Throwback Thursday: Do You Remember...?

ENFIELD, CT — In this weekly series, Enfield Patch publishes a photo of a business or landmark in town that is no longer in existence.

Today we turn to a page in the photo book Enfield: 1950-1980 to an aerial view of Thompsonville taken in 1978, at the end of the town's controversial urban renewal project. There are many different businesses to discuss in this picture, making this one of the lengthiest "Throwback" columns to date.

In the foreground is Enfield Street, or Route 5. The vacant land in the bottom left corner of the photo was developed in 1979 into Freshwater Plaza, a small commercial strip which currently houses the Whole Donut, Domino's Pizza and a liquor store.

To the right of the vacant land is Connecticut Bank and Trust, which had one of the earliest ATMs in the area, known at the time as "Barney." The bank has undergone several incarnations in the past two decades, including Fleet Bank, and is currently Bank of America.

The white buildings to the right of CBT were home for more than 25 years to Laurel House Furniture. In the late 1990s, the Savvy Shopper took over the space, followed in 2003 by Homestead Broyhill. It has been vacant since 2007.

In the bottom right corner of the photo, across a newly-realigned North Main Street, buildings were still standing on the site of the current Enfield town green.

In the center of the picture, between Freshwater Brook and Freshwater Pond, construction had not yet begun on a pair of housing complexes, Ella Grasso Manor and Freshwater Pond Apartments. Likewise, to the left across Central Street, the land just east of the U.S. Post Office was still vacant; in 1985, the High Street Plaza (currently Molina's Plaza) was built.

Slightly west of that area, at the intersection of High and Pearl streets, is the Browne Building. A year after this photo was taken, a raging fire destroyed the building and the five businesses it contained: Provencher’s Carpets, Enfield Cycle Stuff, Carl’s Bike Center, the Ernest Shop and the High Street Barber Shop.

Just west of the pond is Thompsonville Drug and the old Strand Theater, as well as the newly-constructed building now known as the Angelo Lamagna Activity Center.

Finally, in the top right corner near the Connecticut River stands the decaying Bigelow-Sanford Carpet Company mill, which had been abandoned in 1971 and would continue to deteriorate until John Corcoran & Company invested $63 million into a historic conversion of the property into apartments in 1988.

Enfield: 1950-1980, produced by James Malley, is a collection of pictures taken by his father, renowned local newspaper photographer Edward Malley.

Enfield Patch invites readers to share their memories in the comments section below.

Do you have a photo of a former Enfield business or landmark? Email it to tim.jensen@patch.com and we’ll feature it in an upcoming column.

Photo credit: Edward Malley, courtesy of James Malley