Guess Who Turned 100?

Grand Central Station in New York City, that's who!  On February 1.

Visit their 100th birthday website here:

http://www.grandcentralterminal.com/centennial/learn.cfm

Ice Harvesting

 

It's been freezing here lately, so I thought it would be appropriate to do a post relating to ice!  This card shows ice harvesting on the Kennebec River, in Maine. 

 

It's always great to add a little background information to my posts, but in this case no one has done it better than Steve Round, a 1st grade teacher in Providence, Rhode Island.  Visit his class website for lots more information.  For an excellent treatise on ice harvesting from the 1918 Book Of Knowledge, follow this link as well.  It's a great article, with lots of character and writing style from the same era as the postcard pictured above.

The Hunger Games

 

This is a great "rally" card, one of several hundred that churches could send to Sunday School students if they didn't show up. I have a lot of them in my collection, and a common thread is to induce guilt in the recipient for not doing their part.  The card above is typical.  With the recent popularity of the "Hunger Games" books and movie, however, this one is also a little creepy if you think about it for too long!

 

Here's an earlier post on the same topic:

http://blogaboutpostcards.blogspot.com/2012/08/dogs-and-bees-at-church.html

 

See you Sunday, if you know what's good for you!

 

One Hour Martinizing

OK, we know it has to do with dry-cleaning, but what IS "Martinizing?" Was there a Martin involved?  Why, yes there was...

 

From the official website:  Martinizing Dry Cleaning was founded in 1949 by a New York chemist named Henry Martin. Mr. Martin revolutionized the dry cleaning industry by offering ‘on-site’ cleaning at retail locations.  He did this by using a less flammable solvent to clean clothes. At the time, dry cleaning was done with highly flammable solvents, which made it necessary for the plants were located remotely from the storefronts for safety reasons. A customer would typically drop off their cleaning in town.  The garments would then travel to a remote production facility to be cleaned and pressed and would finally return to the store several days later for pick-up. With the use of the new solvent discovered by Mr. Martin, dry cleaning plants could now be located much more conveniently and the process could be carried out in a timely manner.

 

 

In the US, Martinizing franchaise locations have fallen from 526 in 2001 to 229 in 2012, clearly in a steady decline.  In general, 20% of U.S. dry cleaning businesses have closed in the past decade, so Martinizing is falling at a faster rate.

However, it may always, live on, in Bill Griffith's Zippy Comic Strips. 


 

Go here for the full strip: http://zippythepinhead.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=7-Apr-08&Category_Code=a2008&Product_Count=5

Where to Stay

 

 

Where to stay?  Why at the Greenbrier Motel of course.  The back says: "The newest and most ultra modern.  50 units offering the traveler comfort in Air Conditioning.  Thermo Controlled Heating.  Room TV and Heated Swimming Pool.  Johnson Restaurant Adjoining.  Our Bridal Suite with circular bed, the talk of the South land."  Female model on the circular bed not included.

 

Best suited for folks traveling through Lumberton, North Carolina, where this motel is located!

To Alice From Gladys

 

This real photo postcard is inscribed "A Merry Christmas to Alice from Gladys.  Lakeside, ME, 1905"

 

Merry Christmas, Gladys, from the Blog about the Postcards and all its followers!

 

 



Holiday Inn

 

Here's a curious instance of artistic license on a Holiday Inn postcard.  At all the Holiday Inns I ever saw, the "Great Sign" was always out in front of the motel, facing the street, with the arrow welcoming travelers into the parking lot.   That was part of their strong branding and what made them the "World's Innkeeper" for years and years.  I know, as I worked as a porter and desk clerk at a Holiday Inn  (Holidex #056A) for about 7 years, in the late 70's.

 

Now, this illustration has all the pieces in the wrong places.  If the Great Sign is in the right place, then the swimming pool is either across the street or beside the hotel, and that would be wrong, because all the pools were generally in the center of the hotels, in courtyards facing away from the street.  So, the illustration is really a fiction.  The most curious part is that if the illustrator really could arrange his composition any way he wanted, why did he give prominence to a bald overweight guy in the foreground instead of someone more attractive?  What focus group did that pass?