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Bygone stores
Posted by:
nordsider
(---.hsd1.il.comcast.net)
Date: November 12, 2013 11:48PM
In the 40s, and early 50s, my mother walked to the grocery store, and butcher and bakery shops; necessary shopping, at shops that seemed to be located within every city block. I never realized back then, the amount of my mother's time spent shopping and carrying these food items home. There were couple of supermarkets a few blocks distant, but they were not convenient as the stores within our block, for a shopper on foot -- not planned for car-based convenience..
Most of those stores/shops must now be a near rarity, if not extinct.
However, this must be a very rare exception; the meat market that my mother shopped, at least beginning in the early 40s, and still owned, I assume from its name, by the same family for 106 years:
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=1964+North+Halsted+Street,+Chicago,+IL&hl=en&ll=41.917881,-87.648503&spn=0.006993,0.013046&sll=39.739318,-89.266507&sspn=7.398724,13.359375&oq=1964&hnear=1964+N+Halsted+St,+Chicago,+Illinois+60614&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=41.917881,-87.648503&panoid=Rx-dHKjNJdoV6VY_gSWhQQ&cbp=13,263,,0,0
By the way, I rarely eat meat, nowadays.
Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2013 09:39AM by nordsider.
Most of those stores/shops must now be a near rarity, if not extinct.
However, this must be a very rare exception; the meat market that my mother shopped, at least beginning in the early 40s, and still owned, I assume from its name, by the same family for 106 years:
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=1964+North+Halsted+Street,+Chicago,+IL&hl=en&ll=41.917881,-87.648503&spn=0.006993,0.013046&sll=39.739318,-89.266507&sspn=7.398724,13.359375&oq=1964&hnear=1964+N+Halsted+St,+Chicago,+Illinois+60614&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=41.917881,-87.648503&panoid=Rx-dHKjNJdoV6VY_gSWhQQ&cbp=13,263,,0,0
By the way, I rarely eat meat, nowadays.
Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2013 09:39AM by nordsider.
Re: Bygone stores
Posted by:
Diogenes9561
(---.res.bhn.net)
Date: November 13, 2013 04:11PM
I remember being a little kid when my family lived on Leavitt Street just south of Addison in early/mid 1950s. Most needs were met by stores within less than a block: at the corner of Addison and Leavitt was about everything we needed. On the northwest corner was a small Certified grocery store and, just west of it was Eddie Propst's butcher shop and then a bakery, the name of which escapes me at the moment.
On the northeast corner was Joe Schneider's drug store and on the southwest corner was Chappie's tailor shop and a barber shop next door to the west.
If mom needed to visit a department store, it was a longer walk but we just walked down Leavitt south a few blocks to Roscoe street and a block or 2 east to Hoffing's Department Store.
It was a neighborhood that we seldom left, except to visit the Lincoln-Belmont-Ashland shopping district where we could go to Wieboldt's, Goldblatt's, Kotz Shoes, Lake View Savings, Mages Sports, the Vim Sports Store, or the many others.
All basic needs were met in an area that was within walking distance and there was even the local newspaper, Leo Lerner's Lincoln-Belmont Booster which came either once or twice per week, memory is dim on this.
It may seem somewhat insular in retrospect but it was neighborhood and it was enough for us; it was our world. I wish that, maybe, we had been able to visit a place like Halsted and 63rd which others have mentioned in other threads but, in that time, it would have been like visiting the moon; it was an unknown territory.
Pleasant memories but, this is over half a century ago now; the world was a different place and these little stores now exist only in those pleasant memories. Still, I remember and it's a nice place to visit.
On the northeast corner was Joe Schneider's drug store and on the southwest corner was Chappie's tailor shop and a barber shop next door to the west.
If mom needed to visit a department store, it was a longer walk but we just walked down Leavitt south a few blocks to Roscoe street and a block or 2 east to Hoffing's Department Store.
It was a neighborhood that we seldom left, except to visit the Lincoln-Belmont-Ashland shopping district where we could go to Wieboldt's, Goldblatt's, Kotz Shoes, Lake View Savings, Mages Sports, the Vim Sports Store, or the many others.
All basic needs were met in an area that was within walking distance and there was even the local newspaper, Leo Lerner's Lincoln-Belmont Booster which came either once or twice per week, memory is dim on this.
It may seem somewhat insular in retrospect but it was neighborhood and it was enough for us; it was our world. I wish that, maybe, we had been able to visit a place like Halsted and 63rd which others have mentioned in other threads but, in that time, it would have been like visiting the moon; it was an unknown territory.
Pleasant memories but, this is over half a century ago now; the world was a different place and these little stores now exist only in those pleasant memories. Still, I remember and it's a nice place to visit.
Re: Bygone stores
Posted by:
jd
(---.hsd1.il.comcast.net)
Date: November 13, 2013 05:33PM
Hah! Just a few days ago my 60 year old friend was telling me that he was in High School before he even knew of the Loop. He thought 63rd & Halsted "was" downtown.
Re: Bygone stores
Posted by:
davey7
(---.dsl.chcgil.ameritech.net)
Date: November 14, 2013 05:05PM
It's funny, how Chicagoan's are "ignorant" of other areas of the city. One of my friend's grandmothers became a secret shopper for Goldblatt's (she was from Morgan Park/Beverly) and had to go to the Uptown store - she'd had no idea the city went that far north!
Re: Bygone stores
Posted by:
nordsider
(---.hsd1.il.comcast.net)
Date: November 14, 2013 06:50PM
Also, worth mentioning, the little shops for repairing shoes; and drug stores (the first in the city opened in 1832).
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2013 06:57PM by nordsider.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2013 06:57PM by nordsider.
Re: Bygone stores
Posted by:
Clutterqueen@icloud.com
(---.hsd1.il.comcast.net)
Date: April 11, 2014 01:40AM
Someone mentioned about a dimestore on E. 63rd St. That his father owned near 63rd & Blackstone. I remember a very small old fashioned dimestore named Nisners. It was even old fashioned in the late 1940s as it didn't have a soda fountain like Woolworths & Kresgees so I didn't go there very often. However it was close to a hyde Park High School so I did pass it on way to school. I remember one of these stores sold waffle ice cream sandwhichs. Those warm waffles were taken right off the waffle iron & a scope of vanilla ice cream placed on the waffle which was folded in half. They were delicious & surprisingly the ice cream didn't seem to melt. Dimestores were a big thing to the children in this neighborhood. We looked & dreamed of what we could buy as soon as we had an extra dime or quarter. Good times & memories.
