One day in about 1933 there appeared at
the intersection of Chancellor and Elizabeth Avenues a white Good
Humor truck with a driver/salesman dressed all in white including
a stiff-brim white cap and a black "Sam Browne" belt.
Good Humor ice cream, bars-on-a-stick, were unusual not only for
their taste, but also their variety. In addition to the common vanilla
and chocolate flavors, they offered such unusual choices as toasted
almond and coconut exteriors and their "sticks" often
were redeemable for a free bar. Later the trucks took to cruising
the residential streets with signature bells inviting customers.
In the 1930's at the point where the scenic road through Weequahic
Park now crosses over the Highway below there was in the 1930's
a pond, called "South America" for it's shape. This was
a favorite spot for ice skating since, being much smaller than the
main lake, it froze solid in the winter months. Later, the pond
was filled and Route 29 now runs over its former site.
The favorite spot for sledding was Keer Avenue where kids could
"belly flop" our Flexible Flyer sleds and coast down the
hill below Parkview Terrace. Neighbors at the foot of the hill would
spread furnace ashes to stop the sleds safely before the Bergen
Street intersection.
Prior to about 1935, police patrolled the Weequahic residential
streets on foot, like the mailmen (who delivered twice a day and
once on Saturday) but at about that time, the City replaced the
foot patrol. It acquired several all-white Ford Coupes and assigned
two patrolmen in each to improve coverage. Walt Disney's "Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs" appeared at much the same time
and most kids referred to the patrol cars as "Snow White and
the Two Dopeys" a derision that may have had something to do
with a color change of the cars to black & white.
In the early 1940's at the intersection of Chancellor and Elizabeth
Avenue there stood the boarded-up remains of an old stone one-room
schoolhouse. Always an inviting target, vandals had almost completed
stripped it when the City wisely removed the building. At the time,
it was reportedly moved to a garden of the Newark City Library where
it was to be restored. Possibly the building may still be there.
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