

Returning to the 1930 Louis McAllister image and focusing on the buildings presented on the right side of the frame we are meet first with the two-and-one-half-story building with a south east facing, projecting, three-and-one-half-story shingled corner tower with louvered vents beneath a pyramidal roof. A small porch with a turned baluster projects out at the second story to the west of the tower. An ornately decorated bracketed cornice caps the roof on the two sides facing Elmwood Avenue and North Street. Built Between 1889 and 1894, the structure contains the addresses from 196 to 202 North Street and is wrapped in storefront windows beginning on the Elmwood Avenue side and continuing along the entire North Street side. [17] A corner doorway leads to the storefront at 202, which at the time was listed as Burlington Cut Price Shoe Shop.  Continuing down North Street the business in 200 is listed as “Moses Bombardier, barber” which is apparent from the barber pole near the shop’s entrance. The listing for 198 has two entries, both of which are printed as “vacant.” These were presumably apartments above the business, as there were only three storefront entrances. 196 North Street is listed as “North St. Dept. Store.” In 1932 a dentist, Raymond E. Lavallee would establish a practice in the upstairs apartment where he was also listed as residing and would remain until the 1940’s. [18]

Tragically, the so-called “Solomon Block” was consumed in the same rash of fires that claimed eight buildings directly across the street some six years later.  On October 23, 1978 around 1:30 in the morning a fire broke out in the back hallway leading to the upstairs apartments of the building described as being “two stories with a three story façade.” [19] On October 25^th fire investigator Earl Martin ruled the fire to be a work of arson. As result of the fire, a tenant of the building, Mrs. Margaret Smith, 67 (a cousin of the building’s owner, Abraham Solomon) was hospitalized. [20] On October 26, Mrs. Smith, who suffered from emphysema prior to the fire, would die from her injuries.  In all twelve people were left homeless or without a place for their businesses. [21]   Chittenden Community Action Group had taken up residence at number 200 and ran an alcohol information and referral service, while at 202 the United Way was operating a charitable organization distributing cloths and food to the needy. [22] On November 9^th backhoes finished the job that the arson started and razed the gutted Solomon Block. [23]

The brick building at 194 was saved from the fire of the 1978 by a narrow alley and remains today as one of the last large commercial buildings on North Street. At three stories and approximated at thirty three feet on 1939 Sanborn Map, this brick structure faces North Street with two bays across the front and corner bays facing south east and south west. [24] A bracketed cornice caps the structure and storefront windows with a central recessesed entrance make up the ground floor. A stone date marker at the second floor reads, “1904”. At the time McAllister took the photograph Mazel’s Department Store occupied the first floor retail space and Morris Mazel, the store’s founder and proprietor was listed as residing at the same address, presumably the upstairs apartment. [25] Prior to 1904 the building at 194 North Street was a residence listed on the 1894 Sanborn Map as a one-and-one-half-story structure. [26]   In 1903 the Burlington City Directory listed 194 as vacant, when the year before a Mrs. Rose Fournier had lived there. In 1904 E. Gosselin Bros. are listed as operating a drug store at the address and it was during the prior year the current structure was most likely erected.  Eugene Gosselin operated a drug store at 148 North Champlain the corner of North Champlain and North Street which will be discussed in a proceeding image, however it is the success of his earlier business, and the fact the lived at 180 North Street (just three doors down from 194) that may have pushed him franchise and have built a new structure specially for his growing business. [27]     Whatever the reason, by 1913 the retail portion of the structure would be listed as vacant by the city directory and the next year Jules Skupsky would establish a tailoring business there, only to be displaced in 1916 by the enterprising Russian street merchant, Morris Mazel. Mazel’s department store would occupy 194 North Street from 1916 to 1979 and the family would carry on the business at other locations under other names well after that. [28]

The next building visible in the McAllister photograph is located at 184 North Street. This two-story gable roofed structure extends three bays across its North Street facing, pedimented gable end. The first story appears to contain a storefront. In 1930 the Gelineau Bakery occupied the structure [29] and the 1939 Sanborn Map indicates that the rear of the building contained an oven. [30]   A building is present on the site of 184 North Street from the earliest Sanborn Maps that covered the Old North End and based on the architectural details it appears to belong somewhere in the early to mid part of the 19^th century. [31]   The building was involved in the fire of 1972 which spread to the upper section, but was quickly put out by firefighters already on the scene. [32] Currently the building is occupied by a small African market, which displays wigs and purses in the large storefront windows.  Very little has changed on the building’s exterior with the exception of novelty siding and new windows.

Visible beyond 184 North Street is the three-story brick structure with bracketed cornice at 166 North Street.  The 1939 Sanborn Map approximates the building’s height at 36 feet, making it one of the tallest commercial buildings on North Street. [33] The building appears on the 1889 Sanborn Map as three-story brick structure occupied by plumbing and stove works. [34]   This dating also makes 166 one the oldest commercial structures on North Street at the time of the McAllister photograph. Sadly again, this prime example of small manufacturing and building trades of the late 19^th and early 20^th century has also been lost, replaced by a single story brick building currently housing the “Shopping Bag” convenience store.  A 1978 Sanborn Map approximates the buildings height at ten feet. [35]   It is unclear at what point in time the three-story structure was replaced, but the loss of is measurable nonetheless.

Buildings are not the only noticeable area where change has occurred in the Louis McAllister Photographs.  Indeed the images were a document of street conditions before, during, and after the City of Burlington implemented a public works project to maintain and update the condition of the streets during the 1930’s.  Evidence of this is visible in this McAllister image.  The electric rail tracks that formerly carried residence of Burlington, to work and home, and to the market and back, run down the center of the image.  One aim of the street projects of this era was to remove the rails and repave in order to make the passage of Burlington’s new Rapid Transit bus operation more efficient.  The Annual City Report for 1930 includes in the list of work accomplished that year the removal of  “old electric car tracks”. Part of the funds available to pay for this project was listed as $1,330 in 1930 from the Burlington Rapid Transit Company. [36] The Report for 1932 shows that the Superintendent of Streets received $1,210 from the Burlington Rapid Transit Company “for removing rails and resurfacing South Union Street”. [37]