You 're An Old Detroiter If.......

Last edited by on Thu Dec 20, 2007 9:51 am; edited 7 times in total

You 're An Old Detroiter If.......

Forgive me, but You're an Old Detroiter if:

You took a "moonlight cruise" to Bob-lo with Captain Bob-lo or went to Edgewater amusement Park.
You remember the big stove that was on Jefferson Ave. at the entrance to Belle Isle.
You shopped at Hughes and Hatcher, B. Siegel, Peck and Peck, Himelhoch's, Robert Halls, Crowley's, Shoppers Fair, EJ Korvettes or Federals.
You rode the elevator at J. L. Hudson, which was "run" by an elevator operator with her white gloves on.
You remember a Winkleman's and Sanders store in your neighborhood.
You remember the "Big Snow", Buffalo Bob, Howdy Doody, Clarabell, PhineasT. Bluster, and Princess Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring.
You remember Twin Pines Dairy delivered milk and juice to the chute on the side of your house and Milky the Clown performed magic with the magic Words, "Twin Pines".
You remember the Good Humor man in a white uniform, ringing the bells and driving down your street.
You remember the Olympia Stadium.
You remember when Vernor's was made on Woodward Ave. and a bearded troll was on the bottle.
Your mom got groceries at Great Scott, Food Fair, Wrigley's, Pack and Save, Farmer Jack or Chatham.
Your mom saved Holden Red Stamps, S&H Green Stamps, or Gold Bell Gift Stamps and you licked the stamps and put them in those little books.
Kresge's and Woolworth's were "DIME STORES".
You had an Uncle in the furniture business (Joshua Doore).
You know who Bill Kennedy is.
You remember this telephone number: Tyler 8-7100 (Belvedere Construction) and the slogan "We do good work".
Your phone number may have started with Tyler, Vermont, Broadway,Kenwood,Diamond, Webster, Dunkirk, Warwick, Vinwood, Townsend, University, Garden or Trinity.
You saw the Detroit Lions play football in Tiger Stadium.
You remember Black Bart and the Faygo pop song. Or how about "Which way did they go? Which way did he go? He went for Faygo, old fashion root beer".
You watched Rita Bell's Prize Movie in the mornings.
You know who Sonny Elliot is. Do you remember Sonny using chalk on a map of Michigan?
You remember Jack LeGoff and Van Patrick.
You remember Milky the Clown, Soupy Sales, Johnny Ginger, Poopdeck Paul and Captain Jolly, Fred Wolf from the whacky wiggloo.
You visited the Wonder Bread Bakery and got to take home a mini loaf of bread.
Your address had a two-digit "zone" before there were zip codes. Detroit19, Michigan.
You remember "Get on the right track at 9 Mile and Mack, to get the best deal in town. Roy O'Brian...it's the best deal in town".
Your house had a laundry chute and a milk chute and a coal chute.
You remember going to Detroit Edison with your mom to exchange burned out light bulbs for new ones.
Seeing the Tigers play at Tiger Stadium
"The Ghoul" and his Saturday Night Horror Movie
Sir Graves Ghastly horror movies from the late 1960s to early 1980s.
Keener 13 radio and Keener customs, special recordings of hit records that mentioned WKNR radio! Some of the Keener customs include: Sooner or Later - Grass Roots, Rock and Roll - Mitch Ryder, We Gotta Go (Scott Regen Show) - Shy Guys, Uptight - Stevie Wonder, Scotts On Swingers - Edwin Starr.
"Seal of Good Practice", with it's olive branch frame surrounding a big TV screen, on TV, from 1952 to early 1970s.
Bob Allison and "Bowling for Dollars"
George Pierrot in "George Pierrot Presents" travel show
Walled Lake Amusement Park
Drive-In Theatres everywhere
Beverly Payne (TV2 News)
MC5
Romper Room TV show
At the Zoo (with Sonny Eliot)
Dialing for Dollars (Larry Adderley)
Towne Club pop stores where you selected your own 24 bottles of pop.
Afternoons at Detroit Race Course (DRC) on Middlebelt in Livonia
Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! At Detroit Dragway at Sibley and Dix commercials.

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 3:53 am

Why did phone numbers used to have names? Like Woodward 5-7896

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 3:55 am

I remember Chatham and Great Scott! We also had A&P and Farmer Jack! I miss those stores! I hate Kroger and Meijer!

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 3:57 am

Meijer store is so dirty! Restrooms are a mess! Of course the hillbillies like it that way!

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 3:57 am

Don't forget "The Ghoul" and his Saturday Night Horror Movie!!

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 4:03 am

Or Drive In Movies! Used to have a bunch of them in the 70s and 80s! Ford Wyoming in Dearborn is the only one left

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 4:04 am

Downriver had five: The Fort George, Michigan, Ecorse. Jolly Roger and Holiday

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 4:05 am

When I was little, my parents always took me, my older sister and my cousins to those theatres

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 2:47 pm

I remember SOME of those things.....so I guess I'm not THAT old, LOL.

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 2:51 pm

You can add seeing the Tigers play at Tiger Stadium to that list!

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 2:51 pm

I MISS TIGER STADIUM!

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 3:50 pm

We used to go to the Drive-In movies to "make out"!!

I don't think I ever saw a movie all the way through at one of those!!

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 3:51 pm

Remember Bob Allison and "Bowling for Dollars"?

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 3:51 pm

I actually sang on the Boblo Boat a few times!!

