Glimpses of city’s past> People make the pictures in ‘Bangor Volume II’

BANGOR VOLUME II: THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, compiled and edited by Richard R. Shaw, Arcadia Publishing, Dover, N.H., paperback, 128 pages, $16.99.

In his introduction to this second volume of Bangor’s photographic history, Richard Shaw, a longtime editor and writer at the Bangor Daily News, asks, “What makes a good picture?” He answers his own question by saying, “People do. Few photographs here don’t contain at least one man, woman, or child doing something reflective of his or her community.”

The book’s cover, a wonderful picture of what Exchange Street looked like in the 1950s, has people in cars (I recognize a ’55 Chevy and a ’57 Chevy taxi) driving by the old Penobscot Hotel and Bijou Theater, headed toward Union Station with its handsome bell tower and clock. None of these buildings exists now, and the character of Exchange Street has changed entirely.

There are 10 sections to the book, and in the first, “Jimmy Carter Slept Here,” there are portraits of 11 U.S. presidents who have visited Bangor in this century. Starting with Teddy Roosevelt in 1902 and William Howard Taft in 1910, there are Harry Truman (when he was a senator) inspecting Dow Field in 1942; Eisenhower with Margaret Chase Smith and Bangor businessman Curtis Hutchins in 1955; Kennedy in 1960; Nixon in 1971, when he was booed by anti-Vietnam protesters; and Carter in 1978 when he stayed overnight at the Robert Murray house on Maple Street. The captions are full of interesting facts and colorful trivia — I didn’t realize that Nixon paid three visits to Bangor. Besides 1971, he came in 1952 as a vice presidential candidate, and in 1960, when he first ran for president.

The section “Bangor From on High” has aerial photographs of the burning of the old Windsor Hotel on Harlow Street in 1950, a Main Street parade, the airport, the Bangor Mall, and views of downtown in the 1940s and ’50s. There is a picture, too, of “Evacuation Day” in 1955 when the whole city was evacuated during a civil defense drill.

Besides politicians, many other famous folk have visited the Queen City over the years. Among those pictured are Jack Benny, with his popular radio show cast broadcasting from the Opera House; movie producer Dino De Laurentiis and Drew Barrymore in front of Stephen King’s house on West Broadway; actress Dorothy Lamour hosting a War Bond rally at the old Bangor Auditorium in 1942; First lady Eleanor Roosevelt driving her own Buick Roadster through town; fighter Rocky Marciano staging a boxing match with some CYO boys from St. John’s School; and King Hussein landing his own plane at the Bangor airport.

Among the notable locals, there are two pictures of a teen-age William Cohen playing basketball, another with his parents; Jock McKernan with his mother, Barbara, and son, Peter; Stephen and Tabitha King; John Baldacci and his mother, Rosemary; Polly Thomas and her dancing students; Norm Lambert and his band; Werner Torkanowsky conducting the Bangor Symphony; and Al and Aileen Rawley on their popular TV show; and pictures of some of Bangor’s mayors, prominent business leaders, and town characters.

There are the dramatic pictures of Al Brady, America’s most-wanted criminal of the time in 1937, his bullet-riddled body stretched across the trolley tracks in front of the old Dakin Sporting Goods store where he and his gang had tried to purchase a machine gun.

There’s a wonderful old picture of the composing room and crew of the NEWS in 1922 when the paper was located on Exchange Street. And there’s a crew of workers at Morse’s Mill on Valley Avenue in 1906. Other group photos include a parade of World War I servicewomen, the Maine National Guard artillery band of 1941, a group of Filipino nationals who worked as chefs and waiters on the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad, draftees for World War II, and a bevy of businessmen for a 1948 Kiwanis Club drag show.

Disasters to hit Bangor in the 20th century include the great fire of 1911 and the floods of 1902, 1923 and 1936. There are spectacular photos of all of these.

Shaw concludes his book with a chapter, “What We Lost, What We Saved,” about the controversial urban renewal program of the 1960s. There are pictures of the demolition of Union Station and most of the old buildings on Exchange Street.

Being a Bangor native and a NEWS editor with a keen interest in local history and all kinds of ties to the community, Shaw is in the perfect position to compile and edit such a work. There are around 200 photographs selected from thousands, and he has chosen well, with representative and rare images from every decade of our tumultuous century.