Need help of photo sleuths

Any help from photo sleuths would be appreciated. This photo was saved in my hard drive and I'm hoping to identify the location, with the few clues available. It appears to be from the US midwest or northeast based on the housing style. Detroit, perhaps? The Tydol station will be little help, since there were likely hundreds of them in the 20's & 30's. And the street sign is too small to read. What I really need help with is identifying what is on the sign at the right (see 2nd close up pic). I'm hitting a dead end with the letters. It appears to be a lowercase u, followed by a lowercase n, then I'm stumped from there. I thought the third & fourth could have been D's, but ruled that out since they didn't match the other lowercase letters. I though perhaps it said "Dodge", but the second letter is clearly not an O.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

No chance it is "DRUGS"?

qualifier: My eyesight is so bad that I occasionally get things "right" because the blurrier the photo the more it corrects my blurriness.................

 

i love the roller skates....

The sign's so blurred , it looks like hebrew writing..

 

If I were guessing blind, I'd say this is in Pennsylvania, post-WWII era. (saddle shoes, shorter skirt, peter pan collar) The Tydol name puts in in the Eastern half of the US and that hill in the background tells me it has to be somewhere with mountains. If we could see the name on the retailer with the Dodge sign it or that oil truck might be the ballgame.

 

I know from VERY recent googling that there were Tydol stations in California - not that it helps much.........

 

It looks like Dodge to me too.

Some possible points of interest in the photo -

1. The Tydol sign has the word Gasoline between Tydol and the "Flying A" logo. I have searched Google images til me eyes crossed and have not seen a single one like that. More commonly, there was the word Ethyl or the word Flying in that location on the sign. Perhaps finding an online forum for gasoline sign geeks would help place this particular design.

2. The clothing on both makes me wonder whether this might be late 30's/early 40's. The girl is wearing saddle shoes under those skates.

3. The street to our left is cobbled instead of the macadammed surface to our right - and those are darned old trees (elms?) in front of the gas station. In the far background there's a very long flat-roofed building - probably on a hill (making it look taller than it probably was.) A mix of brick and wood construction in the middle ground buildings. This town has been around a while and has an industrial history.

4. Can someone tell the approximate age of the cars parked along the street on the right? The ones that look more "modern?"

 

I'm digging on the suicide doors on that car in the background. Someone probably hot-rodded that eventually, or I hope they did. The hemline on the dress makes me think WWII - hemlines went up then by quite a lot and came back down afterward. A car guy would probably be more accurate than I am about those, but I'm not seeing any from after the War...I don't think.

 

I'm thinking it might be from the 1940s... not only from the saddle shoes on the girl, but also the bobby sox/socks, which I generally associate with the 1940s.

 

Thanks for the replies so far. So I guess Dodge is the most likely guess. And thanks Bakersgma...this photo geek will check with the gas & oil sign geeks

 

evelyb30, good observation on it being in mountainous PA. I thought it was a large factory in the background, but a closeup reveals it's actually a 5-6 story factory or housing complex on top of a hill. Likely a factory...possibly steel, as it's huge. It's obviously not Detroit.

 

The car backed in which is in the back of the picture on the right side, looks a lot more modern then any of the other cars on the street. It kind of makes me think early 50's .
The gas pumps look a little more modern too!

 

DODGE. That font is rounded off squares.

 

Might be a '32 Ford.

 

Just to be difficult, I don't think the sign says Dodge. On close-up looks to me what Sullivan suggested "UN...".



I tried to get a better look at that longgggg building high behind them. At the moment it appears to me to be a factory of some sort, but in a moment or two I might think it is housing. Obvious I haven't a clue.

 

I don't know....
It certainly wasn't at all common to use lower case letters back then. It would be unprofessional for sure.
Not like today where it's even done with proper names.
It is possible that sign is laid out with its letters on their sides. If so it would read from the top down not bottom up.
Compound all this with the probability that those are 'exposed neon' letters and that they are lit and have failed neon units either still in place or removed for repair and 'jumped out' so the rest of the letter would work.

 

I can't make that fourth letter look like a G no matter how I try.

 

Is it sideways? Last two letters look like A M when you flip it.

 

And I don't think inversing it helped much either......Looks like Ladybranch got the sharpest picture and to me the second letter down looks to be an "n"..IMHO!!