Sunday, May 4, 2014

Merchant Street: 500 block, late 1960s?

500 block of Merchant Street, Ambridge
late 1960s?
photo courtesy of Betty Lazorisak, used with permission

The photo above shows the 500 block of Merchant Street looking north. The exact year of the photo is unknown, but the Mustang parked in front of Paul's Bakery puts it no earlier than the mid-1960s. The Christmas decorations on the light poles means the photo was taken before or just after Christmas.

The parking spaces are mostly filled, but there are only a few pedestrians in the photo, which seems odd for Ambridge at that time.

I couldn't see all of the businesses' signs in the photo, so I haven't been able to identify them all, but I see:

On the left, which is the west, odd numbered side of Merchant:

Paul's Bakery, 511 Merchant Street
Ambridge Army & Navy Store, 517 Merchant Street
Altmeyer's, 519-523 Merchant Street
Anderson's Candy, 529 Merchant Street
Georgann's Tots N' Teens, 537 Merchant Street
Fashion Hosiery, 551 Merchant Street
G.C. Murphy, 561-565 Merchant Streets

On the right, which is the east, even numbered side of Merchant:

Ambridge Savings and Loan, 506 Merchant Street
Davidson's, 510 Merchant Street
Town and Country Bar, 540 Merchant Street

For my ever-growing list of pre-1970 Ambridge businesses check my List of Lists.

4 comments:

  1. old army & navy store was on 4th st i think, on river side of merchant st

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  2. jd aka john domansky

    above remark is mine,
    the more i think about it, the original army navy store was on west side of 4th st, with an open lot south of it, it may be the building that shows that walled in arched doorway, bought all my levi jeans, (& engineer boots that squeaked, until broke in.) at that time no zippers, just metal buttons & they had the little rolled sewn side seam & lots of rivets, the kind they used at hh robertsons for rivrting skylights when i put them together, my dads best friend tom was my 1st boss (tom) in the assembly area, I ran a fork lift into the side of some file cabinets, & my 1st girl friends dad worked just a short ways away, don't think he liked me much, never mistreated ilene p, she worked at jc penny & we went to movies saturday after work at 9 pm for late movie then walk up to just past 11th & duss to her house, sat for a while then dad said go home john. good old days.

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  3. jd

    oops not jc penny, it was murphys 5 & dime, sorry ilene.

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  4. Paul's Bakery was the best Bakery.

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