Take a Christmas Eve walk thru Main Street in 1945
The 100 block of South Main Street, looking south. Photo courtesy of UHV/VC Regional History Center
From the Victoria Advocate: It’s late afternoon Monday, Dec. 24, 1945. We’re standing at the southeast corner of Main and Constitution streets in Victoria. We’re about to take a one-block walk from Constitution to Santa Rosa.
A Nicetown factory goes to auction
The 26-acre Budd Co.site has drawn graffiti artists. Kimberly Paynter/ WHYY
From Plan Philly: When O’Dell Brown first moved to Nicetown, 42-years ago, there was no escaping the Budd Manufacturing Company. The car, airplane, and rail parts factory looms just across the street from Brown’s two-story rowhome, its campus larger than the entire town of Millbourne, PA.
Built over decades to fabricate massive goods, the booming assembly line once echoed all day and all night, stamping out airplane bodies or rail cars for the city’s Market Frankford Line.
Burned-out neon letters in the Cudahy Arby’s sign, ranked
From the Milwaukee Record: “During daylight hours, the big retro hat is a work of art. By night, however, it’s showing a little age. We have complete confidence that a reliable biz like this one will get their neon back to full strength, but, ahead of those fixes, we thought it might be helpful to determine which burned-out neon letters are most crucial to delivering the giant hat-sign’s meaty message. With that in mind, here are the 15 burned-out neon letters in the Cudahy Arby’s sign, ranked in order of importance.”
Tracking down the origin of the Reuben in Omaha
A Blackstone Reuben sandwich is served in the Crescent Moon Tavern, Omaha, Nebraska. Steve Stephens
For the Salina Journal: The only thing dedicated SCA fans love more than a historic commercial building or site, is one that connects with food! Read on to see hear one mans journey through Omaha, Nebraska to find the story behind the invention of the Reuben sandwich (and sit down with a really great one) to satisfy his history hunger. On the way he finds some additional historic treasures.
Hotel Bethlehem is bringing back an old Christmas tradition
A part of Hotel Bethlehem’s iconic, neon rooftop-sign will go dark from Christmas Eve until sunrise the day after Christmas as a celebration of the city.
From lehighvalleylive.com: A part of Hotel Bethlehem’s iconic, neon rooftop-sign will go dark from Christmas Eve until sunrise the day after Christmas as a celebration of the city. A former hotel employee wrote a letter to hotel Managing Partner Bruce Haines letting him know about the former practice back when Bethlehem Steel Corp. owned the hotel in the 1970s and 1980s.