{"id":3508,"date":"2022-01-19T08:28:12","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T04:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/?p=3508"},"modified":"2022-01-20T07:53:48","modified_gmt":"2022-01-20T03:53:48","slug":"a-shocking-revelation-about-my-hometown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/?p=3508","title":{"rendered":"A shocking revelation about my hometown"},"content":{"rendered":"

The town I grew up in, Binghamton, New York, is one of three municipalities collectively known as “the Triple Cities.” The other two? The villages of Johnson City and Endicott. If those names sound familiar to you it may be because you bought a pair of shoes a hundred years ago. From the Endicott-Johnson<\/em> Shoe Company.<\/p>\n

Weighty books and lengthy blogposts have been written about the history of “E-J” and its successes and failures. The Square Deal, the public monuments, and yeah, literally the names of two whole towns. (The shoe company name predated the village names.)<\/p>\n

Those are topics for future posts.<\/p>\n

At issue here is the timing of the empire’s decline. From a highwater mark in the 1920s, when European immigrants came to these shores knowing only the following English (“which way, E-J?”), to a sort of resurgence during the Second World War, the Endicott-Johnson Shoe Company slowed its production significantly during the post-war years and into the, well, for lack of a better term, “cheap manufacturing abroad” age. Outside management (that would be people not named Endicott or Johnson) was brought in starting in 1957, a move serving only to quicken the company’s decline.<\/p>\n

This was the story I’d heard growing up. By the ’60s the party was over.<\/p>\n

Imagine my surprise, last night, while leafing through an old periodical, dated March 1964.<\/p>\n

In the pages of none other than\u00a0Playboy<\/em> magazine–known for not only discriminating taste when selecting its advertisers but for charging confiscatory rates–a full-page advertisement for the Johnsonian<\/em>, “a quality product of Endicott Johnson, Endicott, New York, featured at the 1964\/1965 World’s Fair.”<\/p>\n

I can’t even start with how amazing a single sentence can be.<\/p>\n

And I’ve gained a whole new respect for my much-maligned hometown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The town I grew up in, Binghamton, New York, is one of three municipalities collectively known as “the Triple Cities.” The other two? The villages of Johnson City and Endicott. If those names sound familiar to you it may be … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3508"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3511,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3508\/revisions\/3511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}