Corner of Benefit & Wickenden Streets, Then & Now

About this Property

#About this Then & Now

This photo looking at the corner of Benefit and Wickenden street (facing north) shows a few interesting things:

• A 2-story commercial building once occupied a spot near the corner, but not directly on the corner. There was still an empty lot behind it along Benefit Street.
• In the foreground of the “then” photo is a turn-only lane that existed to move east-bound traffic on Wickenden Street into an access road that stopped at a traffic light instead of allowing left turns from Wickenden. This went away when the interstate 195 was removed in this section of the city.
• In the newer photo, the Residential Properties office building at 140 Wickenden Street was constructed in the mid-1990s to fit the corner, and it replaced the earlier commercial structure

Sidney Office Supply company occupied the now extant commercial building. Signs on the building announce Office Furniture, Printing, Office Machines, Office Supplies, Bookkeeping Supplies, and Rubber Stamps.

It is difficult to see in this photo since it is under tree cover, but there is a two and a half story house directly behind 140 Wickenden Street at 439 Benefit that seems to have been moved to that location, according to aerial photos and Sanborn Maps.

Notable is the house on Wickenden that we used as an anchor on the far right side. The house at 156-158 Wickenden Street was built circa 1875 and is listed in the manuscript for the College Hill Historic District.

Maps

• 1920–1921 Sanborn Insurance Map, Volume 2, Plate 27 (page 36) — Wooden structures occupy the corner of Wickenden and Benefit. The 3 1/2 story house at 156 exists but it smaller than present day. The structure at 146–150 will undergo some expansion in the next map.
• 1920–1951 Sanborn Insurance Map, Volume 2, Plate 27 (page 38) — The structure at 146–150 has been replaced or has subsumed the previous structure, but now is of cinder block construction. A two-story addition has been added to 156 Wickenden and abuts the new structure at 146. On the corner of the streets is a restaurant building which is 3 stories at the corner but only 1 story at the back along Benefit Street. The same configuration exists in the 1956 map.

By a 1972 aerial image, the restaurant building seems to be gone. It is difficult to tell whether or not it existed in the 1962 aerial image. So it seems that the corner property remained unoccupied from before 1972 until circa 1995.