Picture Enfield - Then and Now

ENFIELD, CT — Taking a glance at this week's featured photo, courtesy of the Facebook group Picture Enfield, it's hard to imagine that this weekend, about 273 gazillion people, including a few who actually live in town, will be standing in the location of this shot taken in 1976.

The Thompsonville urban renewal project of the mid- to late-1970s resulted in demolition of most of the buildings in this picture, taken from the western end of Elm Street, and the move of North Main Street from in front of Town Hall to alignment directly across from Elm (not to mention demolishing the entire character of downtown).

At left is Laurel House Furniture, which operated for more than 25 years before closing in the 1990s. The Savvy Shopper took over the space for a few years, followed in 2003 by Homestead Broyhill. It has been vacant since 2007.

The building directly across from Elm was torn down and is currently the eastern tip of North Main Street, where dozens of food vendors will be set up for this weekend's Taste of Enfield, part of the Enfield Fourth of July Town Celebration. The building just to the north of that one was also demolished.

On the right edge of the photo is a package store, which remained standing after the initial reconfiguration of the intersection, but was removed shortly thereafter upon construction of the Enfield Town Green, where the primary activities of this weekend's Celebration will take place.

Even though I was a teenager at that time, I can't recall the names of the businesses which occupied those three buildings. Perhaps you astute readers can jog my memory on that.

Here is how the site looks in more recent days. Rest assured, you are not seeing the "haze" lingering from the Dickie Betts show on the green back in 2011; it is just fog.

Last week's trivia answer:
Last week's trivia question was, "Who was the youngest Democrat to ever serve as a member of the Enfield Town Council, and who was the youngest Republican?" The answers: Democrat David Kiner, who was just 23 when he was elected in 2007, and Republican Jason Jones, who was appointed to fill a vacancy at age 25 in 2002.

This week's trivia question:
What was the location of the original Enfield Fourth of July Town Celebration? Post the answer in the comments section below, or on the Enfield Patch Facebook page.