Main Street West from Washington St.

The pole on the right of the 1906 image advertises “Burro’s Ladies and Gents Quick Lunch Parlor, Open Day & Night, Try our Mocha-Java Coffee 5 cents, Best in the City, Steaks…” The image is too small to make out the rest, but the most expensive thing on their menu is 35 cents. In 2011, just down and across the street from Burro’s you can go to Karma Lounge and  get the Karma Dog, a bacon-wrapped house-made knockwurst with tomato-onion relish and fontina cheese on a pretzel bun for $12. The site Burro’s Quick Lunch Parlor is now part arterial, part parking lot.

The plans from the 1960’s for the Rt 44/55 arterial were approved in 1974 by the federal highway administration. It is all I have ever known and cannot imagine how congested traffic must have been before it. Times change, and landscapes change as society progresses. When industry shifted outside the city limits and the workers moved with it, much of downtown Poughkeepsie was left to fester. These 1906 images and descriptions give a sense of closeness and community that seems impossible when you walk down the lonely city streets today. Well-kept and prosperous establishments like Karma Lounge, the Bardavon and others are testament to Poughkeepsie’s perseverance.  I wonder what someone looking at the 2011 images will think of this city in another hundred years.

Next time, the final post in this series… Luckey Platt, a survivor of urban renewal.