Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Hobart Then and Now: Third and Center, NE Corner

???? and 2011:

Amazon
ThirdandCenterNECorner2011
(Click on images to enlarge)
Top image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.


The top image shows the Amazon restaurant on the northeast corner of Third and Center Streets. The photo is undated. If you really want me to guess at its date … well, based on my general loosey-goosey impression of the clothing styles, I'd say 1910, give or take ten years.

Here's a photo of the restaurant in 1917. It's the building furthest to the right in the background. (The photographer was standing on Third Street, east of Center Street, and looking west toward Main. The man in the wheelchair is B.B. Bale.)

AmazonBBBale
(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.


I don't know when the building was built, nor what, if anything, it was before it was the Amazon restaurant. That, I know, was in business by 1918, and perhaps much earlier (I wasn't paying enough attention while reading the early-20th-century papers to get a more specific idea).

Sometime later this building became Amlong's restaurant. Or, at least, that's what someone has written on the back of this undated photo:

AmlongsRestaurant
(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.


Amlong's Restaurant had previously operated in the former Hobart House building. In Hobart High School's 1927 Aurora, we find the two restaurants advertising side by side:

AmazonAmlongs
(Click on image to enlarge)

And here's a view of the interior of Amlong's circa 1927, when it was still in the Hobart House building.

AmlongsinteriorinHobartHouse
(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.


I do not know when the building at Third and Center was demolished. I think it was gone by the time they took that 1952 aerial photo on display in the window of that one building on East Third Street.

5 comments:

Janice said...

This building housed a shop shop when I was a kid. "Hobart Shoes" I believe. Interesting that it always had a corner entrance.

Ainsworthiana said...

Another layer of its identity revealed! Do you have any idea of when it was torn down?

Janice said...

Oh no! I mean the current building! The old building was gone by the time my memory kicks in. I can remember the Harvey Dime Store that was in the spot where Eleanors was the most recent occupant. But I was born in 1954 so what I can remember is not exactly history. . .yet.

Janice said...

And I meant "shoe shop"! That was indeed a misleading post. . .
Enjoyed getting to see part of the inside of the Hobart House.

Ainsworthiana said...

Well, that makes two businesses I didn't know about before!

It's really hard for me to imagine anyone 50 or 100 years from now being interested in any of us and the stores we shop in. :)