New Machine - Grafonola upright.... now with pictures !

[Henry]

Several blocks on that side of Lackawanna Ave. were demolished some years (15-20?) ago to make way for the Steamtown Mall and a parking deck, which are the newer buildings in the photo, so the sites of the stores referred to are history. There is still viable retail along the avenue.

Was discussing this with friends this evening, who are native Scrantonians ( I am a transplanted Baltimorean )...

The South side of Lackwanna Ave (the left side in the photo), between Washington Avenue and Mifflin Avenue (about four contiguous blocks) were razed in the early 1990's, to make way for the Steamtown Mall. I remember the day they imploded those blocks: they chose a Sunday morning, and I was in the choir loft at St. Peter's Cathedral, about two blocks north, for the choral mass (10:30 AM?); we heard air-horns blast the warning, then a few moments later, there was a muffled "boom", and then we felt a shudder as the buildings came down.

The buildings on the North side of Lackawanna Ave were replaced at various times; several of the old mercantile buildings were destroyed by various fires in the 1960's and '70's (Scranton Talking Machine Co. among them), and their sites turned into parking lots.

When the Mall went-up, they also built a new movie theatre at the corner of Lackwanna & Penn Avenues, and connected that to the Mall by an enclosed pedestrian bridge right at the site of Scranton Talking Machine.

There remain some of the grand old buildings from the late 19th / early 20th Centuries along Lackawanna Ave, but some of the best are history... along with the Scranton Traction Company.

I was disoriented! The Steamtown Mall and associated parking deck, as well as Steamtown NHS itself, are indeed on the left side of the photo, which is the south side of Lackwanna Ave. (the view in Frank's Google map photo is looking west). If you click on the image and go to the Google map page you can pan around the entire avenue on both sides and better understand the layout; you can actually see a sliver of the parking deck between (behind) two corner buildings separated by a narrow street.

Historical footnote: if you are familiar with the George Inness painting "The Lackawanna Valley" (c. 1855/6), the artist's vantage point was on the hillside in the distance of Frank's photo, looking east down Lackawanna Ave. to the Moosic Mt. in the far distance (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:George_Inness_003.jpg --click on the image for a high-res enlargement). The scene depicts an early summer morning in late June/early July, the only period of the year when the sun rises far enough in the northeast to shine on the north side of objects; note the direction of the shadows. Scranton sure has changed in the last 150+ years! BTW, Steamtown is located approximately where the railroad roundhouse stands in Inness's painting.

[De Soto Frank]

To elaborate on Henry's remarks....

Inness's 1855 painting depicts recently-named (1851) Scranton ( previously known as Slocum Hollow ) as a sleepy bucolic setting.


The hillside that the painter is standing on is in the present-day section of Scranton known as Hyde Park, at one time where the well-heeled lived, but in 1855 it was a recently-cleared wooded area, as indicated by the tree-stumps.

The locomotive and train in the foreground are proceeding through the WYE at Hyde Park (still extant), swinging onto the west-bound line of the Delaware, Lackawanna, & Western Railroad. The other leg of the WYE swings south onto the Lackwanna & Bloomsburg RR, which followed first the Lackawanna River to West Pittston, where it converges with the Susquehanna River, then the RR continues south, following the Susquehanna down to Bloomsburg, where there significant limestone deposits at Lime Ridge. Limestone was an important component in the manufacture of iron and steel, where it was/is used as a flux, to help remove impurities from the iron ore during the smelting process.

Speaking of iron and steel, that is what brought the Scot's descended Scranton family to the Lackawanna Valley: it seemed to be a prime location to set-up an iron and steel operation, with ready supplies of iron ore, anthracite coal, and water.

Looking at the painting, beyond the DL&W roundhouse, and a bit to the left, one sees two vertical smoke plumes: these are from the site of the blast furnace and rolling mill area of the Lackwanna Iron & Coal Company, situated on the banks of Roaring Brook.

The Scranton Iron Furnaces were completed in 1841, and blew their first steel shortly thereafter. The company had the distinction of developing and rolling the first "T"-rail in America, for the New York and Erie RR.

The Scranton Iron & Steel Co. continued operations at Scranton until 1901, when it was determined that a steel mill situated on Lake Erie would be more cost-effective, and the entire Scranton plant was abandoned, and the property sold to the new Lackwawanna & Wyoming Valley RR Co., a new high-speed inter-urban railway that was constructed between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, operating between 1903 and 1952, with limited freight service afterwards until 1955, when it was absorbed by the DL&W RR.

As Henry noted, the roundhouse in the painting is the site of the present-day Steamtown National Historic Site, and a small portion if the 1855 roundhouse still exists.

I do not believe that any of the other buildings depicted in the painting still exist. The steeple of the church in the left-center of the painting is probably either that of First Baptist Church on Penn Avenue, or First Presbyterian on Adams Ave.

