General Discussion Forgotten Chicago Forum
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ice blocks
Posted by:
bob427
(---.hfc.comcastbusiness.net)
Date: October 15, 2014 12:31PM
i remember in the 60s before our picknik my dad would take us on Western ave in a old factory areal. He would pull up to a dock. Nobody was there but a coin machine that took 75 cents/ When my dad put the money in , then you herd a bang and out of the shoot cam a solid block of ice about 3x2...any one remember this?
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Re: ice blocks
Posted by:
Richard Stachowski
(---.hsd1.il.comcast.net)
Date: October 15, 2014 01:30PM
[b]Bac in the 40's we went to 49th & racine next to the tracks and got our block of ice to for our ice box zt home. no refridger at that time.[/b]
Re: ice blocks
Posted by:
Dunning1
(216.81.94.---)
Date: October 15, 2014 04:38PM
Jefferson Ice Company! My dad would buy a watermelon, and then stop over at Jefferson Ice Company, on Natchez just south of Grand Avenue, south of the brickyard, and buy one or two blocks of ice. He would then break them up in a cooler, and place the ice around his watermelon. Ice cubes would not work for him, he had to get the block and break it up. I remember getting the small chips of ice as a treat. They also had a vending machine where you input your coins and the block would shoot down a chute to you.
Re: ice blocks
Posted by:
ambrosemario
(---.hsd1.in.comcast.net)
Date: October 15, 2014 06:25PM
Lang and Jefferson are two local companies with a long history in the coal & ice business. I know that Lang still makes ice in its Southside location, but I'm not sure where Jefferson is located. And I believe there still are locations where you can buy block ice vending machine style. I know that Town Liquors at 100th & Western sold both blocks and cubes that way, although I don't know if their equipment is still operable. Now days you can buy ice (cubes, anyway) just about everywhere, so maintaining a large refrigerated vending machine may no longer make economic sense.
Re: ice blocks
Posted by:
Dunning1
(---.dhs.gov)
Date: October 15, 2014 06:37PM
It appears that Jefferson Ice has been sold, and now its called Home City Ice Company, and its still located at 2248 N. Natchez Avenue, just west of Narragansett Avenue and south of Grand Avenue. I admittedly haven't been there in years, but YELP reviews as recent as 2010 talk about the ice vending machines, so I assume they're still going.
Re: ice blocks
Posted by:
rjmachon
(---.hsd1.il.comcast.net)
Date: October 19, 2014 01:04PM
They were still there in August of 2013 on Natchez. There was a Jefferson Ice building and vending machines around 1362 East Oakton Ave. Des Plaines, until a few years back.
Re: ice blocks
Posted by:
Jeff_Weiner
(---.sub-70-194-107.myvzw.com)
Date: October 19, 2014 03:08PM
Jefferson used to also provide dry ice (I assume Home may still). We purchased a block of that to rpop up an ailing refrigerator until the new one was delivered. Knocked off a small piece to go in the freezer, and the rest went in the main compartment.
