By Heather Matthews
Staff Writer

Many of the buildings along Elm Street have undergone major renovations and changes throughout the years due to fires and structural problems. Both of these photographs were taken from the roof of the Carpenter building and show the before and after of what is now Citizens Bank. Photos courtesy of Ron Boucher

With nothing more than a laptop and two slide projectors, Manchester historians Dick Duckoff and Ron Boucher take their audiences from one end of Elm Street to another. The tour spans two centuries, whisking audience members into the early 1900s and back to today, and the trip only takes two hours.

“A Tale of Two Centuries,” a virtual walking tour, will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 31, at the Millyard Museum. The third of its kind, the slideshow has been creating a buzz with Manchester history buffs and novices alike. Each show has been performed to a sold out show with standing-room only and a waiting list.

For Duckoff, the tour is a chance to share his passion for the past and Manchester’s rich history with the city’s residents in a way that is interesting and that people can understand.

“You have to tie the past into the present,” Duckoff said. “You have to marry history with something that you can visualize, and that’s what we are attempting to do. Nobody has (gotten) bored yet.”
The lecture, Boucher said, is engineered to simulate an actual walking tour. The slideshow moves in one direction – from south to north – and occasionally looks back at things that have already been touched upon. The tour also visits some side streets and travels to some rooftops to see the towers and steeples of Manchester’s skyline.

Duckoff is the tour’s guide, and Boucher works almost as a conductor. Duckoff shares the stories of each of the buildings on the tour’s route, while Boucher takes the reins, directing the viewer’s along Elm Street.

“We are doing nothing more than retelling the stories of the past,” Duckoff said. “The flotsam and jetsam of the past forms a sort of patchwork quilt, and we try to fill that in with research.”

Duckoff doesn’t claim to be a trained historian with all the answers, but he is an avid researcher and collector of ephemera and post cards.

“It’s still just a hobby,” he said. “I learn something new every time we do this. I’ve gotten more out of these tours than I have given.”

In the 1900s, Elm Street was at the center of everything, Duckoff said. It was lined with movie theaters, bookstores, furniture stores, clothing stores, car dealerships, grocery stores and garages. It was feasible for a family to live a full and happy life without ever leaving the city’s main street. At one point, there was even a racetrack that stretched between Elm and Chestnut streets from where the Rite Aid stands today to Webster Street.

While the history of the street and buildings is intriguing for Boucher, it is the people of the past that he connects with and is fascinated by.

“The buildings are great, but I love looking at people in the photos and thinking that even though they lived in a different universe than I do, they still had to deal with many of the same everyday sorrows, joys, problems and successes as I do,” Boucher said. “They just did it with different technology. I have something in common with them: We have the same hometown.”

The tour is a combination and culmination of four separate projects that came together shortly after Boucher and Duckoff met.

Duckoff has been giving walking tours of Elm Street for the Manchester Historic Association with John Jordan for years and presents a yearly slide show of his old, rare Manchester photos. Boucher has assembled a huge collection of antique postcards, matching each one up with a present day scene, and has spent time taking panoramic views of the Queen City’s rooftops and church steeples.

“I suppose if you combine the Elm Street tour and the old photo show with the then-and-now photos and panoramas, you could wind up with a number of different things,” Boucher said. “But in this case, what we ended up with was our virtual tour down Elm Street.”

The cost for the tour is $8 for Historic Association members and $10 for nonmembers. Reservations are required and can be made by calling 622-7531.