Memories are like the old advertisement for Lay's Potato Chips. You can't stop at one.
The recent post on Mount Vernon, New York, has sparked more flashes of nostalgia. And internet searches that produced the photos here. Both are of the main shopping district---Fourth Avenue. I lived on 15th Avenue. Do the math. It was a short walk.
These pictures gave me back The Fair, which was a huge two story version of what we would know today as Bed Bath and Beyond. I hated going into there as a kid because there was just so much there that I could accidentally break. Lots of glass and crystal.
I remember getting gym shorts and sneakers at Buddy's Army and Navy store. I never understood the name. Is that where, during WWII, our soldiers bought their equipment?
I remember now the name of the record store. Brodbeck's. Along with the latest 45 RPM hits that I would buy, I also hoarded Broadway cast albums of the current hit shows, despite the fact that I never saw any of them in person myself. I was probably the earliest incarnation of a metrosexual.
There was a luggage store called Uttal's, which was useless to my family since we never went anywhere.
The bookstore was a Mom and Pop operation called Barish's, which would certainly have been gobbled up by Borders or Barnes & Nobles by now. They stocked all the Cliff Notes you needed, so the place came in handy. I think I went to high school with one of the kids in their family.
There was a local bank named County Trust, where my family's "riches" were kept. My grandmother went there to have her passbook updated every week, because, if she didn't see the interest printed in it, she wasn't happy.
For a while, trading stamps were all the rage and there was a Plaid Stamps redemption center on Fourth Avenue for a bit. I think I got a baseball glove for 10 and a half books.
There was a John's Bargain Store, where my mother would don dark glasses before entering. She didn't want her friends to know that she might be buying her kid's white tube socks there.
At one point, there was a Horn and Hardhart store there and you could buy some pre-packaged meals straight from the Automat. The beef stew was really good and the rice pudding was awesome. When my mom re-entered the work force, these containers were stacked up five deep in our refrigerator.
And, once again, it's gone.
They're all gone.
Dinner last night: In snowy New York for a Virginia Ham sandwich at Montparnasse Diner.
3 comments:
I never did an Automat, but Horn & Hardart's frozen stuff was tremendous. Great mac 'n cheese. My grandmother used to bring it up from Queens.
Plaid Stamps and John's Bargain Store were part of my childhood, both a source of toys for families on a budget (read: poor).
Plaid Stamps got me a Cape Canaveral playset and a plastic fort complete with Indians. Many happy hours with those.
John's was the 99 Cent Store of its day. My mother didn't put on dark glasses because she didn't have any.
We did visit the Automat on 42nd Street which was fun.
Glad to see that someone remembers my family's store - Uttal's. Now, my grandfather - the original "Uttal" and my father are gone, along with the store.
We all worked there during the holidays. I worked summers and after college. i remember a lot of the stores you mentioned. Brings back memories of my childhood growing up in Mt. Vernon.
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