Historic & Contemporary Views: Lake Street, Pearl Street,
Cherry Street, Bank Street, Center Street & South Winooski Avenue
by Carrie A. Mardorf

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Louis L. McAllister photographed numerous street improvement projects throughout Burlington for documentation purposes for the local street department. The resulting photographs comprise a large collection housed in the Special Collections Department at the University of Vermont Library that not only document street improvements, but overall streetscape compositions at that time. All photographs pertaining to Lake Street, Pearl Street (from Battery Street to Winooski Avenue), Cherry Street, Bank Street, Center Street and South Winooski Avenue (from Pearl Street to College Street) are presented in this section. Site plans for the years 1942 and 2006 were drafted in AutoCAD 2007 and rendered in Adobe Photoshop to highlight the locations of the photographs taken by McAllister. Red viewsheds mark the location of the photograph and the direction of the view. Much has changed in the downtown Burlington area with 1960s Urban Renewal Plans altering the spatial organization of the streets. Many small-scale single family dwellings have been replaced with larger commercial and civic buildings. For more details on specific changes that occurred in the downtown Burlington area from the 1930s to the present, click on the photograph locations in red on the maps below or click on the street names at the bottom of the page.

Burlington 2006: The above map outlines the street and building configuration of Burlington, Vermont in 2006 and highlights the locations of McAllister's photographs. Click on the red arrows to see the McAllister photographs along with the current, 2006 view.

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Intersection of Lake Street & Depot Street
Lake Street
Intersection of Lake Street & College Street #1
Intersection of Lake Street & College Street #2
Intersection of Pearl Street & North Champlain Street (2 images)
Intersection of Pearl Street & Grove Street
Intersection of Pearl Street & Elmwood Avenue
Intersection of Pearl Street & Church Street
Intersection of Pearl Street & South Winooski Avenue #1 (2 images)
Intersection of Pearl Street & South Winooski Avenue #2
Intersection of Pearl Street & South Winooski Avenue #3
South Winooski Avenue
Intersection of Cherry Street & St. Paul Street #1
Intersection of Cherry Street & St. Paul Street #2
Intersection of Cherry & South Winooski Avenue
Intersection of South Winooski Avenue & Bank Street
Bank Street
Intersection of Bank Street & Center Street
Center Street
Intersection of South Winooski Avenue & College Street #1
Intersection of South Winooski Avenue & College Street #2

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