The Deleted Scenes - A Bridge Too Far
Many tiny towns in Hunterdon County, New Jersey have a little store or café on a corner. Aside from that, and maybe a church and a few other old buildings, there sometimes isn’t much of a town at all. One of these is Three Bridges, a suburban area and small Main Street not far from Flemington, which I’ve written much about. Three Bridges doesn’t have a whole lot, but it does have this old structure which currently houses a little restaurant. A member of an area Facebook group posted this now-and-then photo of it (which is why I drove there and got the photos above): That Facebook post also included a neat piece of trivia: it turns out this was Hunterdon County’s first establishment to be raided after the passing of Prohibition! It’s that old, and it still looks almost the same as it did back then. That’s quality construction. If you can read the signage in the old photo, it advertises beer. But it’s far too large for a bar or roadhouse; what it looks like, actually, is a hotel or a boarding house. Which, it turns out, is what it was. One commenter, with the sort of local knowledge, history, and connection to a place that I love to see, had the story:
Once again, a plain, ordinary building in what is now a pretty nondescript place (the town’s own little Facebook group is called “Where the heck is Three Bridges?”) turns out to tell a whole fascinating story about how we used to do business, house people, and build settlements. Do you think grandma had to get a raft of permits to open up a small hotel? Do you think community input meetings and rezoning hearings and overbearing environmental regulations got in her way? No. Mostly not at all. Large developers have no problem with that—they like it, because it means nobody but them can get anything done. This old wooden building, full of what are now probably empty rooms as the hotel business and the preferences of customers have evolved, is a snapshot of how ordinary Americans were far freer, in many ways, to do business and make a living a century ago. Sad, but hopeful. Hopeful because if it existed, it can be done. And because the evidence for that possibility is still standing there on Main Street a century later. Related Reading: Thank you for reading! Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to help support this newsletter. You’ll get a weekly subscribers-only post, plus full access to the archive: over 400 posts and growing. And you’ll help ensure more material like this! You’re a free subscriber to The Deleted Scenes. For the full experience, become a paid subscriber. |
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