PA Live! Blog of the Week: Scranton Christmas Windows, 1938 - 1960

NEPA Blogs will be presenting a "Blog of the Week" on the WBRE's PA Live! every Tuesday. PA Live! airs weekday afternoons on WBRE from 4:00 to 5:00.

Watch this episode on the PA Live! site:

http://pahomepage.com/palive-details/?nxd_id=214776

Our PA Live! Blog of the Week this week is Scranton Christmas Windows, 1938 - 1960 (http://scrantonchristmas.blogspot.com/).

This remarkable blog is a time capsule preserving and sharing images from a bygone era. I'll quote the site itself:

In 2009 Gene Giancini was cleaning out a building on Scranton’s West Side. His family had operated a business in the building for 60 years, and he was in the process of selling it. He found, stacked in the corner, old photos of Christmas window displays from Household Outfitting Company, 306-314 Lackawanna Ave. Mr. Giancini generously donated the photos to the Albright Memorial Library. We will be presenting them through this web site.

There are just 23 posts on this blog, but the images they present are remarkable, a record of a time long past, an era with a style and grace that are too often lacking today, when Christmas was a season of magic even in the storefronts on Lackawanna Avenue in Scranton.

But these posts are also filled with historical mysteries gradually solved through careful detective work.  The photos themselves are records of places that have long since disappeared. How many of us have stacks of old photos sitting around, tucked away in boxes in basements or attics? How much of the history of Northeastern Pennsylvania is captured on these photographs, just waiting to be noticed?  Most communities have libraries and historical societies that would be happy to accept these treasure troves. Don't let these photographs end up in a landfill somewhere!

As Christmas fast approaches, it's good to pause for a bit and take a look at the way one Northeastern Pennsylvania business decorated itself for Christmas during the middle third of the last century. Be sure to check out Scranton Christmas Windows, 1938 - 1960!

If you have a blog you would like us to link on NEPA Blogs, or know of a blog you think we should link, please let us know! You can always drop us a line at nepablogs@gmail.com!