This attractive early twentieth-century lithographic postcard depicts East Main Street, Northport, New York, capturing a quiet yet telling moment in the village’s everyday life during the pre-automobile era. The view looks along a gently curving, unpaved road lined with tall, leafless trees, suggesting late fall or early spring. A single horse-drawn carriage proceeds down the center of the street, while well-kept houses with porches and railings line the left side and a wooded rise with additional residences appears to the right. Utility poles and overhead wires mark the gradual arrival of modern infrastructure, creating a scene that neatly bridges nineteenth-century village life and the early twentieth century. The caption at the lower edge of the image reads “East Main Street, Northport, N.Y.”, and directly beneath it appears the name C. E. Robertson, which can be confidently identified as the publisher of the postcard. Robertson was active as a regional publisher of New York view cards during the early 1900s, and his name appears on a number of Long Island and greater New York area postcards of this period. Historically, East Main Street in Northport corresponds to what is today considered the eastern stretch of Main Street, running eastward from the village center toward Fort Salonga Road. While modern maps generally refer to the entire thoroughfare simply as Main Street, period postcards and local usage often distinguished the eastern section as “East Main Street,” particularly when emphasizing views beyond the immediate village green and dock area. The scene shown here aligns well with that eastern approach into the village. Northport is located on the north shore of Long Island and the village sits at the edge of Northport harbor on the Long Island Sound. The village is part of Huntington township. The reverse of the postcard bears a clearly legible handwritten message and a Northport postmark dating to 1911, firmly placing the card within the early postcard era. The message reads: “Dear Friend, I thought you would like this. Mrs. Stewart.” The card is addressed to a woman/girl in Lynn, Massachusetts. SOLD
THE CABINET CARD GALLERY 
Looks like a car to me, the front grill has a design or name on it. Fenders over the wheels. The horse is under the hood! Lovely scene, bet it does not look like that now.
Thanks for the correction. I’ll take comfort in that I got it half right. Technically, it is a carriage…its a horseless carriage. Thanks again.