Sometimes a vintage postcard — sepia patinated, bruised and blemished, intimate missived — is a bridge backward across time. A time capsule. An irresistible invitation to reminisce. This Westport, New York train depot postcard with circa 1910 image of the train station almost identical to today is all three for me.
Let’s start with the simple, straightforward details. What you see in the first and second images is a divided back postcard postmarked November 21, 1910. The message, sent to Fred. S. Scriver of New Russia, New York, is brief, and the sender‘s name is unclear. The sender’s town, Westport, New York, is noted in the postmark as is the postage: one cent. The postcard was published in Germany for Smith & Richards of Westport.
And then there’s the image. A retinted photogravure, perhaps? Photorealistic. But textured, almost tactile, and infused with an illustrator’s evocative line weighting and coloring.
I’m struck by the remarkable resemblance to a painting that hangs in the depot’s waiting room today.
Housing both the Amtrak station and The Depot Theatre, this space is familiar to me. Decades of train travel to and from this picturesque historic train station overlap with as many summers attending play productions in the large luggage warehouse long ago reimagined as a professional theatre.
Often I’ve seen the painting (third image in this post) hanging near the “green room”. But it wasn’t until I came across this vintage postcard that I realized the artist’s inspiration. So similar these two renderings. And so little changed today. The water tower is gone. And the long sloping lawn up to the train tracks and theatre, elegantly divided with a walkway ascending the hill, has changed a bit. But the perspective and the architecturally distinguished building are timeless.
What do you think?