August 17, 2011

229: Flashback

I included one of the photos from this set in yesterday's blog for my grandmother's birthday, but these two offer an interesting look at Minneapolis streets in the 1940s:

Above is my great-uncle, the late Albert "Pat" Hum (who later in life, owned Hum's Liquor on Lyndale Ave.) probably standing on either 5th Street or 3rd Avenue.  The building behind him appears to be the Qwest building.  It's almost impossible to find a modern-day street view equivalent for this photo because so many newer buildings have gone up in the last sixty years that it's hard to tell from which direction this was shot.

This photo has been fairly perplexing for years.  It appears to be in Northeast Minneapolis (where the family's laundry business was located), but no one has been able to pinpoint exactly where, and none of the "historical building" plaques were of any help.  I think I've figured out that this picture of my great-uncles Andy and Abie Hum was taken near the East Hennepin-University Ave intersection.


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See the buildings at the far right in the photo and at center in the street view?  They look similar, don't they?  It looks like the Spielberg's Food Market (as printed on the awning) was in the vicinity of Surdyk's or Panera's present-day location.  In any case, the difference between East Hennepin in the 1940s and today is incredible -- it looks like the street isn't even paved in the 1940s photo.

(We've been going through a lot of old photos recently, so I get to do some History Detectives-type work and satisfy my secret desire to be a sleuth.)

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