[mikejk]

De Soto Frank,
Nice Grafonola. I have the same one, but the cabinet is in burled walnut and is nicely booked matched on the tilt out bin and sides. This machine came to me as a freebee and was painted red, white, and blue. I had no idea of the hidden beauty and it was ignored for years in a corner of the garage. Now that it has been stripped and refinished, it is hard to imagine anyone taking a paint brush to it's remarkable wood grain. Mike K.

[Henry]

Once more on the Inness painting: the train is crossing the Lackawanna River. The bridge (its modern successor is called "Bridge 60") is a bit difficult to see, as is the river, whose course is indicated by the line of trees in the middle distance. In the actual painting, which is in the National Gallery in Washington, one can read the railroad name lettered on the tender and see many other details that are missed in reproduction. I must differ with Frank about the history of steel rail manufacture in the USA; the first commercial production of rolled steel rails occurred in 1867 at the Cambria Iron Works in Johnstown (see http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php ... Id=1-A-1CA ) and later at Bethlehem, PA in 1873. Today the only manufacture of steel railroad rails in the eastern USA is at Steelton, PA. At one time, the mills at all of these locations, as well as the Lackawanna works near Buffalo, were owned by Bethlehem Steel.

Phonographs have steel components, so we're not entirely off topic here!

[De Soto Frank]

Henry,

Okay - my mistake. Lackwanna Iron & Coal Co's pioneering triumph was with Iron t-rail.

http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php ... Id=1-A-2BC

There was a huge rolling mill here at LI&SCo.

Of course, I have to suffer the local rail-fans with a grain of salt or two... my own "home road" is the Baltimore & Ohio, America's first chartered common-carrier, steam Railroad.


My father's ancestors are from Cambria Cty., ranging from Black Log Valley, St. Augustine, and Portage down to Ebensburg. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that some of my ancestors worked on the PRR out there, as well as Cambria Iron works.

It would be interesting to compare Inness's painting with the same scene 100 years later (1955)... no where near as green and bucolic...

[Henry]

Here's the scene in fall 2008, from my last roll of Kodachrome (r.i.p.).
Click on the image for a full-screen enlargement.

[Duchesne]

Nice Columbia. You sure got lucky with that tonearm. Many of them I've seen have been frozen solid in at least one direction.

Regarding the Zenith radios: I don't have any idea of your experience with old electronics so I want to caution you about testing them. Basically, don't plug them in until you have done some chassis testing, especially for bad filter capacitors, wiring, etc. Failure to do this could cost you a power transformer within a few seconds. Then, when you actually power them up for the first time, it should be done with a variac which allows you to bring the line voltage up slowly while monitoring conditions within the chassis for faults. If you don't know how to do this, it is best to get in contact with someone who does. You may also go to the Antique Radio Forum for detailed advice about doing this.

http://antiqueradios.com/forums/index.php

Hope this helps,

Jim

Thanks Jim ! My other Columbia is a similar vintage "Favorite" , with the reproducer fused tight to the taper-tube. I've decided not to risk breakage in trying to remove it, as it seems to play well as-is, and the diaphragm gaskets are still pliable.

As for my electronics knowledge, it is fairly basic; I have learned enough about radios to ID bad filter caps, and to keep an eye on the plates of the rectifier tube when powering-up (if the start to glow red, that means shorted filter caps: shut-down immediately to avoid frying the transformer primary).

I may wait until I can get together with my friend, and fire-it up in his workshop. I believe he has a Variac.

My postwar console Zenith has bad filter caps, but of the "open" variety...

I appreciate the cautionary advice !

Frank

I've often found changing the temperature of the metal parts sometimes makes them loosen up

I have a similar Columbia Grafonola "Mignonette" from 1915. It is sapele mahogany ( ribbon etc ) over poplar/oak and stained typical red mahogany and gloss finish. My carvings are the only thing different from yours. Oh, and someone dropped nail polish remover on the side of the lid...
I have issues with the cheap metal tone are as well.

I acquired a Victor Orthophonic 4-70 this year and after playing my 78's on both, I now prefer the sound quality of Victor.

[Pierce-Arrow]

The same thing was done in Albany in the North and South Pearl Street and Broadway area. Most of the historic building there were torn down to make "modern" state employee buildings and parking garages. A real shame. Most of the original buildings that housed the many phonograph and record dealers in the early 1900s are all gone. They call it "Urban Renewal" and I call it "Urban Removal". Here's an an example of South Pearl Street in downtown Albany. The first photo shows it in 1948, still a bustling shopping district while the latter shows it now. Where the overpass stands now used to house Victor and Edison dealer W.J. Killea and just past that, the "Strand Temple Of Music", which was Albany's biggest Victor dealer from 1919 well into the 1930s. You'd never know this was the same exact block by comparing the two photos.

Sean

Those neon signs..... I like the stork! It would be like heaven walking down the street. I want them all!

Thanks for posting the photo Sean!

Keith

[Pierce-Arrow]

Congrats on your new find! Nice looking Columbia!

Keith