Dee (Ristow) Srahola Remembers 1301 South Broad Street, Franklin Park

Dee (Ristow) Srahola Remembers 1301 South Broad Street,
Franklin Park

My name is Dee (Ristow) Srahola. My Grandfather, James G. Anderson
was the original owner of the store at 1301 S. Broad St. He sold
newspapers on that corner until he saved enough money to buy the
property and had the store with a small residence behind it built.
My mom & dad and two sisters and I lived across the street at
1278 S. Broad St. I used to earn money when I was a kid by working
in the store and waiting on customers, which I loved doing.
Directly across Broad St. from our store was Pat's Diner, which
is still there and by the same name. The other two corners were
occupied by Bonderchuck's Chevrolet and Charley's Bar, which are
both gone now. My family and I lived over top of Brown's Ice
Cream Store, which is not there anymore either. Those were the
"Good Old Days". They were the simple times the old fashioned
times. I still wish we had kept the store in the family. My
grandfather sold the property to George Horner somewhere
between 1958 and 1960.

Ray from Villa Park adds:

Back in the late 1940s and early fifties, this business location
was Andersons. They sold soft drinks, candy,but most of all
magazines and comic books. Not only current, but old back issues.
You could come in with your old comics and trade them for others.
They had old magazines, such as Life, Saturday Evening Post,
Colliers, Look, Fortune, Police Gazette, Pinup titles, you name
it, they had it. These magazines went back into the 1920s and 30s.
I purchased loads of magazines, as a kid, cutting out the
automobile advertisements and other advertising. I've kept them
for nearly 60 years

Bob Reck said...
I remember the store well. Used to hang out with friends
(the Sopronyi twins ) who lived less than a block away.
Pat's Diner had great burgers.

Al said...
That was a great store for magazines and newspapers. I
remember going their after the Phillies had won the 1980
World Series and buying a stack of the Philadelphia Daily
News, which if I remember was 50 cents back then. The
Daily News had these Championship Team Photos they had
inserted. I agree Pat's Diner did have good hamburgers,
their soup was also pretty good.