State Street, Schenectady, Then and Then

Again from the Boston Public Library collection, a wonderful postcard view looking east up State Street from the railroad overpass. Some genius of car-bonnet dating could probably narrow the age down for us, but the trolleys were still running. On the left was Jay Jewelry, and just across Broadway was Woolworth’s. You can’t really make out much of the next two buildings, but the next tall one on the left is Wallace’s. On the right, the Hotel Hough, home to Rudolph’s Jewelers. The next tall building up from that was Clark Witbeck’s hardware concern. And, of course, Proctor’s, which then had a vertical sign.

In this somewhat later view, sometime in the ’50s, the trolley tracks are gone. On the left you get a better view of The Imperial Shop, and then Jay Jewelry (missing its distinctive sign). The angle here lets you make out the Planter’s Peanuts store over in the Hough. Proctor’s vertical sign is gone.