This is an advertisement for the newly built Juniper Park Homes back in 1939. My parents bought one of these houses at 62-67 81st Street right across from Pullis Cemetery. I can pinpoint the street right on the advertisement map. At the time there were two farms, one in our backyard and one immediately to the south of our house. That was where the Pullis family lived. The Juniper Park Homes were being offered new for $4,490 and I can recall my parents giving the builder a $3 deposit for our house in what was then called Elmhurst. If I look hard enough in my family archives I think I still have that receipt. I was very young but I knew my parents were nervous because they were leaving their family way back in Brooklyn and moving to the “country.” Juniper Valley Park was just emerging and that became our backyard, a huge playground where I spent my childhood years playing sports. My Mom and Dad knew that paying rent to a landlord was no way to live and they were the first to break away from their close knit Italian family in Brooklyn. It was just before Pearl Harbor and I recall their concern about paying the mortgage for the house. As the advertisement states, “Terms like paying the landlord $33.88 monthly and getting $15.39 change!” They were the pioneers in their family. They took the big step from renters to homeowners and it was the best investment they ever made!