A 1950's Christmas in Martinsburg

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It’s always amazed me how Kodachrome film can make an over 50-yearold scene look like it took place last night. That’s certainly the case here inthis beautiful night shot of a Christmas shopping crowd at a Peoples Drug storein Martinsburg, West Virginia, from an original slide I bought some time back.
But this was well over fifty years ago, probably closer tosixty, an infinitely simpler time compared to today’s warp drive existence.This was prior to the “shopping center era” for most communities across America,and prior to the “mall era” for all but a handful. These were the early postwaryears, just before the boom, a time when doing a big chunk of one’s Christmasshopping at the corner drugstore was still an entirely reasonable proposition.When the main Christmas gifts one received, oftentimes, were the ones thatstill matter most today –time spent and meals shared with loved ones.  Oh, and maybe a new Falcon Pipe for Dad and abottle of Tussy Wind and Weather Lotion for Mom, of course.
Peoples Drug, the leading drugstore chain in the greater Washington,D.C. area, had a history that spanned the 20^th century itself, savefor a few years on either end.  Founded in1904 with a single store at 824 7th Street in D.C., the company had grown tonearly 160 stores by the end of 1955, with locations in six states (Maryland, Virginia,West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Tennessee) in addition to those in the District.The Peoples name lasted until the early 90’s, a few years after theiracquisition by CVS.
I don’t know the address of this location, and being a nightphoto there aren’t enough visible details to date the building with any accuracy.As always, I’m hoping someone can help us here. The signage, however, sports thewonderful late 30’s/early 40’s deco lettering (“drugs”) that many drug chains (andvariety chains like Kresge and Murphy) used from time to time on cornerlocations.
To the extreme right of the photo you’ll notice another retailicon – a tower sign for the Acme grocery store. Now there have been lots ofAcmes out there – Acme of Akron, Acme of Virginia, Acme Co. (makers of rocket-poweredroller skates, dehydrated boulders and the “Do-it-Yourself Tornado Kit”), but Ithink this store was part of the best known Acme of all, the Acme Markets divisionof the Philadelphia-based American Stores Company. For many years they operateda small number of stores in the West Virginia panhandle.   
All I know is I’d have loved to have done at least some ofmy Christmas shopping there.  A Stetsonhat and a time machine, and I’m there!        One quick note - I’m so sorry for the long gap betweenposts. I’d like to be able to say I was “waiting for the end of the world” asthe Mayans would put it (or was that Elvis Costello – I never get these thingsstraight), but I can’t. I’m working on some new things to put up here, someholiday related and some not, between now and Christmas.
In any event, I hope each one of you is off to a greatholiday season, or will be soon! 

It's Christmastiiiiime in Ford City!

