When I was a little kid, back in the late 30s and early 40s in Chicago, my parents would take me downtown to the Loop shopping district and we'd look at all the extra-carefully elaborately decorated fascinating store windows. A high point in my Christmas season!
Now, in these days of shopping malls and the like, I wonder if any stores in any cities still do this? And if they do, if families still go to see them? There is nothing like this in my small city.
We used to do the same thing in the 50's Always looked forward to it. Sure was cold and windy in Chicago though. Memories!!!!!
Just do a Google Image search for 2015 Holiday Windows and browse to your heart's content.
For me, it was the annual trip to Radio City Music Hall for the Christmas Spectacular featuring The Rockettes.
Man, there were a lot of legs!
They sure do in Manhattan. Especially the department stores.
Here's an article:
This lists the major ones:
Don.
Nothing in our town, but few retailers left.
When I lived in a middle class section of Philadelphia, there were a couple of main streets were lined with retailers. They would decorate for Halloween, Christmas and major holidays. That stopped in the late
60's or so when the malls became popular..
Yup, though I remember almost succumbing to exposure waiting in line to get in one year.
"Wintertime in New York town The wind blowing snow around Walk around with nowhere to go Somebody could freeze right to the bone I froze right to the bone New York Times said it was the coldest winter in seventeen years I didn?t feel so cold then"
'Talkin' New York' Bob Dylan
The best part was the street vendors with the roasted chestnuts.
They ain't no department stores in Manhattan (Montana)
Has anyone on here actually ever eaten roasted chestnuts? I never have! Never seen them in the stores.
And the hands that didn't look like they'd seen water -- OR SOAP -- in millennia!
Yes.
Me neither, but I don't look much.
Yes. Hundreds of times.
AFAIK they don't sell *roasted* chestnuts in the stores. You buy raw chestnuts and roast them yourself.
We'll be doing that at Grandma's house next week.
Certainly. The street vendors used 55 gallon drums, would build a fire in it, and roast them. I forget how much they were but it wasn't too much and you'd get a brown paper bag fun of chestnuts.
all I've ever seen in the stores are raw chestnuts. I often get them but I boil them rather than roast them. I think even if you roast them you parboil them first. Cut an X in them before boiling so you can peel them.
The quality in the stores has been variable. Sometimes they will have green mold when you peel them but you can't tell looking at them in the shell.
In that era if somebody put on little plastic gloves to handle your food you'd think they were some sort of nut. Maybe I've been lucky but I've eaten street food in Mexico, including raw clam cocktails, without bad effects.
A couple of times I've eaten meals at restaurants that have had purgative effects within the hour. That really made me wonder about what they fed me.
I've always used the boiling method at home and skipped the roasting part.
I thought Mexico was pretty near purgatory?
I couldn't possibly come close to estimating the hundreds upon hundreds of dirty water dogs I ate while growing up in NYC.
With mustard and that fabulous red onion sauce, of course.
What do you mean, "in THAT era" (emphasis mine)? Their hands *still* haven't seen any water!! :>
[their (same guys! :> ) pretzels and mustard are pretty good, too!]Thankfully, only once had (suspected) food poisoning -- from a "frozen food" bought in bulk (I suspect somewhere along the line they let it thaw and refreeze).
Usually they are good about keeping the water hot enough to kill the germs. Anyone who lived there a while understand a street hot dog is good food but New York is a great place for all sorts of "fast" food that is not anything like that crap we call "fast food". You can grab a slice of real pizza on the go and there is a deli on every block with all sorts of sandwiches they bang out in a minute.
I keep telling you. stop picking on the the fastest growing LDS segment. I particularly like the second link. Four men in white shirts and ties quadruple teaming a ten year old Meskin.
During my very educational career in trucking I delivered a load of dry beans to a well known manufacturer of canned chili in Oregon. As they were unloading the truck I got the sad story from the driver of the truck in the bay next to mine. It was a reefer and he'd been hauling a load of frozen chicken. The reefer had broken down and by the time it was fixed the chickens well well on the way to being defrosted and the original consignee refused the load. Making the best of a bad deal he sold the load to the chili plant for pennies on the dollar.
Never did buy that brand again...
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