Family Shopping for Database Creation

When I was little, in the 50's and 60's, as an only child, I went everywhere my parents went.  Often we would shop.  Since we lived and had family in both Philly and the 'burbs, we certainly went to malls, and the Bazaar of all Nations often.  Perhaps we had some of our own haunts as well.

One place that we would go to was Darby.  Darby was similar to all of the other little towns in Delco like Collingdale, Sharon Hill, and Aldan - all about 1 square mile, holding about 10,000 people.  "Darby, gateway to Philadelphia."   It was the only thing between us and town, and it gave us the best way to get there - the end of the number 11 trolley line.  Actually I never appreciated how much of a "transportation hub" Darby was.  You could also catch the number 13 trolley, which took a different route into Center City.  There were several buses that you could catch there, including the number 113 bus that you could take to 69th Street, and the 305 bus that went to the airport!  If you were willing to walk up to 4th Street in the adjacent town of Colwyn, you could catch the R2 train into Philadelphia. 

(Just in case you've never seen a trolley car)

Main Street ran from Downtown Darby into Philadelphia.  It becomes Woodland Avenue when it hits the city limit.  It's an interesting intersection because there used to be a Pep Boys there, a bit of park, an historic house where Washington slept, and the Fels Naptha Soap plant (where my father worked for several years.)  Trolley lines run down Main Street and Woodland Avenue, until they go underground as you get close to the city.  Crossing Main Street was something you did at your own risk because the street was done in Cobblestones - just waiting to help you twist an ankle.  I wanted to clarify something for anyone who remembers the Darby Cobblestones.  They were not Cobblestones.  Cobblestones are rectangular.  These were stone cubes, called Belgian Blocks.  A Belgian Block is essentially half of a Cobblestone, so its not a big deal, I'm just sharing with you what I learned.  When they were digging up all of Main Street I did make several late night trips until I found the road empty and accessible.  I did secure one fine Belgian Block for myself - just to remember.

Downtown Darby, Main Street, used to be filled with nice stores.  I'd even seen it referred to as "the shopping hub" of Delaware County.  I recall a supermarket, department store, drug store, men's clothing store (Bennett's Men and Boys Wear; I think they're still there), jewelry store, a great hardware store, a movie theatre, etc., although most of them are gone now.  Marvil Funeral Home is still there, which was and is a popular choice for our family funerals.  Actually, you could follow Main Street along the trolley tracks for quite a way towards Philadelphia and find other clothing stores, bars and pizza joints.  Usually we'd stay in "center city" Darby. 

The way we would shop as a family was to go down one side of the street and back on the other, from store to store, walking around in each one, and looking.  Sometimes we were on a mission, but usually we just enjoyed seeing what each store had.

Darby did have a history, although you wouldn't think it would be much if you saw it today.  W.C. Fields was born in Darby in 1880, at the Arlington Hotel.  If that doesn't impress you, John Bartram and his son William Bartram, both Early American botanists, were born in Darby.  I believe John Bartram's botanical garden still exists nearby, and is reported to be the oldest botanical garden in the US.  The Bartram house, technically in Collingdale, unfortunately no longer exists.  There are a number of buildings that are still standing dating back to the 1700's.  Darby was known to have connections to the Underground Railroad, providing protection to runaway slaves.  It's not surprising since John Blunston, an early Pennsylvania politician, and a group of Quakers established the Borough of Darby.  There is a story that, on one of President Washington's trips his cook Hercules disappeared "somewhere between Philadelphia and Chester."  Cook is French for Slave.  Apparently he found local help in Darby, and was never recaptured.  What were you thinking, George?

If we wanted to go a little farther, we'd get in our black '51 Chevrolet and drive over to 69th Street (apparently technically "Upper Darby", not Philadelphia).  It was an odd place for stores, since it was a very steep hill, but the streets were always full of shoppers on a Friday or Saturday Night.  I liked to go there at Christmas for lots of reasons.  They had several Santas (no waiting).  The best was at the top of the hill, in his own little glass house.  It was great for a few years but one year he was stinky and had little bits of carrot and potato in his beard (he'd just had a can of Campbell's vegetable beef soup, I'm sure).  I became disinterested in someone who wears his menu on his sleeve.  The other attraction was a perplexing shoe that was/seemed 3 stories tall.  It was somehow vaguely related to "there was an old woman who lived in a shoe . . ." which is apparently somehow vaguely related to Christmas.  I didn't need to know the details.  Kids would climb up to the top, and ride down a very long sliding board inside, and out the toe, where your parents would be waiting for you.  As long as you didn't think about what you were doing, it was great fun.

