I remember those coal shoots. My grandparents heated with coal during the winter months. My parents’ house, the house I grew up in until age 10 had an oil furnace. Then we moved and the house my parents had bought had natural gas. We thought we were uptown then!
The first house my parents had that I can remember, had this large metal floor grate in the middle of the house. I think there was an oil burner directly beneath it and it was the only source of heat in the house, had to depend on the warm air finding its way to the rest of the house. It felt nice standing on that thing when you came in on a cold winter day. Looked like this…
I also remember sometimes there would be a bowl of water on the grate to add some humidity in the house, during those cold dry months too. Stone age humidifier.
My last house had an oil floor furnace like that. I recall watching TV one evening and there was this horrible odor permeating the room. I looked over and sae my dog looking down at the grate with her ears up...there was a wisp of smoke rising up. I went to look, and apparently the dog had retrieved a "treat" from the cat's litter box and lost it through the grate, where it sat on the heat exchanger, cooking. I lifted up the grate, retrieved the item, said "I think it's done," and gave it to her.
Back in my day the worst fear of department store shopping for little kids was "that crack" in the escalator.
As a kid I went to the Pastime Theater in town for the Saturday matinee with 15 cents in my pocket supplied by my mother. I first went to the candy store across the street for 3 cents worth of candy, then crossed the street again for a 12 cent movie ticket. The movie usually started with a Rocket Man short or the Three Stooges. This pic is from a large collection of photos online from a hometown website created by a former resident who moved to N.J. for work but was homesick. I could post many more.
With Christmas not too far off. I cannot forget these mess Stockings filled with an assortment of small toys. I couldn't wait to rip open the packaging to see what was inside.