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It was the one indoor marching band event of my high schoolcareer. Early one Saturday morning each December, we’d pile into the buses forthe 20 minute drive south, passing through towns such as Argo (Always broughtto mind a box of corn starch. Still does.) and Summit to Ford City Mall fortheir annual indoor Christmas parade. There we’d join with other school bands,animal acts, clowns and assorted dignitaries marching the halls of the shoppingcenter, while sound bounced off the terrazzo floor and storefronts.
We used these cheesy (on this site, that word always carriesthe best connotation) little songbooks called “Christmas Favorites” or somethinglike that, which the school had probably owned since the 1950’s. I can stillpicture the red, green and white cover and yellowed pages. Our go-to song wasthat deeply meaningful Yuletide carol “Up on the Housetop.” The crowds, mostlyfamilies with young kids or older folks, always seemed to have a good time. Sodid we, although those memories tend to grow fonder with passing time (and withforgetting the “getting up early” part).    
These incredibly great photos come to us courtesy of Rick Drew.Rick’s Dad worked in mall management at Ford City during the mall’s early years.I would date these photos, based on the styles and store names to approximately1968-70, some ten years before I assaulted the corridors there with my trumpetplaying.
I’d love to tell the story of Ford City, one of Chicago’smost historically important malls, in full here someday, but only have time fora few brief notes at the moment. Ford City Shopping Center, opened on August12, 1965, was “Chicago’s first all-weather, enclosed shopping center.”
The structure itself was originally built during World WarII as a bomber engine plant. In the late forties, portions were used for theTucker Car Corporation – an American dream that should have come true, and astory movingly told in one of my all-time favorite films, Tucker: The Man andhis Dream. Later on it became an aircraft motor plant again, operated by FordMotor Company, hence the name. For a few years in the early 60’s, before themall development project, it sat vacant.
Initially, there were 82 stores, several locally-owned, withnational chains F.W. Woolworth, Lerner Shops, Bond Clothes, ThomMcAn shoes, Wurlitzerpianos and organs and SupeRx Drugs (the yellow “s” at the left edge of thefirst photo) along with a National Tea Company food store. A General Cinematwin theatre opened soon afterward. The two anchors, at opposite ends of the centerin classic “barbell” fashion, were Penneys and Chicago-based Wieboldt’s.
At 178,000 square feet, the Penneys store was the company’s largestsingle-floor unit at the time. Interestingly, as late as 1975, this Penneysstore continued to outsell those at newer, much larger area malls, includingthe behemoth Yorktown Center (1968) and Woodfield Mall (1971). A year afterFord City opened, another Penneys opened 15 miles to the south at Harvey’s fabledDixie Square Mall.    The Wieboldt’s store initially had a restaurant and a supermarket,an interesting feature of many of their locations in the early 60’s, includingRandhurst. What really strikes me about this store was that the signage,interior and exterior, was red instead of Wieboldt’s signature green, usedvirtually everywhere else. When I saw these pictures it was a shock, likeseeing a blue Coca-Cola can or purple arches above a McDonald’s sign. So wrong,yet looking at these photos…so right. (These posts always have a way of turningmelodramatic at some point, don’t they?).
In any event, they sure knew how to decorate the place forChristmas. Hope you’re having a great one!

What's in a Name?

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Not long ago it dawned on me that throughout this site’sexistence, over six years now, I’ve never taken the time to explain the originof its name. You see, the phrase “Pleasant Family Shopping” is associated withmy earliest retail memories – it’s among my earliest memories of any kind, infact.
From 1962 through the mid-70’s, the phrase appeared on thefacade of nearly all Jewel-Osco combination food and drug stores (“MasterMarkets”, they were called in the early days), in a distinctive orange font ona white background. In my case, at the Des Plaines/Elmhurst Road location, itwas on a white-painted brick section next to the entrance, at what seemed amile above my eye level at the time. If you take a look at our very first post,click to enlarge the photo and squint real hard - you’ll see it.
More common were the “ranch-style” (or as Jerry Lewis wouldput it, “ranch-type style”) Jewel-Oscos, like the Highland Park, Illinoislocation (opened 1962, photographed mid-70’s) pictured above, where the sloganwas displayed front-and-center inside an extra wide gable. A great manyvariants of this design were built.
In the summer of 2007, when I was kicking around the idea ofstarting a blog, I put together a mental shortlist of several names. I camethis close to calling it “Supermarkets Past.” (How lame is that? It would havebeen very limiting as well, since we’ve covered numerous forms of retail overthe years.) Then I kind of liked “More Posts About Buildings and Food” (Yeah, likeI need legal trouble with David Byrne), and finally there was the old standby “Dave’sRetail Reminiscences”. (Or "rumblings" or "rants". Guaranteed to attract sixreaders a year. Leap year.)
Finally, the perfect name came to me – the phrase I’d seenon that wall, week after week, year after year as a kid.  To me it’s broad, yet specific, open to interpretationby individual readers, the way it should be. 

In 2010, I applied for and receivedofficial trademark rights to “Pleasant Family Shopping.”  Jewel, who never trademarked it in the firstplace, stopped using the phrase around 1976. In the 1978-80 remodeling program,it disappeared from most storefronts, hanging on a bit later on others.
So there you have it, O curious ones - an answer to one oflife’s “great” mysteries. Ah, but there are many more, far more importantretail mysteries to explore, and I promise the next posts will be more substantive.Thanks for bearing with me!

New Gretna's Rt. 9 Mansion

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Not a month goes by that I don't get 3 or 4 emails asking me for information on the Rt. 9 walled mansion that is constantly evolving with a collection of interesting statues and sayings painted on the wall. 

