These photographs were taken sometime shortly before the 1955 Flood. It shows the Bridge Street bridge, rebuilt after the 1936 flood, that connected Bridge and Cottage Street. This alignment was changed completely after the 1955 Flood, with the creation of Route 219.
What is particularly interesting in these photographs is the building behind the bridge: the old Village Firehouse. Very few photographs exist of this structure, which also went down the river. In the second photograph old Greenwoods factory complex is visible. At the time of the picture, it was being used by the Underwood company, which made everything from gun fittings to vacuum cleaners.
Today the site of the old Firehouse is part of the town garage parking lot. The new firehouse is slightly back from the river, roughly where the substation (visible on the right in the first picture) was. Only a few traces of the bridge remain: the abutments on the Bridge Street side are buried in the lawn/river bank, on the Cottage Street side a few traces of rebar and stone work can be found.
New Hartford Historical Society 