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January 1941. "Main street in the steel town of Midland, Pennsylvania." Acetate negative by Jack Delano for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
This photo was taken just a few miles from where I live. My grandfathers and uncles all worked at Crucible Steel in Midland, PA.
Here are a couple of photos of my great-grandfather at work as a roller at Crucible.
I remember, as a kid on long family vacation drives from Ohio to visit my grandparents in Oklahoma and Arizona in the '70s, seeing lots of places on the side of the road named EAT. I always thought that was the funniest name for a restaurant, and there were so many of them! Now I can't remember the last time I saw one, though I imagine there must be a few surviving still.
Looks like a delivery driver arrived early and plopped some Big Things in the doorway. Flat cap man seems concerned.
It looks like the ribs building is currently vacant and ready to lease to an entrepreneur who can fire up the rib smoker. Also, it unfortunately looks like many of the buildings along Midland Avenue fell victim to the ubiquitous 1970's-era "beautification."
That restaurant convention was in a Gahan Wilson cartoon, a diner in the desert with a huge EAT sign and a horrible giant monster approaching; "I hope he can't read," says one diner to another.
Let’s hear what greens those are in the peach basket out in the freezing weather. Got fresh ribs at a military commissary back in 1969 for 17 cents a pound and we still mention it when we purchase a rack today.
"Smoked Ribs 12½¢"
At first glance I thought the half-cent pricing was odd. But then I realized that pennies were valuable enough to make a half-cent equivalent to 50 cents per pound for us.
Nothing says GANGSTER CHIC like pinstripes!
Wow! Ribs 12½ cents a pound! Smoked, yet!
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