PAST MYSTERY PHOTOS

"Triple X"
The Triple X store, at the corner of Brainard Place and Downtown Main Street, sold automobile parts and other items. Ken Burkamp took this photo about 1959. If you look closely you'll see Hartford Gas Company just beyond the 1956 Ford. Beyond the store and vacant lot where once the Park Theatre stood you can see the ivy-covered turret of the Salvation Army Citadel. Beyond the Citadel is the Farr Building where at the time BD Pearl had his business.


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• Florida resident Dick Jenkins, formerly of Manchester, recognized the scene in the photograph: "During WWII I lived a block north of the Triple X store on the corner of Main and Brainard Place. In 1943 my father asked me to join him on a visit to the store that sold many things. After speaking with the salesman he returned from the back room with the slickest tricycle I'd ever own. My grandmother lived down Main Street at Wells and Spruce and my mother allowed me to embark on my first trip on my new trike accompanying her. Just north to the store stood the Park Theatre, an old wood framed 3-story theatre that showed movies and vaudeville acts before I was born. It stood in disrepair until the late 40's when it was razed.

"The Triple X was much like Western Auto, JC Whitney and other such car parts stores of the time. Western Auto had its business on Main and Park Street at the same time. No parkades in those days, everything you needed was right there along Main Street."