[PRCo] Re: Lawrenceville Water Main Breaks 1950s

[Fred Schneider]

Did you ever wonder what our parents might have thought was  
idyllic?   And what was so rudely taken from them and replaced by the  
soda shops and the Arsenal theater?    I've always thought of a  
friend of mine, who died this year, who was perpetually locked in a  
mental struggle against the automobile and his belief in the  
superiority of the train.   How would he have felt had he been born  
in 1850 and saw the trains and trolleys take the business away from  
the horses and canals?    <Smile>

I wish I could go to a couple of cemeteries and ask a few grandparents.

On Nov 3, 2005, at 9:11 AM, Matt Barry wrote:

> That is for sure!   I remember the Fisk Drug Store, too.   Plus, right
> in that block, my grandparents owned a confectionary store.    The big
> deal in Lawrenceville way back when was to go to the Arsenal Theatre,
> then to their store for a soda.    Sounds idyllic, I know, but very  
> true.
> Funny how things like the neighborhood theatre, soda shops, and  mom &
> pop stores all went around the same time as the streetcars.   Or at
> least within a ten-year span.
>
> Fred Schneider wrote:
>
>> There is so much more than trolleys in that first picture ... the
>> white Gulf dealer with separate wash and lube bays and an attendant
>> who checked oil and pumped gasoline all for not much different than
>> you pay today for someone to snarl at you from a booth.   And then
>> there is the advertisement on the building for Dad's Old Fashioned
>> Root Beer.   That also reminds me of their radio jingles.  Remember
>> them guys?  Radio jingles?   Even Garrison Keilor hasn't tried one of
>> them yet.    Not only were villages independent shopping centers, but
>> so were neighborhoods in cities.
>>
>> On Nov 2, 2005, at 12:25 PM, Matt Barry wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> Just some interesting photos of the early 1950s and how  
>>> streetcars got
>>> around water main breaks in Lawrenceville at that time.
>>> The first shows a 1950 break at Butler and 40th St.    The  
>>> workmen are
>>> able to work between the tracks.
>>>
>>> The second shows another break, this time in 1951, on Butler  
>>> Street at
>>> Plummer, where the tracks are torn up, seemingly a bigger, more
>>> intensive job.  On the left of the photo, the streetcars apparently
>>> used
>>> the Plummer Street trackage to get back up to Butler:  Butler,  
>>> Plummer
>>> and left up 47th Street and turn right, back on to Butler,
>>> outbound. The
>>> reverse, inbound.    Lucky to have Plummer Street tracks at that  
>>> time,
>>> which led to the Plummer St. car house.
>>>
>>> The last photo shows a zoomed-in view of the above-photo with a
>>> picture
>>> of a temporary Pgh Railways crossover.
>>>
>>> Speaking of the Plummer Street Car House, weren't the tracks  
>>> formerly
>>> located there eventually used at the (then-called) Arden Trolley
>>> Museum?
>>>
>>> Matt
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
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>>> butler_40th_1950.jpeg
>>>
>>>
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>>> butler_plummer1951.jpeg
>>>
>>>
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>>> butler_plummer1951_crossover.jpeg
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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