Over time, neighborhoods change, sometimes with updates that are barely noticeable, other times with drastic overhauls.

Changes are most frequent in small, somewhat rural areas that grow into towns or even small cities.

However, small cities can also undergo unexpected changes in their development.

If you’re a regular reader, you know that I grew up in Passaic, New Jersey. I thought I was familiar with many parts of the city, having lived there for so many years.

I was aware of one change that happened in the 1920s. I learned about it when I was researching the history of my grandmother’s church, today the Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel Byzantine Catholic Church in Passaic.

Here is a map view of the area today. Th view is upside down to correspond with the view from the church:

First, look at St. Michael’s with the upside down red pin at the top of the map. The address is 96 First Street. Now, travel down First Street to the black oval with the red arrow in it. That is the corner of Madison Street.

The area is quite industrial, although there is a school near the corner of First and Madison, which will be our viewpoint in the next image. Note that there are lots of buildings and black top in the area.

Now, jump back in time to 1906. Look at this early view, found on a postcard:

There is a canal meandering in front of St. Michael’s. In fact, the water is so close, if a person wasn’t paying attention, they might end up very wet on Sunday morning.

I found out that the Dundee Canal was covered over in the 1920s. If someone dug up that area today, presumably the water would be exposed once again! I had no idea about the size of the canal, but knew that it was built to accommodate the factories that popped up in the second half of the 1800s.

Recently, I cam across another postcard, which puzzled me. It’s also frm 1906 and Identifies the water as “Vreeland’s Pond.”

There is a square building just about smack in the middle of the picture. Beyond that, you can see St. Michael’s original towers just behind.

So, what was this body of water doing in the neighborhood? Take a look at this street view image:

Again, almost in the middle of the picture, you can barely see the church towers of St. Michael’s. This is the corner of First and Madison seen on the map above.

This was Vreeland’s Pond! This body of water was quite large and, from it, was built the Dundee Canal!

The other buildings seen in the postcard view are all gone, replaced by this ugly blacktop.

My grandmother came back to live in Passaic in 1910. She married my grandfather in St. Michael’s in 1915 and would have had to carefully navigate the steps up into the church, avoiding the water.

The covering over of the canal also marks a moment in history, signalling the demise of the factories in the area. The Great War was over and in 1921, the United States greatly restricted immigration and it was the immigrants who worked in the factories. Life was changing!

By the time my father was born in the 1920s, the whole neighborhood had been black topped over with not so much as a drop of water to be seen.

These old postcards provided a great look at the old neighborhood and gave me an understanding of how much the area changed.

Vintage postcards are a great resource for understanding local history. Postcards had their heyday in the first half of the 20th century. I regularly look online for new historic views of neighborhoods in which I’m interested and I buy postcards fairly regularly. Most can be purchased for under $10.

The fun part is that you never know what is going to pop up!