Trevanian/Crazyladies of Pearl Street/Radio Broadcasts

Mother brought us home the long way around, down State Street to the closed A-One Pawn Shop, where we stood before the window looking at the radio and imagining all the drama, comedy, music and news that could come pouring out at the click of a switch. We knew about this because we’d had the use of a friend’s radio for a month during our last summer at Lake George Village and we’d spent several hours each day listening to programs coming to us from as far away as Glens Falls and Schenectady. I wondered how much the shopkeeper would ask for this radio, considering that its walnut cabinet was cracked and some of the inlaid bits were missing. I liked its reliable, old-fashioned key-hole shaped cabinet and its upside-down face with an arched dial of a mouth above two turn-knob eyes. If it had been newer it would probably have been Bakelite molded into that universal design idiom of the ‘Thirties: Streamlining. This smooth swept-back look was logical for automobiles and locomotive engines, but throughout the ’Thirties streamlining was applied to all kinds of products and articles, even the least appropriate: toasters, lamps and handbag clasps were streamlined, as well as book ends, exit signs, money clips, barrettes for girls’ hair, ashtrays, facades of buildings...all sorts of things were designed to come flying at you through the air. No wonder it was a nervous decade.- The Crazyladies of Pearl Street -