These were different times, and I remember that my favorite pastime, when we went to 69th Street "shopping", was to find money.  It seems that people were always dropping change or paper money or even wallets on the floor, often to get kicked under a display counter.  There are advantages to being short - it's easy to spot these things, which I often did.  If it was a wallet, my father would help me track down the person, and give them a call.  Usually I got some kind of "reward", so that was good.

It would be a good evening's work to walk down the hill on one side of 69th Street and up the other side, going through most of the stores.  One of the first was a very nice 5 and 10, and one of the last was a very nice drugstore - both had counters where you could eat, and we'd often stop for a bowl of ice cream at the drugstore to end our productive evening of not buying anything.  I believe they had most of the big stores - Gimble's and Lit Brothers, and a Woolsworth's 5 and 10.

69th Street was loaded with great places.  The Tower Theatre was one of several movie houses there at the time.  The Tower is even more important as a concert venue now.  69th Street had a great transportation hub (The Terminal), much bigger than Darby's, where you could get trains, buses, and take the El into town.  Unlike Darby, the 69th Street Terminal had places where you could eat!  They had a movie theatre, The Terminal Theatre, and there was at least one other movie theatre, the 69th Street Theatre, where I saw many double features on Saturday afternoons - back when special effects were amazing (e.g., Jason and the Argonauts, in claymation!).

Our third shopping haunt was 52nd Street in Philadelphia, which had several blocks of stores, and was for a while "the heart of West Philadelphia, providing at one time the largest retail shopping district in that part of the city."  There were some great clothing and furniture stores that I remember.  One reason why we went to 52nd Street was because Shapiro's Shoes was there.  When I was a little kid, I would have awful leg pains after being out running all day.  A doctor determined that I had flat feet and would need to wear "orthopedic shoes".  Welcome to hell.  Fortunately, there was Shapiro's (215 S. 52nd Street), who used to take care of footwear for teams like the Phillies.  They were really great - they analyzed my flat feet, built arch supports just for me, and would glue them into normal shoes (my preference was Hush Puppies).  We had such a long-standing relationship they even wrote a letter for me, when I was panicking over the possibility of being drafted and going to Viet Nam, explaining how my flat feet meant that I could never serve.  Nobody looked twice at their letter, but it was nice of them to provide it to me. 

The other attraction at Shapiro's was a machine that you would stick your feet into, then you could look through the top and see how your new shoes fit, or you could look at the bones in your feet.  You may have heard of these - they were called a Podoscope or Shoe-Fitting Fluoroscope.  Apparently they made a lot of these "stand alone" X-Ray machines and sold them to shoe stores through the 1950's.  Here are a few pictures of typical ones. 

 You put your feet in the bottom, where there was apparently a 50 kV X-Ray tube, and you'd look at your feet, exposing yourself to X-rays.  It usually ran for 20-30 seconds, but of course, the kids who were in the store got in line over and over and (zap!) over. The X-rays hit a fluorescent screen and you could see the image.  Of course, the whole idea was insane.  Your feet were exposed to very high doses of radiation, as was your "pelvis", and the shielding inside was so poor that even 5 feet away, the radiation was easily measurable.  (Explains a lot, doesn't it?)

One other shopping memory for me that I need to mention is Hess's in Allentown.  I think when I was in college I may have finally gotten to this Department store, but for me it was always a high priority to watch the TV show they would put on every Christmas season.  All of us kids who watched knew exactly what toys were hot that year and the place was really black-and-white beautiful, far as I could tell.  Wee Willie Webber was the moderator for their Christmas TV show (Hess's Holiday Toy Show), making all kids within range of their radio waves drool over all the animated toys that they had to sell in their 4th Floor toy department.  Apparently they were also known for carrying the latest in European fashion apparel.  At Christmas time you could go there to see Pip the Mouse in a puppet show.  They liked to talk about their "world famous" restaurant, The Patio, which I think was in their basement!  Everyone raved about their strawberry pie. 

So, as you understand now, we shopped a lot.  Since I didn't know the word database back then, I couldn't have defined what we were apparently doing; perhaps "cataloging" is a good word.  But we knew who had what!  If my mother hinted that she'd like one of those black cat kitchen clocks with the moving tail for Christmas, my father and I immediately could access our data banks and nod to each other knowingly.  Woolworth's at 69th street had them - along the back of the store.  We were on it!  We knew where to get just about anything we'd need, and could probably access our information faster than your iPhone!  It was an interesting exercise - shopping as surveying - and a great family activity.

© 2012 John Allison