if walls could sing

this springmill st. building, sit of a recent fire, complicated by frozen hydrants, is now but an ugly cadaver.

one cold december night, a ten year old aloc heard siren after siren.

a brick house behind this structure, on vale avenue, was badly burned.

a woman was killed that night.

the husband was charged with murder and acquittted.

they were the sternbaums, owner-operators of one of the 2 finest and busiest grocery stores in the area(the other was on lexington ave., on what is now a rite-aid pharmacy.

the market soon was bought by the tracy and avery grocery group and later was relocated to springmill and harker.

living a couple hundred yards from the market, aloc made countless treks to fetch items..

their house brand was juli marc, named for their 2 young children.

some of the trips were more memorable than others.

aloc stole a 10 cent rubber ball there and savvy granny made him take it back and apologize.

she used a sharp limb on him.

their ham salad sucked. aloc loved their delicious bologna, and that great nehi soda pop.

a few neighborhood youngsters had a nehi orange pop drinking contest. you know how that turned out.

mansfield had a pop making place over on orange street, the mansfield bottling company.

he remembers carrying home large beautiful containers of white lard. perhaps this was a time before crisco.

the workers there are all dead, i think.

shortly before the fire, there was the trip for rubbing alcohol.

a 21 year old aunt, letta, was suffering back pain, from came to be known as paralytic tranversmyelitis. she lived virtually helpless for another 35 years.

the alcohol, of course, did no good.

a car ran into the front of the building about that time, and someone's legs were crushed or amputated.

the artificial ceiling in front, where the registers were fell once and the market was closed for a day.

the windows were mostly of striking block glass

in the coming days, with the help of the news journal, we will be looking at some sternbaum newspaper grocery ads.

time and prices and markets have changed.

the place became a dance hall for a while, and a flea market, and then a car repair place, and who knows what else.

seeing folks lose their workplace, livelihood and tools and equipment is sickening.

he feels for these poor people and their families.

aloc came home smelling like ashes after getting these shots late new years day.

the sickening smell, and the memories will never wash off.