Rubbish removal NYC company takes charge — of carbonated beverages
Soda super chargers, found in basement cleanout in Brooklyn
One man’s trash is another man’s childhood memory.
These are 1950s rechargeable soda syphon chargers that I found in Brooklyn a few years ago.
Soda syphons are devices that dispense carbonated or soda water. I have vivid memories of laughing uncontrollably at Tom and Jerry spraying each other with these things. They used to pick them up and shoot each other with water, as if they were garden hoses. You’d never see that in today’s cartoons.
When I went on this job in Brooklyn, the DiMola Bros crew had to clean out the entire basement of this one-family house. There was a ton of old stuff. So much stuff that you could barely walk.
In the main area of the basement, there was an old bar, complete with vintage stools and all the supplies to make drinks. Rheingold coasters and beer trays, swizzle sticks, and cocktail stirrers lined the shelves. The bar looked completed dingy and rundown, as if no one had stirred a martini or shaken a gimlet since 1950.
The owners of the house hadn’t been using the bar the way it was meant to be used. They filled it with garbage and junk, and finally said, “You know what, let’s tear it down.” That’s where I came in.
Naturally, I wasn’t going to walk out empty-handed, so I made sure to grab a bunch of stuff, including these soda chargers.
Soda syphons were extremely popular in the 1920s and ‘30s, but the idea of carbonated beverages was introduced in 1790 in France. While each of these chargers will make about a quart of soda water, they are only one piece of a slightly more complicated operation. You need an actual syphon to produce carbonated water. Luckily, The Soda King, the same company that makes these chargers, also produces a syphon. That’s next on my list of items to collect.
DiMola Bros Rubbish Removal
1640 Summerfield St.
Ridgewood, NY 11385
Phone: 718-326-6969
Fax: 718-326-7979
NGDimola@aol.com / http://dimolabros.com
Trash Treasures of New York City 
Tom & Jerry! Brings back memories! I remember that too. Awesome!!!
I just found your blog today and I read “Permanent Record” and I was referred to here.
This box brought a tear to my eye as I immediately recognized the box. My grandfather regularly used these cartridges for his soda during the nightly family cocktail hour. Always an Old Fashioned for him and a Shirley Temple for me. It is funny how something so mundane can have such an effect on a person.
Thank you for keeping memories alive even if it is not the subject you are writing about.