Then & Now Again

Photographer Dan Rapoza has captured spectacular images of his hometown, Plymouth - ocean storms, multiple lightning strikes, surreal moonrises. Something drew him back to the mystery old photographs of town posed.

He remembers particularly the series  by reporter Maggie Mills called “Then & Now” which ran for decades in the Old Colony Memorial.

“When Maggie used to put this out, I loved it,” Rapoza said. “When those calendars come out, I say, OK, now where is it?”

Rapoza has revived the "then and now" concept in a new book by that name. It contains 100 historic photographs of Plymouth paired with shots by Rapoza from the same point of view today.

“It’s not really about making sales,” Rapoza said. “It’s for people who have never seen a Then and Now. I’m very interested, in the history of the town, to see what’s changed and what hasn’t changed. I thought, because of the historical nature of this town, people wouldn’t bulldoze history, tear it down, but they did.”

The town had four major tearing down periods. The original settlement, as depicted at Plimoth Plantation, disappeared soon after 1627. After the Civil War, retail commerce buildings replaced the residences of Court Street. To prepare for the tercentenary of the town in 1920, the town removed the wharfs and commercial buildings along Water Street and the factories along Town Brook. Plymouth participated in the cataclysm of the 1960s known as urban renewal by removing old structures along Summer and Market streets.

Rapoza’s book documents examples of the last three.

“There were buildings on both sides of Water Street and up Cole’s Hill,” Rapoza said. “They looked very interesting. In the photograph of the Robinson Ironworks, you can see Town Brook was just so cluttered with so many mills. You can see how much of this town was bulldozed.”

Of the first industrial park in America, Town Brook, only dams and mill ponds remain. The replica Jenney Grist Mill gives a hint of the place where generations spent their working lives.

Having learned this, Rapoza wants to share it.

“I just want people to see it and enjoy it,” Rapoza said. “It’s been a very interesting learning experience and, as I’ve learned, people on my Facebook page have learned.”

Rapoza posted his first 10 comparisons on his Facebook page. He got an enormous response. People asked him when the book would come out. He hadn’t planned to produce a book.
He set a goal of 100 properties.

“I can only photograph two times a year,” Rapoza said, “after all the leaves have blown off and in April before they come back. I gave myself a goal of Father’s Day.”

For Father’s Day, he sold 50 copies off his web site and gave his printer, Powderhorn Press of Plymouth, a second order.

“After the Father’s Day sales, I had grandfathers contacting me saying they remembered some of the places,” Rapoza said.

He’s placed books for sale in retail shops, hotels and visitor centers.

“People come here on vacation, see what it looks like now and are left to guess what it looked like in the past,” Rapoza said. “Nearly all the the properties are within two miles of the Rock. That’s a short walk.”

Some of the “thens” compare so obliquely to their “nows”, Rapoza took great care locating reference points. The current site of Main Street Marketplace has no resemblance to the Central House, a landmark of the late 19th century. But a corner of the Davis Opera House, now Main Street Antiques, appears in both photos.

“Everything is very carefully lined up,” Rapoza said.

Some of the Then and Now pairings are so obscure, they add mystery to history, bringing the project back to its origin in Rapoza’s mind. They ask, “Ok, now where is it?”

Then & Now is available at local retailers and on Rapoza’s web site rapozaphoto.com.