Unfortunately, I didn't know much more than the inquisitive emailers. That is until my men's breakfast buddy, Carl Joorman, a former New Gretna resident presently living at the Four Seasons at Harbor Bay in Little Egg Harbor, gave me a copy of the Harbor Bay Breeze, a monthly newsletter published by the adult community.

The July, 2012 edition of the Breeze contained an article and photos of the New Gretna mansion. It seems that John Ways and Arnold Scharfstein, who collaborate on a monthly story and photo column, were getting repeated questions from Harbor Bay residents concerning the mansion. The dynamic duo decided that a story on the mansion was in order.

I met John and Arnold the other day for lunch to get the skinny on how they got their story and photos. They graciously shared their adventure at the mansion with me. 

One day they decided to stop at the mansion and take photos of the statuary. As Arnold was poking the telephoto lens of his Nikon through the iron gate, Adalid Gomez, the caretaker of the property, walked up to them and asked what they were doing. After hearing their explanation, he invited them onto the property and introduced them to the property's owner, Byung Taek Kim.

Mr. Kim proved a friendly, hospitable host and took John and Arnold on a tour of the property. The following story and photos evolved from that tour.


The Wonderful Homestead on Route 9Written by John Ways. Photos by Arnold Scharfstein.
Many of youhave driven up or down Route 9 on your way to or from the Garden State Parkway and you saw an amazing sight. Nearmile marker 58.5, you probably saw dinosaurs on a long wall with canons on eachpillar and super hero transformer action figures in front of its gates. Mr.Byung Taek Kim, owner of this 60 acre homestead, was very kind to invite Arnoldand myself into his facility for a walking tour along with Adalid Gomez, hisproperty caretaker.
The author, John Ways, standing by the steam engineat one of the gates to the property



We learned that this property wasonce a farm owned by Benjamin Franklin Headley in the mid to late 1800's andlater owned by the Bush family. Then in 1970 it was purchased by Eddie Sims ofBrigantine who decided to restore the farmhouse and enjoy the property for hisown use. It seems that Eddie owned some worthless bay property in Brigantinewhich Harrah's Casino decided to buy. With his new found wealth, Eddiepurchased the farm and started renovations in 1970.
The property was abandoned some 15years ago so Mr. Kim, of Fort Lee, NJ, purchased it in September of 2010 to provide a funsummer home for his family. Mr. Kim, Chairman of the Taekwondo Association ofGreater New York said that "He purchased the property for the soleenjoyment of himself and his family and not for any commercial venture."For the past year, Mr. Kim has been renovating and remodeling the buildings,redoing the landscaping, and adding many new features that add to the fun natureof the property. He said it would probably take another year or soto complete all of the renovations and additions that he has in mind; he willkeep his gates closed until completion.
Byung Taek Kim
Our tour started in the rear of thehouse on the north side where we saw a large raised, covered wooden dog runapproximately 100 feet for a collie and a German shepherd. It included a largedog bed with brass header and footer and other amenities for the dogs. On ourright was an amazing 75 foot replica of the famed Korean Turtle Ship builtby Admiral Yi Sun-sin during the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592 and used successfully todefeat the Japanese Navy. It features a dragon head, iron plating, guns on allsides, and spikes on the curved upper deck to prevent the Japanese fromboarding it.
Turtle Ship
A little farther toward the rear weentered a large enclosed area that included numerous chickens. Although thechickens were roaming outdoors, there were two new large hen houses with glassdoors and a pond within this enclosure. We think the chickens were of theAraucanas or Ameraucanas breeds because they were laying blue eggs. Our laststop at the rear of the property was a lake with clear blue water, a dock witha ladder and a large covered but open cabana with seating facing the lake.Although this lake was stocked with bass, there were others stocked withgoldfish and koi.
On the north side of the propertywas the barn which housed Batman, ablack stallion who had a large fenced in pasture in which to run and play. Mr.Kim enjoys riding and he rides Batman around the property on his riding path.
Batman
Near the mainhouse, which has completed renovations, is a large swimming pool with a woodenbridge spanning across the middle of it. On one side of the pool is a threestory castle-like building with place for pool furniture storage and otheritems. Along the side of this structure is a waterfall that straddles the leftside of the structure. On the top are two bright metallic knights and inbetween is an elephant head.




