Historic photographs usually make us marvel at how much has changed. Buildings disappear. Businesses come and go. Streets are rebuilt. Trees grow up, storefronts are remodeled and, sometimes, it takes a few moments just to figure out where the photographer was standing.
This photograph of 16 and 18 6th Avenue, from the Wisconsin Historical Society collection, does almost exactly the opposite. The Historical Society does not provide a date for the image, but the automobiles — including the enormous early-1970s Pontiac in the foreground — point strongly toward the early 1970s.
The photograph may be black and white, but you can almost feel the Pontiac’s Wilderness Green paint, one of those deep, unmistakably early-1970s colors that somehow seems to come through anyway.
Then look beyond the cars.
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