Yoo Hoo! Red Cab!

Spend a lot of time looking at old Brookline newspapers, like I do, and your eye will inevitably wander from the articles you're reading to the advertisements for local businesses. These ads, available as far back as the 1870s, paint a picture of the evolving commercial life that has long been a central part of Brookline's identity.

I've been collecting dozens of these ads, taken from newspaper microfilm and from town directories, and plan to feature them from time to time. I'll focus on a theme: a particular time period; a retail location; a category of business; or whatever catches my fancy.

First up, Red Cab and a wonderful series of ads that appeared in the paper beginning in the late 1930/early 1940s.

The design motif in these Brookline Chronicle ads from 1939-1941 was carried through in a frame used for changing ad messages in subsequent years.

Here's an earlier Red Cab ad, from 1937, with another below with a similar design.

Red Cab, of course, is still around—and has even retained the -5000 part of their phone number—as seen in this image from the newer advertising medium of the Web.