The three story main house on thesouth side of the property was built in three phases and has been renovated toMr. Kim's specifications. Around the back there are various sculptures sittingatop the pillars of the rear fence. On one side is a vegetable garden; on theother a fully lighted tennis court. In front of the house is a bright reddragon accompanied by two stone angels. On one side is a 20 foot giraffe alongwith four smaller ones.






In front ofthe house and in its garage are 400 year old sculptures including pagodas,Buddhas in stone and brass, and Christian sculptures of Christ and angels, 15foot black stallions, and colored dragons that are awaiting placement. Thesesculptures come from Korea, Texas and local South Jersey artists.



Arnold and I thoroughly enjoyed ourtour and are so grateful for Mr. Kim's hospitality.
Reprinted with permission from the Harbor Bay Breeze.
I hear various opinions from local residents regarding Mr. Kim's whimsical endeavor. As for me, I think he is a welcomed addition to our community. I always smile when I pass the mansion, and I look forward to what the future might bring.

Well, that's the scoop on the mansion. Perhaps, now, I won't be getting any more email inquiries.
Pete S
PS- Click on the photo of the mansion below to read a previous Blog post that provides some background information on the mansion property.




Following are a few photos that I took today.

Calico Rats and Hillary Clinton's Alien Baby

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Last week's Blog dealt with Civil War veteran Richard Walton's obituary that, after scrutiny, proved largely untrue. It showed that we can not always trust the printed word. This seems to run contrary to our sensibilities, as many people subscribe to the proposition that anything printed in a newspaper must be true.

I have often encountered this belief. Years ago, I taught 7th and 8th grade Social Studies, mostly American History. Part of the curriculum was the teaching of current events which entailed the students cutting out news articles and discussing them in class. Occasionally, a student would bring in an article cut out from the National Inquirer newspaper which was a super market tabloid that printed articles designed to appeal to the more gullible elements of society. Many of the stories dealt with "true" UFO landings, two headed dogs, the Loch Ness Monster, and a wide variety of outlandish happenings. The ridiculously untrue articles were obviously printed merely to sell newspapers, and the truth be damned.

The National Inquirer has gone out of business since my teaching days, so I don't have a sample of that newspaper to illustrate my point; however, you'll get the idea from an equivalent tabloid from the late 1990's as shown below.



As ridiculous as it may seem, one of my students might have brought in the Hillary article for current events and insisted that it was true. After all, it's printed in a newspaper, the photo is clearly labeled as an OFFICIAL PHOTO, and why would the Secret Service be building a nursery in the White House if it weren't true?

Well, it seems that people's appetites for and willingness to believe unusual stories is not a new phenomena. A few weeks ago Rich Watson, a history colleague and member of the West Jersey History Round Table, brought a 1896 article printed in a Chicago newspaper to my attention. It was about Calico, a long forgotten town tucked away in the New Jersey Pinelands. It was located in Bass River Township, just down the road a piece from the old iron furnace town of Martha and not far from the old paper town of Harrisville.
1858 Kuhn-Janney map of Burlington Countywith the approximate location of CALICO added
The headline and subject matter of the article is clearly designed to attract a reader's interest - just the type of article that sells newspapers! It is a more subtle approach than the National Inquirer and quite believable, as it was tucked in with other news of the day. 

The reader of that day probably found the article interesting and amusing and would have no reason to question its authenticity. That could also be the reaction of most of you out in the Blog-O-Sphere. However, much of the information in the article is suspect. About the only statements that I am able to verify are that Calico was a hamlet north of Pomona where the story originated and the area was involved with cranberry growing.

A review of Henry Bisbee's transcription of the Martha Furnace Diary, 1808-1815 reveals a single reference to neighboring Calico, in an interesting June 6, 1809 entry involving a whipping, probably of a Martha worker living in Calico. It suggests that Calico was settled, not by berry pickers as stated in the news article, but by laborers employed at the iron furnace in Martha.

Rained. John Luker Carting sand for the Furnace. Iron very high occasioned by stamped stuff. Peter Cox went out to Calico & whipped Jack Johnson. Bil. Williams settled and quit.

Very little is actually known about Calico. Henry Charlton Beck in his book, Forgotten Towns of Southern New Jersey, published in 1936, expressed frustration in his efforts to locate it. After three years of inquiry, he finally found two gentlemen who remembered Calico, Hugh O'Neill and Kirk Cramer. Hugh was born in a log cabin at Harrisville. Kirk worked at the Harrisville paper mill and was a grandson of Ellis Adams who had a farm in Calico.

