Walking in Newark, New Jersey in 1941

Time-travel with me, and let's walk around Newark, New Jersey in 1941. This image is from the Duke University site ROAD (Resource of Outdoor Advertising Descriptions) and their main interest is studying historic advertising, and mine is time-traveling. Come on!

I'm gonna say that it's May of 1941 because that's the May '41 issue of the Saturday Evening Post at the newsstand. It could, of course, be earlier than that, but it's not later - no self-respecting stand would have an old magazine for sale! Suffice to say that the United States is not yet in the war. By the way, I found a better pic of the cover, here ya go:


It's a hat check girl, comically overwhelmed by coats and hat at a Convention, of course drawn by Norman Rockwell. And before I forget, we're looking north on Broad Street towards Williams. Let's take a closer look:


I'd like to imagine that's me, striding confidently, great posture, looking as if at any moment I'll be changing into Superman! But I'm inclined to think that I'm this other guy, maybe wondering if I should go over to Schwarz Drugs while I'm out, maybe get some bromo.


Hey, check out that cool split window there! I wish that I could identify the makes and models of the cars, but the best I can do personally is to recognize cars from the '60s and '70s. I'm working on it! Let's go back and take a closer look at that newsstand.

Looks like you can read "The people America needs" or even "My introduction to love" in True Story. How about "This man's army" in Liberty. Can't quite read the name there, Old ___? Is that Cosmopolitan? Can't read the other ones, besides you shouldn't just stand around a newsstand reading without buying anything, so I guess I'll skedaddle!

Images from the Duke University Library Digital Collections, Art.com, and Google Street View.


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