REMEMBERING CHAUNCEY STREET 1.The Icebox by Patricia Jones [Pat Aronica]
I am writing these anecdotes for all my children and grandchildren, and especially for Billy who asked how people kept things cold before there were refrigerators. My earliest memory of iceboxes is of the white porcelain, two-door affair we had on Chauncey Street in Brooklyn, New York. Most of my earliest memories were formed there, at 324 Chauncey Street. The top level of the ice box, where many subsequent refrigerators have the freezer compartment, is where the blocks of ice went. The bottom compartment was where items such as milk, butter, meat, etc. were stored. Under the icebox was a pan to catch the melting ice. It had to be emptied daily. The iceman came around in a horse-drawn wagon, and a few years later he arrived in a motorized truck. He came a couple of times a week in the summer and maybe once a week in the winter. The amount of ice delivered depended on the amount of money our mother had on hand for such a luxury. For a quarter (25 cents), she could buy ...