[PRCo] Re: 1950 Grant Street

[Edward H. Lybarger]

It would have been easy for the P-G to beat the line truck...they were right
across the street at that time. 

-----Original Message-----
From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
[mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf Of Fred
Schneider
Sent: Monday, June 28, 2010 8:00 PM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Cc: Ken Josephson
Subject: [PRCo] Re: 1950 Grant Street

I love the picture Matt, particularly those things we don't see today ...
there are so many things that disappeared.

Knowing Pittsburgh Railways people, the newspaper photographer had to run to
get there before the line truck.   Was that a Press, Post Gazaette or Sun
Telegraph picture?   Any idea?  

The Amoco gas station.   Let's see, that was one of the brands created when
Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company was broken up.   It was Standard Oil
Company of Indiana.   In the merger with BP (1998), the Amoco name lasted
ten years and then disappeared.

The Gulf Oil advertisement was local.   The company eventually expanded into
all the states.   Then, and I forget who, someone who was not wanted tried
to gather up all of Gulf's stock.   Chevron came dashing in ... the knight
on a white horse ... to save Gulf.   The saved it alright.   Chevron
absorbed Gulf, took the things they wanted like the Philadelphia refinery.
Chevron put their name on the gas stations they wanted.   It gave them a
marketing presence.   Then the sold off the rights to the Gulf name to other
people.   Cumberland Farms of Ohio, a convenience store chain, can sell
"Gulf products" in this area.   I suspect with it goes the obligation to buy
from Chevron?   It's nothing but a hollow name today.    The family had a
connection ... dad worked in the research lab in the 1930s and got my uncle
a job there.   Uncle Fred retired from Gulf.   A lot of old Gulf people lost
money and jobs. 

That Packard automobile at the far right side of the picture.   My first car
was one of those 53rd Series Packards.   By the way, it may have been the
only automobile company not to have cars identifiable by year but the 53rd
Series was probably about 1949.   Tom Phillips used to own Packards.    My
recollection of mine was that it rode like a Greyhound bus and had just
about the same acceleration potential.  The company went for snob appeal.
Their advertisements used the term, "Ask the man who owns one."   The
original three luxury cars in this country were Peerless, Pierce Arrow and
Packard ... the three Ps.   The depression wasn't kind to luxury car
builders.   Two went out of business and Packard downgraded from a luxury
car to a mid-range car.   When I said luxury.   Remember the picture on the
cover of the PCC book?  That 1930 Packard on the cover sold for $4000.   The
PCC sold for $16,000.   You want to adjust for inflation?   Well, Push the
streetcar up to somewher!
 e over a million and the automobile to about a quarter of a million.   That
should put Packard into perspective before it was downgraded.  

On the car track heading north on Grant Street is a 1949 Kaiser.   My
Grandpa Rebele, a self-employed electrical contractor in Pittsburgh, always
favored the underdog.   A Graham Paige automobile got him through World War
II.   When it wore out, he could not possibly buy from the big three.   He
had to have something from the start up company.   He helped Henry Kaiser
loose $31 million dollars on those 1949 cars.   Oh, another sidebar, Mac
Sebree, who owned Interurbans Publishing and did my PCC books, owned a house
in the Hollywood Hills with his friend Bob Shay that had previously been
owned by the Henry Kaiser.   Bpb died about two years ago and Mac passed
away this spring.   (No, I don't care that they were gay.   They were just
other friends.   Mac did me a big favor.   He had faith in two PCC books and
he would have done another book for me if I had ever finished it.)  

I suspect that perhaps the least common of the three cars nearest the camera
is the 1941 Chevrolet with the trolley wire wrapped around it.   The
difference between the 1940 and the 1941 was the little marker light above
the headlight.   In 1941 we were still in the depression.   Unemployment in
Pittsburgh in 1940 according to the US census was still 30%.   I don't think
GM sold too many of their cheapest car that year.   I wonder if this car was
up on blocks during the war.    It looks too good to be real.    My father
ran his 39 Chevy all through the war ... I figure it might have been up to
around 70,000 miles when he scrapped it in 1949.   By then he'd replaced the
piston rings and valves, the running boards were marine plywood covered with
tar and rubber (the sheet steel originals had rusted out in Pittsburgh's
atmosphere).  The seat cushions were badly worn.   At one point even the gas
line broke.   (Today we figure a car is good for 200,000 miles or more but
not in th!
 ose days.)   

I didn't find one good link for the Kaiser.   I knew about the Packard.
But here is a great link for the old Chevies.   Ken might like it?   Or is
these cars too old for your interests Mr. J?   

http://oldcarandtruckpictures.com/Chevrolet/


 


On Jun 28, 2010, at 3:43 PM, Barry, Matthew R wrote:

> Intersection of Grant Street and the Boulevard of the Allies.  1950.
Broken carline wire.
> From Historic Pittsburgh.
> 
> Matt
> 
> 
> -- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
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> -- Desc: grant_1950.jpg
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> http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/grant_1950.jpg
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>