Capital Motors, South Broad Street, The Burg
What a cool looking building this was. I dont
remember it from my Burg days but here it is:)
Ray From Villa Park adds:
rayfromvillapark said...
This dealership was really a modern facility when it opened
in 1949. It was located on the corner at South Broad and the
end of Third St. I think that was still Third. The street
made a sharp turn just before coming out on Broad.
Previously, Capitol Motors was located at Front and Warren
in a very old and narrow building, with it's service entrance
in the alley off of Front.
If you look down the side of the building, on Third, that group
of windows fronted the Parts Department and in later years,
they parked a row of new cars along those windows, as well
as filling the showroom. It looked quite impressive as you
approached the dealership from the North, especially at night,
with the building lit up. There was a small used car lot to the
left of the building and then the railroad crossing. I believe
there was another railroad crossing on the Third St side.
Some of the most beautiful Chrysler products were sold from
this location, including the Virgil Exner designed 1955 line
of cars and huge finned 1957 line. During this period, Chrysler
introduced the hemi V8 and the letter series 300s.
I made many visits to Capitol Motors, collecting sales
brochures for all of the new models. Our family bought 4 or 5
Chryslers from them.
They moved from this location to Arctic Parkway in the 1960s.
Later,they sold just Plymouths for a while at that location
(possibly under different ownership). Irv Roth opened Hamilton
Chrysler Plymouth on Rt 33, probably in the 1970s and recently,
he was one of the dealers closed down by Chrysler during
their bankruptcy.
6 comments:
Mike,
If I remember right it was called Capital Motors.
Dad
Mack:
It was a car dealer. It became a motor pool for the state, and they moved to Arctic Parkway.
I remember the very futuristic Chrysler Turbine Car displayed out in the Capital Motors front lot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Turbine_Car
The service entrance was around back on the bend of Third St.
The old Trenton Water Power canal bed was directly in front of the building, and there was some kind of realted abandoned house not far away that attracted vagrants of the time. It used to be nearby wilderness for Burg kids, but now it's Canal Blvd.
Hi Mack, If you go back to your posting of this same photo on Sept. 5, 2009, I tell a pretty complete story about the history of the building and it's location along South Broad St. The owner was Samuel Himmelstein.
Thank You everybody:)
and a special thanks to Ray
for such a detailed fact filled
post on this. Fantastic :)
That was my grandfathers car dealership. I only remember when it was located on Artic Parkway. I use to go sit in the cars in the showroom making pretend I was driving, although i was only 10 years old.
Jim
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