Videos of two local history talks by Jack Koeppel are now available on the Hopewell Valley Historical Society YouTube channel for your viewing pleasure.
“Images of Old Hopewell: A Stroll Through Town – Now and Then” highlights Hopewell Borough’s 19th century character by juxtaposing the old with the new, matching historic images with current views of Hopewell.
“A Home in the Country: The Story of St. Michael’s Orphan Asylum & Industrial School” uses images from the past along with information and stories about St Michael’s to provide a better understanding of the property’s past, present, and future.
These two talks were presented in 2016, and sponsored by the Hopewell Public Library; they are shared here courtesy of the HPL.
Images of Old Hopewell
In the Images of Old Hopewell presentation, Koeppel starts at the intersection of Broad Street and Greenwood Avenue, and then strolls down the street visually, morphing from images of the streetscape today into how each structure looked in the past.
For more detail, the History Project’s Image Gallery is organized in the same way.
For example, search for “west broad” to find all the images along the street (plus other search hits) – and then scroll down to move down the street and see images of the buildings in street address order – from Broad-West-001 (the Pharmacy) to Broad-West-153 (originally the Old School Baptist parsonage).
The images are also organized by year, so as you step through the images for each address, you also are moving in time from the oldest (historical) to newest (current-day) images.
You also can explore old and new images on the annotated Hopewell History Map. The map is annotated each address in the borough, so you can scroll to a desired address and click to see more.
By default, the map displays the oldest image of the selected site (“Then”). Or click at the top right to see the newest image (“Now”).
You can also zoom in to see small thumbnails at each address (Then and Now), and then scroll to see all the houses down the street.
St. Michael’s Orphanage
In the St. Michael’s Orphanage presentation, Koeppel discusses the development of the orphanage in the context of the national problem of orphaned and children from troubled homes, shows images of life at the school and at the neighboring farm, and concludes with the preservation of this important open space.
Again, see the Image Gallery for more images of St. Michael’s, including photos, postcards, and 1960s photos of the full extent of the building.
Also see the post on Investigating History in Hopewell Maps for more on the St. Michael’s building and its multiple expansions over the years, comparing historic maps with photos from the same time periods.
We welcome more information, images, and materials to share on these and other parts of local history.
