DOCUMENT ANALYSIS

The Middletown-Portland-Cromwell Directories were invaluable resources for the investigation of the Middletown waterfront in the early part of the twentieth century.  They made possible a search for the actual buildings that occupied the space where Route 9 would be constructed in 1950 and 1951.  As a primary source they offered an unfiltered accounting of all the commercial and residential addresses on a given street.  Other sections of the text were organized in alphabetical order and by category.  Before usage of the telephone became widespread the directories listed just a company or person’s address, and then, as the twentieth century wore on more phone numbers were added to the database.  The quality and breadth of the directories increased chronologically, and they gradually became more easy to use and more informative generally.  The earliest available directories, from the last decades of the nineteenth century, were not organized by streets, and therefore, were less helpful in this context.

Also significant to the directories were the street maps of Middletown that presumably were included in every original printed copy.  Unfortunately, at the Russell Library only selected maps are available, as many have been lost to the test of time.  The few that were available allowed for the discovery of which streets were eliminated by the construction of Route 9, which in turn, made possible the above-mentioned street listings research.  For example, Water Street, Bank Street and Lumber Street served as homes to industry and residence before Route 9 ended their existence.

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