Radios were kind of like the iPod of the Depression. The December 19, 1934 edition of the Daily News is thick with ads for them—like this model, which features “foreign reception.”
What happened to Spear’s, an appliance store with five locations in the five boroughs?
Sounds like they were the 1930s version of Circuit City, the Wiz, Crazy Eddie, and all the other electronics stores that never seem to last very long.
Tags: 1930s radios, Christmas 1934, Circuit City, Crazy Eddie, New York in the 1930s, old copies of New York Daily News, Spear's, The Wiz
Ephemeral New York 
December 21, 2009 at 12:23 pm |
$49.90 was a lot of money back then. Using the Consumer Price Index, this would be over $800 in today’s dollars.
December 21, 2009 at 4:14 pm |
I imagine it was built to last a long time. That is a sturdy-looking radio.
September 4, 2017 at 12:29 am |
Spears was a furniture store owned by 3 brothers, Nathaniel, Alexander and Maurice Spear.
http://www.qchron.com/qboro/i_have_often_walked/spear-s-furniture-and-its-stunning-jamaica-store/article_0ee07b81-8040-5f60-98f8-942a96058b52.html