Beck was able to arrange a trip with Hugh and Kirk to Calico. They met at Harrisville and followed the sugar sand roads to Martha and about two miles further to Calico. 


The route from Harrisville to Calico
There Cramer pointed out the Jersey sandstone chimney of his grandfather's house, the sole sentinel overlooking the site of old Calico. That chimney does not exist, today.


John Milton Adams standing at the Ellis Adams chimney at Calico, 1939.
Photo courtesy of John Milton Adams
Locations of a few other homes could be deduced by the observance of shallow cellar holes and occasional small piles of brick. Cramer pointed to a spot across the road where he said George Mick lived with the Ryan family.


A Calico cellar hole.2007 photo by Peter H. Stemmer
Calling Calico a hamlet or town is a stretch. There is no evidence that a store, school, or post office ever existed there. They did exist in neighboring Harrisville. 

Calico was a scattered group of homes that likely started as a bedroom community for the workers of neighboring Martha Furnace which was built in 1793. After the furnace shut down in 1845, Calico's residents turned to wood cutting and cranberry picking. Some of its residents may have worked in the paper mill at Harrisville.

The article's reference to rats is puzzling to me. Rats would not be attracted to cranberry bogs as claimed in the article, and it is doubtful that the refuse from the small group of homes at Calico could sustain the numbers of rodents mentioned. Another explanation would be that the term "rats" was used to refer to muskrats. This terminology was common in the area. That would explain the rats attraction to the cranberry bogs. However, muskrats would not inhabit buildings as mentioned in the article, blizzard or no blizzard.

Paul Schopp, the most knowledgeable and respected South Jersey historian that I know, weighed in on the Calico rats as a story loosely based on facts and written to poke fun at the Pineys:

I do, however, strongly believe that much of this story is apocryphal in nature as a way of poking fun at people who lived in the Pine Barrens. I have read other examples of articles that embrace an attempt of entertainment value for readers. I think the correspondent included just enough factual information about Calico and its surrounds to provide an air of authenticity.

Did I find the Calico Rats story entertaining? I sure did! Do I believe it? Yeh, about as much as I believe that Hillary Clinton adopted an alien child. How about you?
Pete S

PS- When we hear the word calico we generally think of cats or cloth, but it is also another name for Mountain Laurel, a plant which is common in some areas of the Pine Barrens. I wonder if that could have some connection to the name given to that small hamlet just down the road from Martha Furnace.

A 1950's Christmas in Martinsburg

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It’s always amazed me how Kodachrome film can make an over 50-yearold scene look like it took place last night. That’s certainly the case here inthis beautiful night shot of a Christmas shopping crowd at a Peoples Drug storein Martinsburg, West Virginia, from an original slide I bought some time back.
But this was well over fifty years ago, probably closer tosixty, an infinitely simpler time compared to today’s warp drive existence.This was prior to the “shopping center era” for most communities across America,and prior to the “mall era” for all but a handful. These were the early postwaryears, just before the boom, a time when doing a big chunk of one’s Christmasshopping at the corner drugstore was still an entirely reasonable proposition.When the main Christmas gifts one received, oftentimes, were the ones thatstill matter most today –time spent and meals shared with loved ones.  Oh, and maybe a new Falcon Pipe for Dad and abottle of Tussy Wind and Weather Lotion for Mom, of course.
Peoples Drug, the leading drugstore chain in the greater Washington,D.C. area, had a history that spanned the 20^th century itself, savefor a few years on either end.  Founded in1904 with a single store at 824 7th Street in D.C., the company had grown tonearly 160 stores by the end of 1955, with locations in six states (Maryland, Virginia,West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Tennessee) in addition to those in the District.The Peoples name lasted until the early 90’s, a few years after theiracquisition by CVS.
I don’t know the address of this location, and being a nightphoto there aren’t enough visible details to date the building with any accuracy.As always, I’m hoping someone can help us here. The signage, however, sports thewonderful late 30’s/early 40’s deco lettering (“drugs”) that many drug chains (andvariety chains like Kresge and Murphy) used from time to time on cornerlocations.
To the extreme right of the photo you’ll notice another retailicon – a tower sign for the Acme grocery store. Now there have been lots ofAcmes out there – Acme of Akron, Acme of Virginia, Acme Co. (makers of rocket-poweredroller skates, dehydrated boulders and the “Do-it-Yourself Tornado Kit”), but Ithink this store was part of the best known Acme of all, the Acme Markets divisionof the Philadelphia-based American Stores Company. For many years they operateda small number of stores in the West Virginia panhandle.   
All I know is I’d have loved to have done at least some ofmy Christmas shopping there.  A Stetsonhat and a time machine, and I’m there!        One quick note - I’m so sorry for the long gap betweenposts. I’d like to be able to say I was “waiting for the end of the world” asthe Mayans would put it (or was that Elvis Costello – I never get these thingsstraight), but I can’t. I’m working on some new things to put up here, someholiday related and some not, between now and Christmas.
In any event, I hope each one of you is off to a greatholiday season, or will be soon! 

