ENGLEWOOD—An aerial photo of Englewood provides a glimpse into how the city looked on a winter’s day back in 1914. The road running through this picture, at right, is Palisade Avenue. The view is toward the northeast.
Visible just above the center of the photo is a building with a cone-shaped roof. This was the tower on the Lyceum, which stood at the corner of Palisade Avenue and Engle Street. Built in 1889, the building housed the Citizens’ National Bank and the city’s first library (with separate ones for men and women, available for a $5 subscription). It still stands, minus the conical roof, housing a PNC Bank and Englewood Wine Merchants.
The building immediately east of the Lyceum, set back a little from Palisade Avenue, is also still standing. Built in 1914 under the Carnegie Corporation, it was a public library that boasted a collection of over 14,000 books. It served as Englewood’s library until 1968, when the present facility was built around the corner on Engle Street.
Another landmark visible in this photo is at the top, on the right edge. Can you spot St. Cecilia R.C. Church? The white marble, Romanesque-style church has stood on West Demarest Avenue since 1910.
The city appears to be highly developed in this 1914 photo, and it was, comparatively speaking: Englewood’s population of 10,000 dwarfed other Northern Valley municipalities, many of which still counted their number of residents in the hundreds. Now, 110 years later, the city’s population has tripled: almost 30,000 people call Englewood home.