Walking in 1949 Trenton, New Jersey


Let's walk into this photo of Trenton, New Jersey in 1949. I found this at the Duke University site, which has a lot of great old photos, mostly about historic advertising (see that billboard up there?), but I just like to step into history. Walk with me.

We're walking north on Broad Street towards Front. Yes, all of these buildings are gone now, the only thing that remains is the street, with the bend in it. So don't go looking for Jay's Babyland on Google Street View, it's gone. In fact, if it hadn't been for my expert history adventuring friend who identified this location through whatever magical powers he has, I would have given up on it. Here are some Sanborn maps for proof:




Yeah, it's really Trenton. So let's walk. It's 1949, so the war has been over for a couple of years, and the USA is about to burst out in the glorious decade of the '50s. You know, fins on cars, lots of chrome, and a booming economy. Good times!


We're standing next to Kraft Furniture. I don't really need any furniture, but it might be fun to go in and look around. The sign says that we're cordially invited to come in and look around! After that we can go into Jay's Babyland Toys. I'm sure that they'll be doing some good business - there are so many babies being born nowadays that it's practically a "Baby Boom"! I could use a new suit, maybe I'll go to MacHenry's. I wonder if I need a new watch?


Let's cross the street and go over to Goldbergs. I like the idea of shopping with confidence! I wonder what they're hauling in that truck over there? And now that the automobile manufacturers are back to making cars again, I think I'll go buy a new one. I want a real big, heavy car, because gasoline is cheap!


And there's that billboard. Hmmm... a cold beer sounds good right now. I wonder if there's a place around here where I could get a bottle of Schaefer's? Pale Dry!

Thank you for walking around Trenton in 1949 with me!
If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please become a member of History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. Your support makes it happen! Thank you!

Click here to become a Patron!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is ...
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the...
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me...
Read more