Vintage Photo: Lake Shore Road Entering Essex, NY

We shared the vintage photo above on the Essex on Lake Champlain Facebook page last Monday and invited our viewers to play some Vintage Essex Trivia. Does the road in this photo seem familiar to you? It should–this is an old photo of Essex! The photo is simply titled, “Street View, Essex, NY,” which does not help identify the particular street. We must take a look at the clues that have remained throughout the passage of time to discover that.

So what can we see? Of course the packed dirt road is now a paved one, and many (all?) of those trees in the photo have been trimmed back or removed from the roadside. However, as a historic district many of the buildings in Essex remain today. Do you spy the two captured in this photo?

We can see a segment of a home on the right foreground, but it is the building in the distance that is strikingly recognizable. Do you see the Swiss chalet balcony on it? There is only one building in Essex with that architectural feature: the Belden Noble Memorial Library! Which means the building in the foreground must be Greystone. This identifies the street as Lake Shore Road–the photograph is pointing us south toward town where Lake Shore Road will turn into Main Street.

This means that lurking behind the trees on the left is Lake Champlain. The fence along the sidewalk on the right (stone or wood?) has been removed. Today there is only a small section of iron fencing standing in front of Greystone’s facade. I’m not sure if the ivy present in the photo is covering that part of the fence or if the fence in the photo was completely torn down to make way for the later iron fence. Do you know?

Take a look at the comments we gathered from the community:

Steve Mckenna: I see the library down the road… Mcnulty/Davis house to the right… Nice one.

Christine Herrmann: I think that’s Greystone on the right.

Steve Mckenna: Yes, I agree. Greystone…

Tell us what you think in the comments below!

Vintage Postcard: Essex, NY from Lake Champlain (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
Vintage Postcard: The Old Dock Coffee House, Essex, NY (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
Vintage Stereoview: Main Street, Essex, NY (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
Vintage Stereoview: Northern Essex Bay (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)

About Katie Shepard

Passionate about reading and writing stories, Katie Shepard enjoys discovering more about her home while writing and editing for Essex on Lake Champlain. Katie graduated from SUNY Plattsburgh in 2011 where she studied English literature, philosophy, and Asian studies. Her first book Essex, New York Architecture: A Doodler's Field Guide was published in 2015. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, or at Linked.in. Or email her at katie [@] essexeditions [dot] com.