As I continued to browse through the Madera County EDC’s Pinterest account as mentioned in the previous blog post I saw other really cool photos of downtown Madera. I found an old photograph, I am unsure of the date, but it looks like it was taken sometime in the 1950’s or 1960’s, nonetheless during this time our downtown looked so lively! I mean look for yourself.
Tell me it doesn’t look cool! So much activity happening. A kid with, what I assume, his dad are crossing the sidewalk, perhaps to go shopping or to dine in at some restaurant.
In the old photo, the first thing I noticed is the way cars are parked. Today parking is parallel, but as you can see it wasn’t always that way and diagonal parking was used. It seems the current Wells Fargo building is not the same one that was there before. I can see a shoe store occupying what currently is Mari’s Mexican Restaurant. Next to it, I see a sign that reads REX, which was a theater venue; I know this because I looked at an old copy of the The Madera Tribune from 1951 while writing this post. Further back is a Hotel sign, that building is no longer there, but instead the Chase building occupies that lot today.
Across the street, starting from the back we can see the Madera Theater, I vaguely recall this building as a child, but unfortunately it is no longer there as it was torn down many years ago. I can see many other signage, however, they’re not legible enough to know what they were. Then there is The Ritz, which at this time I’m uncertain of what it was. I found a photo of matches that read, The Ritz, Davis “Duck” Hamill.
The building next to it was a Hotel, though I can’t really read the name of it, it looks like Hotel Arcadia? That building is still there today, but it is now just painted an ugly dark red-orange color and the windows have been painted black. I always thought it would be cool if the owner remodeled it, making the top floors condos and keeping the bottom floor as retail/commercial space. As of today, it is home of Tijuana’s Bar and Grill and Fiesta Auto Insurance.
I thought it would neat to super impose the old photo of downtown Madera, on top of the most recent photo I took. I some how managed to take a photo that nearly aligned perfectly with the old photo. Here’s how it looks.
But then, I though it would be even cooler to do a simple animation to see the difference in action.
I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed creating it! 🙂
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