Picture East Windsor - Then And Now

EAST WINDSOR, CT — For our latest installment of this periodic informal series, highlighting businesses from East Windsor's past and what those locations look like today, we return to the 1980 edition of the East Windsor High School yearbook, The Archive. Here we find an advertisement for a longtime staple of the Broad Brook village: Brookside Package Store.

It may seem unusual for a liquor outlet to be promoting its wares in a high school yearbook, but four decades ago, the legal drinking age in Connecticut was 18 (it changed to 19 in 1982, 20 in 1983, and to 21 in 1985). Hence, in the top half of the ad (not shown here), Brookside promoted "chilled wines and champagnes," "imported and domestic wines and liquors," and bragged of carrying "1000 cases of cold beer on hand" and "specializing in keg beer."

It may seem odd to those readers under age 45 to see the words "Master Charge" in the ad. The name actually changed to the more-familiar MasterCard in 1979, but it is likely the yearbook staff picked up the Brookside ad from a previous year and did not incorporate the name change.

Janet Bartlett is named in the ad as permittee. The lifetime East Windsor resident operated the liquor store for more than 30 years. Unfortunately, she passed away in 2006.

Here is a contemporary photo of the property, taken recently by yours truly.

Do you have a photo of an old East Windsor business which no longer exists, to which you own the copyright and which we could feature in this column? Email tim.jensen@patch.com.

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