It's Christmastiiiiime in Ford City!

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It was the one indoor marching band event of my high schoolcareer. Early one Saturday morning each December, we’d pile into the buses forthe 20 minute drive south, passing through towns such as Argo (Always broughtto mind a box of corn starch. Still does.) and Summit to Ford City Mall fortheir annual indoor Christmas parade. There we’d join with other school bands,animal acts, clowns and assorted dignitaries marching the halls of the shoppingcenter, while sound bounced off the terrazzo floor and storefronts.
We used these cheesy (on this site, that word always carriesthe best connotation) little songbooks called “Christmas Favorites” or somethinglike that, which the school had probably owned since the 1950’s. I can stillpicture the red, green and white cover and yellowed pages. Our go-to song wasthat deeply meaningful Yuletide carol “Up on the Housetop.” The crowds, mostlyfamilies with young kids or older folks, always seemed to have a good time. Sodid we, although those memories tend to grow fonder with passing time (and withforgetting the “getting up early” part).    
These incredibly great photos come to us courtesy of Rick Drew.Rick’s Dad worked in mall management at Ford City during the mall’s early years.I would date these photos, based on the styles and store names to approximately1968-70, some ten years before I assaulted the corridors there with my trumpetplaying.
I’d love to tell the story of Ford City, one of Chicago’smost historically important malls, in full here someday, but only have time fora few brief notes at the moment. Ford City Shopping Center, opened on August12, 1965, was “Chicago’s first all-weather, enclosed shopping center.”
The structure itself was originally built during World WarII as a bomber engine plant. In the late forties, portions were used for theTucker Car Corporation – an American dream that should have come true, and astory movingly told in one of my all-time favorite films, Tucker: The Man andhis Dream. Later on it became an aircraft motor plant again, operated by FordMotor Company, hence the name. For a few years in the early 60’s, before themall development project, it sat vacant.
Initially, there were 82 stores, several locally-owned, withnational chains F.W. Woolworth, Lerner Shops, Bond Clothes, ThomMcAn shoes, Wurlitzerpianos and organs and SupeRx Drugs (the yellow “s” at the left edge of thefirst photo) along with a National Tea Company food store. A General Cinematwin theatre opened soon afterward. The two anchors, at opposite ends of the centerin classic “barbell” fashion, were Penneys and Chicago-based Wieboldt’s.
At 178,000 square feet, the Penneys store was the company’s largestsingle-floor unit at the time. Interestingly, as late as 1975, this Penneysstore continued to outsell those at newer, much larger area malls, includingthe behemoth Yorktown Center (1968) and Woodfield Mall (1971). A year afterFord City opened, another Penneys opened 15 miles to the south at Harvey’s fabledDixie Square Mall.    The Wieboldt’s store initially had a restaurant and a supermarket,an interesting feature of many of their locations in the early 60’s, includingRandhurst. What really strikes me about this store was that the signage,interior and exterior, was red instead of Wieboldt’s signature green, usedvirtually everywhere else. When I saw these pictures it was a shock, likeseeing a blue Coca-Cola can or purple arches above a McDonald’s sign. So wrong,yet looking at these photos…so right. (These posts always have a way of turningmelodramatic at some point, don’t they?).
In any event, they sure knew how to decorate the place forChristmas. Hope you’re having a great one!