Grass Valley, CA.
Provincetown, MA.
Cheyenne, WY.
Santa Fe, NM.
Reading, PA.
Charleston, SC.
Frederick, MD.
Seattle, WA.
Cleveland, OH.
Vintage Snapshots: Cities And Towns Across America In The ’50s-’60s
– Posted on June 6, 2024
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Curbside Classics Archives
Two consecutive posts with 1960’s Renaults (the Caravelle in the last Cleveland pic). Even before I saw the caption, I knew the first picture was Grass Valley, Auburn, or Nevada City. Those Sierra foothills towns haven’t changed much except for the cars.
You’re not kidding! I think the major visual change over the past half-century has been utility undergrounding:
The place with the HOTEL sign in the vintage shot looks to be the Holbrooke — the oldest continuously operating hotel in California. Mark Twain supposedly stayed there once.
Charleston has not changed at all either, thank goodness
The demographic has. Locals are being driven out. The landscape hasn’t, though. I have the same picture taken outside of the Blind Tiger, on Broas (facing the exchange), one in 2010 and one in 2017, and the only difference is the trees are taller.
dman, isn’t the Renault Caravelle the coupe, and the Florida the convertible? If so, in the last photo that’s a Florida cvt. with its top up. Just an FYI.
In the US it was always the Caravelle, hardtop or convertible. In other countries it was originally the Floride (not Florida) but became the Caravelle worldwide at some point.
The Lobster Pot is still in Provincetown also known as P-town is a Gay mecca in the summer located at the end of Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
Sure is. Provincetown is of course more gentrified.
P-Town has been the gay center of the Cape as long as I can remember, I foolishly took my then young wife to see it in ?1976?) and she was horrified, didn’t want to look a the boats or the dunes etc…..
Too bad her mind was so completely closed .
-Nate
The Hotel Roosevelt has survived but at some point the Hotel portion of the sign was removed. While the Roosevelt sign still remains it now is on a first name basis, The Theodore.
Fredrick MD looks like a 1963 Chevy Wagon coming down the street. Looks to be an upper level trim and maybe the same color scheme as my family had blue with a white top.
Thanks for dating that for me. I was wondering if it was 1963. Assuming so, I was actually living there at the time. We lived in Frederick for about a year mostly in 1963. Just long enough for my sister to be born there, then we split for Baltimore.
I guess I can’t see my dad…as he would have been driving a mid-50s Plymouth sedan at that time.
“Frederick”, now is just an “endless sprawl”.
I have a feeling that that street in Sante Fe has a lot more commercial signs now for galleries, jewelry shops, etc. Of all the communities pictured in this post I have to think that the real estate values in Sante Fe have appreciated more than the others. At least enough so that anyone growing up there in the 1950s can’t afford to live there now.
That’s “Washington DC’s”, plan too. Price(and/or tax) any/everyone “out”!
A select few of us knew to buy a house in a ‘bad’ neighborhood and wait it out .
I have zero regrets for having bought a crappy home in The Ghetto .
My newer neighbors all paid close to or over a million dollars to live near me .
-Nate
Don’t remember “Reading PA” having such a “broad blvd”. The big , pink, “Lincoln”, in “Cleveland” left the windows down..
Frederick, MD:
This was back in the day when you went downtown to conduct business or entertainment.
Folks would pay their electric bill while downtown at the Potomac Edison building on the right. Also sold Frigidaire refrigerators as well as other major appliances via installments on your electric bill.
Need I say more about Sears which is strategically located next to the power company and in most downtowns. Lots of walk-in customers.
Between is the Tivoli with Danny Kaye and Martha Hyer on the bill board. Suspect the movie is “The Man from the Diners’ Club”.
Just up the street was the local bank.
A completely different mindset…so long ago!!
Dad took our family of 6 on a Sunday drive from Towson to the Francis Scott Key Hotel in Frederick for mid-afternoon Sunday dinner right around that time: 1963 or ’64. They had a nice dining room with family style meals and it still looked very 1920s at the time. That was a rare treat for us, it was usually Gino’s or the Towson Diner, and for a nicer local dinner, the Rustler Steak House on York Rd, right next door to Stu Berger Oldsmobile! My first sight of the ’66 Toronado there made me an Olds guy forever!! Wowser!
Stu Berger Olds was unusual in that the eponymous owner was a wealthy attorney and paid cash for every car thus didn’t have to floorplan his inventory. It must have worked because it lasted from early ’60s until the Olds marque was discontinued.
I never ate (or stayed) at the Francis Scott Key hotel, but I absolutely remember eating at Gino’s several times, an above-average fast food joint. Named for one of its founders Gino Marchetti (former defensive end for the Baltimore Colts NFL club), it was a fixture in the Mid-Atlantic area, and also held the franchise for Kentucky Fried Chicken and had those revolving buckets they used to use out in front. I didn’t learn until years after the chain of about 400 restaurants was bought out and closed in the ’80s that KFC was a separate restaurant chain and not just a name given to Gino’s chicken. The original founders opened up a few new Gino’s restaurants on the East Coast starting in 2010, but only two of those remain open.
God bless you Sir ! .
Looking at these instantly took me back, the electric trolley buses, READY-WATT signs, on and on…..
-Nate
Among the greatest improvements in the aesthetics of cities and towns, in the US and Canada, were burying all the overhead cables and wires. And engineering cars to be leak proof, thus making roads cleaner, and more attractive. While designing cars to remain valuable, and still attractive, after many more years of use. As the age of cars on US roads, have never been greater.
I remember Jim’s Steakhouse in Cleveland, Oh on collision bend on the Cuyahoga River. My ex-wife and my mom took my dad their for his 50th birthday so many years. My mom and my dad are long gone along with my ex-wife and Jim’s steakhouse. Time moved on.
Grass Valley CA and Seattle Washington photos both show Rambler Americans in the same color!
Hard to imagine, but traffic on Provincetown’s Commercial Street traveled in both directions up through the 1940s. The intersection of Commercial Street, Standish Street and Lopes Square (pictured) leads to MacMillan Pier, and is extremely busy. Because the town lacks traffic lights, traffic was often directed by Donald Thomas, aka The Dancing Cop. He worked until he was 83, and was a lot of fun to watch. Google “Provincetown Dancing Cop”.
https://provincetownindependent.org/obituaries/2019/12/12/donald-thomas-who-danced-to-traffic-cop-fame-dies-at-92/