Every Westporter has a different image — or memory — of Main Street.
This one — from the mid 1960s, posted on Facebook by Christopher Maroc (though he did not credit photographer Steve Baldwin) — shows downtown just before a couple of big changes.
(Photo/Steve Baldwin)
Art’s Luncheonette would soon give way to Westport Pizzeria.
The Kodak store was replaced shortly after by Swezey’s Jewelers.
Oscar’s Food Shop would relocate a few yards north, and become Oscar’s Deli.
And the Furniture Clearance Center changed its name, then burned to the ground a decade later. It was replaced by a short-lived vertical mall, and is now The Gap.
NOTE: The photo was taken from the Mobil Station. We know it now as Vineyard Vines.
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The cars indicate this photo was taken in the early 1960’s. As I recall, the Furniture Clearing House was the original Westport Hardware store in the early 1950’s. The original Bill’s Smoke Shop stand would have been just to the right of the person taking the photo.
Growing up back then The Little Shop was one of my dad’s “go-to” places to shop for gifts for my mother. I remember him taking my sister and I along to help pick out something for her birthday, Christmas, or Mother’s Day on more than one occasion. As a young guy looking at women’s clothing was pretty boring.
Yes, the Westport Hardware store was in the spot where the Furniture Clearance House appears in this picture. Sally White, of brilliant record store fame, had a little area on the second floor of that hardware store. I remember buying 45s from her, this was before she was over at Kleins and long before she had her own wonderful store. I wonder if there are a few people out there who remember a store from way back, called The Melody House. It was on the same side of the street as Achorns and Gristedes. My dad took me there a few times, you could actually listen to records you might buy in little booths, kind of like telephone booths. As a child I was beyond impressed. And Sally worked there, too. She is missed.
Thank you,Jane Noodli
Thank you,Jane Noodle for all this about Sally White,’The Melody House’, I always wondered where this was..(Sally never really mentioned it, all the wonderful conversations she then with me, thru the years..) Still miss her Beautiful Laugh!!! 🙂
(p.s. Scent my apologies : I meant to write ‘Jane Nordli’)
WOW!!! Art’s Luncheonette! What a memory blast from the past. I completely forgot about Art’s. My mother loved that place!
The photographer is Steve Baldwin. This photo along with other wonderful pics of his were featured in Friday Flashbacks some years back.
I think gas at that Mobil gas station was 32 cents a gallon back then.
I’m pretty sure Swezey’s jewelry store was further up the street from the Furniture Clearance Center, not where Oscar’s and Kodak were. I used to work on the second floor above Oscar’s at William Hill Field Advertising in the early seventies.
I also remember the Melody House on that side of Main Street where Sally White worked before Kleins. Ibought countless 45 records there plus an Everly Brothers album. Also on that side of Main Street was Gristedes Market, Achorns Pharmacy and on the corner of Main and Avery Place was the Dress Box
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Achorn’s, of course, where I got a summer job in the late 60’s that had me both delivering prescriptions (in a Plymouth Valiant two-door sedan with a working AM radio) and stacking cartons of cigarettes in the storeroom. Good thing I stayed in school: neither of these jobs are neccesssary today.