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 5:04 pm

I miss Boblo too

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 5:05 pm

Cedar Point is too scary for me!! I can remember when Demon Drop and Gemini were the rides! Those are tame compared to their new coasters

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 5:51 pm

Keep it up, I will add to the list as we remember old Detroit memories! You 're An Old Detroiter If....... 23_30_109

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 5:57 pm

My mom used to work at Great Scott... whistle

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 6:42 pm

My mom used to SHOP at Great Scott... whistle

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 7:46 pm

Great Scott, we all went to Great Scott!

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 7:47 pm

My mom and dad shopped there! I remember bugging them for 25 cents so I could get one of those plastic mini football helmets out of the gum machine

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 7:48 pm

I was like 5 or 6 years old

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 7:48 pm

I don't think they even have those mini helmets anymore

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 8:00 pm

I remember all the stores had those machines with the mini football helmets.

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 9:47 pm

gs78 wrote:: Why did phone numbers used to have names? Like Woodward 5-7896

To help you remember them. The Woodward area of town began with WOodward or W=9 O=6 so the above number was 965-7896

In Garden City ours was Garfield GA1-____ or 421-

The folllowing was found concerning Bell Telephone:

they dropped the exchange names and went to all numbers, but there was a time when you dialed just 6 numbers instead of 7, e.g., TUxedo 3321 vs. TUxedo4-3321. It was mostly during the late 1930s and 1940s that this method existed. Complicating it even more was that different parts of the city used 6 and 7 digit phone numbers at the same time, even within the same central office area. As each phone central office (exchange) got new switching equipment, the changeover to the 7-digit phone numbers would be made. Nailing down when the PLaza exchange made the changeover would be great. (BTW, the Plaza name still exists for the central office handling that area; it's on Van Dyke just north of Gratiot.)

The 1960's were explosive years for the Bell System -- as they were for the rest of the country as well. Changes, great and small, came and seem to have come to stay in the life-style of much of the American population. The Bell System was right there when it started and, if any single happening can be Picked as the opening shot, the Bell System has a pretty good claim on it.

It was like this: For some years Bell Labs technologists had been growing increasingly concerned about the limitations of the national numbering plan which had been adopted
earlier to make Direct Distance Dialing possible. In brief, the numbering plan divided the United States and Canada into areas, each area equipped with a different three-digit number which could be recognized by automatic switching equipment because the second digit was either a one or a zero.

When the numbering plan was first devised it appeared that telephone numbers would go on forever, without any possible shortage developing. But the American and Canadian populations began growing at such a rate that the numbers would run out unless something was done. Since the area codes must have either a one or a zero in the middle, they could not be added to without great expense in changing the recognizing equipment. It looked as if something should be done about individual telephone numbers.

Further, others at Bell Labs had found that push-button telephones, when introduced (as, of course, they were very soon, as the Touch-Tone( telephone) would be much easier to use if the numbers could appear all alone on the buttons without being confused by the addition of letters.

And still other Labs futurists, looking far ahead, could see problems resulting from international direct distance dialing because of differences in alphabets, dial arrangements and letter shapes.

The single answer to all three of these problems, it turned out, was simple: do away with all telephone number prefix names and substitute their number equivalents. This would allow more prefixes (no reasonable English words could be found starting with PW, XS, RW, YR, JX and a few others), would clear up the design of push-buttons and would allow the international agreement on Arabic numerals to take care of the customer
training necessary for international customer direct dialing.

The solution was announced quietly at first in small communities, where, by and large, it was met with indifference. This calmed whatever public relations misgivings existed, and the new plan, dubbed All Number Calling (ANC), was widely announced.

A group of very vocal people hated it. They felt, they said, that they and everyone else were being reduced to numbers, that computers were dehumanizing American life, that their heritage was being destroyed and that the Bell System was behind the whole plot. They said a great deal more than that and added, moreover, that psychological tests had proved their point. They got large headlines.

The Bell System answered. It may have been a mistake, but the developers at Bell Labs, still quoting their original findings and needs, tested some more and found that ANC numbers were easier to remember, more distinctive and better than the old kind.

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 11:09 pm

gs78 wrote:: My mom and dad shopped there! I remember bugging them for 25 cents so I could get one of those plastic mini football helmets out of the gum machine

I have a set of those. They're really old!!

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 11:14 pm

1961 White Pages. Looking at the introductory pages, Milkem found this map and table which explains how to calculate the charges for calls to the suburbs which more than local but not long distance. Milkem didn't include the entire table, just the margins which show the Detroit and suburban telephone exchanges. Milkem was surprised to see that several Detroit exchanges still used only 6-digit phone numbers; the exchanges with 7-digit phone numbers are marked with an asterisk. The PLaza exchange (75-) seems to have disappeared. The current Plaza office handles 92X-XXXX numbers (which would translate to WA) so perhaps we could place 1960 as an upper limit to the age of the Federal Mogul business card.

You 're An Old Detroiter If....... 63212

You 're An Old Detroiter If....... 63212

The suburbs were a mix of 6- and 7-digit numbers:

You 're An Old Detroiter If....... 63213

You 're An Old Detroiter If....... 63214

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 11:39 pm

Girl, you got some FREE time, don't you?

Guest

I know I do. I need to get a hobby.

Subject: Re: You 're An Old Detroiter If....... Sat Nov 24, 2007 11:42 pm

I think that applies to ALL of us here!! lol

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