Well, let’s continue this bit of old home week, started last week, with this 1946 ad from Lathrop’s Drugs. Lathrop’s was a Rexall affiliated drug store with two locations in Scotia. By the time I remember them, the early ’70s, neither one had the soda fountain that is advertised here, and I never had any idea they once had a Schenectady location, up State Street near Vale Cemetery. I have fond memories of the Mohawk Avenue store, where the woman at the register, whose name has long since escaped me, was very patient with loitering middle schoolers who spent long periods of time thumbing through the comic books and deciding on which seven-cent candy bar to buy. I also recall a spring when they drastically overestimated the Eastertime demand for Hershey bars, and for a number of weeks were selling them two for the price of one; it seemed like there could be no greater boon to an eighth grader with dimes in his pockets on the way back to school.
Imagine that there was a time when every single drug store had a soda fountain with ice cream treats. These days, when I want to go out for ice cream, and the summer stands aren’t open, I can barely think of a place to go (especially with the demise of Friendly’s). Yet frozen yogurt stores seem to be opening up every twenty feet. This makes no sense to me, because I have never once in my life wanted frozen yogurt. I have settled for it, but I have never wanted it. I keep hoping one of these stores will accidentally add ice cream to their offerings because obviously that’s what we really want.
Lathrop’s was open until at least the 1980s. Sadly, like every other locally owned pharmacy, they couldn’t compete with the chains.
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