JUMPING into my H.G. Wells time machine once again, I set the controls for Riverdale, way up in the Bronx, and the year 1920, where, under the 16-year-old Broadway elevated train, I found this billboard ad for Wesson cooking oil. The brand has been around a long time, as David Wesson, the scientist who developed a process for deodorizing cottonseed oil in 1899, making it ideal for frying as it would not fill up the kitchen with malodorous fumes that animal fats had done prior to that.
The brand is still around and recently had a design overhaul, with new font treatment on its label. Though it’s not heavily promoted on TV anymore, if you’re a certain age you remember Florence “Carol Brady” Henderson’s “Wessonality” commercials. Henderson, a singer by trade, was well-known in musicals for over 20 years before her iconic “Brady Bunch” turn.
Today, a bar called The Punch Bowl occupies the NE corner of Broadway and East West 238th, though the elevated exit / entrance staircase is still there.
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Photo: Al Ponte’s Time Machine
5/3/23