Waiting for the parade? Or the arrival of a train rumbling through the underpass? We don’t know what drew these children to the corner of Greenwoods Road and Maple Avenue around 1890, but fortunately the pace of life was much slower then than it is today at that busy intersection. A horse-drawn carriage is parked in the shade outside the Landon Bros. village store, a popular gathering spot for townsfolk. Upstairs a hammock beckons, the perfect place to take an afternoon nap. The old store had been built in 1843 and occupied by a series of merchants. A few years after this photograph was taken, the building was purchased by Isabella Eldridge and torn down as part of improvements she made to the area around the Library. One of these improvements was the construction of the decorative stone and wooden railing, designed by Alfredo Taylor and still standing on Maple Avenue. No doubt this offered the children a new and better perch from which to watch the train.

—Ann Havemeyer