Author: Richard Duffy
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In Memory of Vida Damon
In Nina Winn’s diary entry for May 7, 1922, she wrote of visiting Mount Pleasant Cemetery and viewing the grave of her close friend since childhood, Vida Damon, where a marker had been installed recently. Nina wrote: “Saw Vida’s stone—very severe and simple & beautiful.” Vida Damon was about six months older than Nina Winn,…
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MAY 1, 1955: DIAL TELEPHONES DEBUT IN ARLINGTON
MAY 1, 1955: DIAL TELEPHONES DEBUT IN ARLINGTON If self-dial telephone service in Arlington were a person, it would just now be eligible for Medicare. Today is the 65th anniversary of dial technology coming to the homes and businesses of the town. This automation coincided with the loss of the readily identifiable ARlington 5 telephone…
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1964: Views of Arlington Center east of Mystic Street
It’s 1964. Comets could be seen streaking down Massachusetts Avenue. The Comet automobile, that is. Some likely purchased at Arlington’s Bonnell & Stokes Lincoln-Mercury-Comet dealership located between the Center and the Heights. But I digress . . . . This post continues one from last month, offering a unique tour of Arlington Center over…
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In memory of Nina Winn at Christmas
An excerpt from the diary of Miss Nina L. Winn, December 23, 1916: No flowers at [florist David] Duncan’s & Mrs. Duncan there because he is so poorly, [to] cemetery with my 2 wreaths – couldn’t afford more. Regular readers of Nina Winn’s diaries will be familiar with passages throughout the years, in which she…
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Park Pharmacy’s 1948 nifty new soda fountain
Interior photographs of Arlington businesses are quite rare, so when this one appeared recently on eBay it was purchased by a donor as a gift to the Society. This inside view of Park Pharmacy is published for the first time here. Park Pharmacy was located in Arlington Heights on the northeast corner of Park Avenue,…
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1964: Views of Arlington Center west of Mystic Street
A recent post to the Arlington List (a local “listserv” subscription mailing list) seeking to know the name of a long-gone sandwich shop where today’s Not Your Average Joe’s restaurant is located drew the correct response by me that it was Dewey’s Luncheonette. This was followed by an informative and entertaining series of posts…
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60 years ago: “Stop & Shop” building opens
In 1956, many housewives in Arlington were enjoying their first Thanksgiving shopping experience in the “ultra-modern” Publix supermarket that had opened to great fanfare just six months earlier at 905 Massachusetts Ave., home today to an expanded Stop & Shop store. With “extra wide aisles, cheerful coloring, ample check-out stations [eight of them], and no-tip…
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Kimball Farmer House
This fall the Kimball Farmer House at 1173 Massachusetts Avenue, recently renovated to create three affordable-housing units by the Housing Corporation of Arlington, welcomed all of its tenants to their new homes. This event provides a welcome opportunity to broadly share the history of the house and the Farmer family, featuring photographs from the Society’s…
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On the piazza . . .
Recent entries from Nina Winn’s 1916 diary include descriptions of her having lunch or reading “on the piazza.” Nowadays, to American-English speakers, the word “piazza” typically conjures thoughts of the open public spaces that are characteristic of cities in Italy. But in Nina Winn’s time, piazza was a popular term in the United States for…