Whittier Inn - Sea Gate 1910 - enlarged
A few years ago, I bought this print on eBay.
Our daily ice cream walks to and from the Whittier Inn are some of my fondest memories as a child. It was a summer resort inn with a great candy and ice cream store in the side lobby. I wasn't born in 1910. The look is as I remember it, with the wide open wraparound porch on the front and left. One difference is that in the 30s and 40s it had gorgeous hydrangea bushes with great big blue flowers. And the cars looked different too. Oh, and women's dresses were much shorter.
This is the view from across the street on Manhattan Avenue in Sea Gate. In my day, the street was paved with black macadam.
I am trying to remember the last time I visited Sea Gate. It was at least fifteen years ago. I recall seeing many of the same landmarks, but they had changed. When I was little, Sea Gate was full of summer vacation inns.. Families rented rooms or suites for the summer... Many inns served food, and others had small kitchenettes. As I recall, they have all been changed to apartment buildings, and the porches were enclosed...
My Mother's large family of origin stayed in my Aunt's house. We were so lucky. it was an idyllic place for a child. Separate thought - Across the street was an inn that was owned by a Russian emigré, a woman who had escaped the Bolshevic takeover in Russia, or at least before Stalin turned Russia into a terrifying prison...
There was always lots of conversation and singing on their wraparound porch. Years later I discovered that the Nobel Prize winner for Literature, Isaac Bashevis Singer, spent his summers in that inn. I don't have any pictures if it, but i remember it looked a lot like the left hand half of the Whittier inn. The staircase was in the center of that side... My older female cousin - whom I idolized - and I would spend mornings on that porch, on rainy days, playing with a girl my cousin's age who stayed there. I remember the guests took afternoon naps and we had to be quiet then. After a while, we would go across the street to my Aunt's house and play Monopoly and Chinese Checkers. Oh, and coloring with Crayola crayons. I still love those...
Many years later, i lived in Salem, Massachusetts and often passed the Parker Brother's factory where those board games were made. .
Whittier Inn - Sea Gate 1910 - enlarged
A few years ago, I bought this print on eBay.
Our daily ice cream walks to and from the Whittier Inn are some of my fondest memories as a child. It was a summer resort inn with a great candy and ice cream store in the side lobby. I wasn't born in 1910. The look is as I remember it, with the wide open wraparound porch on the front and left. One difference is that in the 30s and 40s it had gorgeous hydrangea bushes with great big blue flowers. And the cars looked different too. Oh, and women's dresses were much shorter.
This is the view from across the street on Manhattan Avenue in Sea Gate. In my day, the street was paved with black macadam.
I am trying to remember the last time I visited Sea Gate. It was at least fifteen years ago. I recall seeing many of the same landmarks, but they had changed. When I was little, Sea Gate was full of summer vacation inns.. Families rented rooms or suites for the summer... Many inns served food, and others had small kitchenettes. As I recall, they have all been changed to apartment buildings, and the porches were enclosed...
My Mother's large family of origin stayed in my Aunt's house. We were so lucky. it was an idyllic place for a child. Separate thought - Across the street was an inn that was owned by a Russian emigré, a woman who had escaped the Bolshevic takeover in Russia, or at least before Stalin turned Russia into a terrifying prison...
There was always lots of conversation and singing on their wraparound porch. Years later I discovered that the Nobel Prize winner for Literature, Isaac Bashevis Singer, spent his summers in that inn. I don't have any pictures if it, but i remember it looked a lot like the left hand half of the Whittier inn. The staircase was in the center of that side... My older female cousin - whom I idolized - and I would spend mornings on that porch, on rainy days, playing with a girl my cousin's age who stayed there. I remember the guests took afternoon naps and we had to be quiet then. After a while, we would go across the street to my Aunt's house and play Monopoly and Chinese Checkers. Oh, and coloring with Crayola crayons. I still love those...
Many years later, i lived in Salem, Massachusetts and often passed the Parker Brother's factory where those board games were made. .