Christmas in Norwich....1949

Pappy

Pappy

Living the Dream
Location
Moved back to NY from Florida. 🤓 2025
We have drove up and down South Broad St. Several times and cannot find a place to park. The little town is bustling with shoppers and the store displays are beautiful with their Christmas decorations. Oh, there is a spot that just opened up in front of the old Eagle Hotel. My uncle pulls the car into the space and let's Grandma and me out. Uncle Don can't wait for us so we will take a taxi home.

Grandma wants to go to the Fair store and so I will stop at Pringles Cigar store and get some new comics. After meeting up again, we cross the street to the J. C. Penney catalog store. While she is at Penneys I go next door to Dean Phipps store to look at some fishing gear for next summer.

It is lunch time so we stop at the Norwich Grille for a sandwich and coke. Grandma still wants to go down the street and hit the stores in order. Sonne Bros., jewelers, W.t.Grant, dept. store, M. H. Fishman, dept. store, Wilcox and Littlefair, clothing, McNeils, jewelers, and Winans Men shop.

All this shopping takes most of the day, and we really can't carry one more thing. It was a very friendly time also as we would have to stop every few minutes to talk to one of Grams friends. Finally, we call Smith's Taxi service to take us back up the hill where we lived. The cab company had raised their rates again. 75 cents to take us the mile and a half up the hill.

Norwich was a beautiful town with it's pretty decorations and busy friendly people. People talked, people laughed and said "Merry Christmas" with meaning. People met at the town square on Christmas Eve to sing carols and praise Him. There was no shopping on Christmas and people stayed home to enjoy their families. It was a great time for a 12 year old boy to grow up and I miss the days when you didn't have to keep looking over your shoulder for danger.
 

That sounds ideal Pappy, gone are the days when it was a pleasure to stroll around the shops and stop for a chat, nowadays it's all about hustle & bustle keep your wallet safe and as you say look over your shoulder for danger.
What makes me sad is all these young parents putting all the gifts onto their one or two credit cards then paying more for them when the bill comes in due to the interest accrued as they still don't have the money to pay for all the goodies they bought
 
I too remember shopping Main Street. But many towns no longer have a center shopping. Everything has moved to the outskirts or suburbia to shopping malls and strip centers.
 

Sweet memories there Pappy! :sentimental: I used to shop with my mother, and we walked to the avenue with all the stores. It was definitely a simpler and friendlier time then, we didn't worry about anyone doing anything bad to us. Those were the days where some mothers used to leave their sleeping babies outside the store in their carriage, and not worry about any harm coming to them.
 
We moved to Memphis when I was six. My mother and I used to take the bus downtown and spend the day shopping in the old iconic department stores such as Lowensteins and Goldsmiths. We would have lunch at the Kress's lunch counter sometimes. All these stores are gone now, and I haven't been back to Memphis, since I left if 1964 and have no desire to return. Didn't like it then and certainly would not like it now.

http://historic-memphis.com/memphis-historic/departmentstores/departmentstores.html
 
drifter said:
I too remember shopping Main Street. But many towns no longer have a center shopping. Everything has moved to the outskirts or suburbia to shopping malls and strip centers.
Click to expand...

Yes folks, it is sad what happened to the "downtown" stores. When we are up north, we always visit the old, "new" town of Norwich. Nothing that I remember is there except the movie house. Most Main Street stores are empty. The ones that are left are pizza joints, Cafés and dentist offices. No dept. Stores of any kind. Just south of town, first to come was Walmart Super Center, Home Depot, Price Chopper grocery store and more, thus putting all of downtown out of business.

Even all the mom and pop stores, located on almost every street, couldn't compete with big box stores. Most of their business came on Sundays when everything else was closed. I try to remember that this is called progress, but to me it sucks.
 
drifter said:
I too remember shopping Main Street. But many towns no longer have a center shopping. Everything has moved to the outskirts or suburbia to shopping malls and strip centers.
Click to expand...
That's how it is around here, our little town might as well just roll up the sidewalks.

I never understand it, all the business move out of the already there downtown area and build carbon copy strip malls right next to the town, so essentially they are building a new little town right next to existing town that is now empty !?! What the hell kind of sense does that make.
 
Mum used to take me into the city (Sydney) each year to see the shop display windows but we didn't shop in most of them, couldn't afford to. All our Chrissy stuff was on lay-by from around June. We'd just look at the deccys, go and get a meat pie and a cuppa at Sargents.... no one ever again made pies like they did.... then catch the bus home.

Those shop displays would be pretty lame compared to today's efforts but they seemed wonderful to us back then.
 
Every small town around here (Carmel, Pacific Grove, Capitola, Los Gatos, Saratoga, Los Altos . . . et cetera) slowly but surely discovered their charm and turned it into a cash-cow tourist hype with . . . you got it . . . redevelopment and ruined that specialness they once enjoyed. What was it Chrissie Hynde said in My City Was Gone . . .

"I went back to Ohio but my city was gone
There was no train station; there was no downtown
South Howard had disappeared; all my favorite places
My city had been pulled down - reduced to parking spaces
Way to go, Ohio


I went back to Ohio but my family was gone
I stood on the back porch, there was nobody home
I was stunned and amazed
My childhood memories slowly swirled past like the wind through the trees
Way to go, Ohio


I went back to Ohio
But my pretty countryside had been paved down the middle by a government that had no pride
The farms of Ohio had been replaced by shopping malls
And muzak filled the air from Seneca to Cuyahoga Falls
Way to go, Ohio"
 
I watched all of west Texas dry up and blow away. Walmart would move into a small town and soon all the small mom & pop stores would start closing down. Walmart was selling merchandise cheaper than these little retail stores could buy it.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top