Many thanks to Bill Hecht for churning through the Samuel Center ever-growing archives, cleaning up some of the images, and–since I’m approximately 300 miles from the Samuel Center–passing them along via electronic mail.  Electrons never seem to tire. 

Since I’m about the same distance from Oswego, I sent Google pegman up as my photographer proxy.  Below is a current view looking west across Oswego lock 8 and the Oswego River.  Note the tower of Oswego City Hall (circa 1870) to the left protruding above the brick buildings.

Here’s a slightly closer view.

And below from circa 1917 is the same view during construction of lock 8.  Scanning the skyline left to right, there’s the City Hall to the left and the 1836 “old” City Hall etc. tower toward the right on the opposite side of the bridge.  Old City Hall was a bar last time I visited Oswego before Covid-19.  Scanning (l to r) along the bases of the buildings, I see some box cars and wooden canal barges.

Whatever work was going on at that moment seems to have caught the attention of a lot of passersby, all or nearly all men.

Because of the shadows, it’s hard to count the number of workers, but

does the sign say McCarthy’s China Hall?  What was that?

Funny thing about Google pegman, I can’t make him walk on the sidewalk or lean over the bridge rail to get the photo I’d take.  See the bridge over the canal/river beyond the lock?  That’s now a bike/pedestrian bridge, and the large building to the left is Simeon DeWitt Apartments.

Here was that same view taken by an unidentified and pre-Google pegman photographer on October 17, 1907 and in the CSNY archives.   The covered yacht to the right of the wall is in the Oswego River, not the Canal.

The larger building to the left has Oil Well Supply Co. signage.  Lower right is a [ramshackle] building marked Uneeda Biscuit.  I count five people in various locations in the image.

Help me out . . . what did the Google pegman and I miss?