OLD ORCHARD BEACH — The Harmon Museum has begun its summer hours, and this year brings a new exhibit about Old Orchard Street.
The new exhibit, “Old Orchard Street, Then and Now,” which curator Jeanne Guerin said will run all summer, features photos of Old Orchard Street in modern times and from the past.
Also on display are a number of artifacts that were taken from the museum’s collection, said Guerin.
The display includes a glass compote from the Velvet Hotel, a grand hotel that burned in the fire of 1907, and stood where the Grand Victorian now stands.
Books from the town’s public library from the 1920s and 1930s, when the library was located in the town hall, are also featured, along with movie theater brochures advertising movies such as the 1938 movie “Jezebel” featuring Betty Davis and Henry Fonda, and the 1948 movie “Campus Honeymoon.”
Old Orchard Beach Historical Society Treasurer Priscilla Gallant said her favorite article is a puzzle showing a view of downtown. Town Historian Dan Blaney said the print was taken from a postcard from the 1940s.
Guerin said her favorite picture in the new exhibit is a photo of a building on the top of Old Orchard Street, which at the time housed the town’s post office and telephone operators upstairs. The building now houses Mad Hatter’s Tattoo studio.
Permanent exhibits in the museum include the transportation room, a fire room, a display on The Ballpark and a display about the Salvation Army.
Summer hours for the museum are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday. Admission is free. The museum is located at 4 Portland Ave. Parking is available at the Saco & Biddeford Savings Bank next door. For more information, go to www.harmonmuseum.org.
— Staff Writer Liz Gotthelf can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 325 or egotthelf@journaltribune.com.
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