A New Sketch Of Old Utica COMMENTARY

[jon]

Nov 15, 2010 17:40:52 GMT -5 fiona said:

With all the pictures of this area I can't seem to be able to identify the Yates Hotel and O.K. Lunch which was next to it. Can anybody identify exactly where they were?

[Dave]

Jon, a couple of thoughts.

First, does this current view help, when compared to the postcard?

www.windsweptpress.com/images/first nat bing.jpg[/img]


Also, looking at the postcard, below, I believe the photographer must be standing on the canal bridge. I'd say that's the intersection of Catherine St. where I've marked it on the photo. In my day back there, the two story building with the angled corner was Mike Cuda and Don Stemmer's (Dick's uncle) Mobil Gas Station. I remember the OK Lunch being across and down (north) from that intersection about maybe a half a block? And unrelated to anything, I worked in that block afternoons in high school, I think in the building I outlined in green.




By the way, my story surrounding that after-school job is called, "Mr. Frypan," and is located at:
www.windsweptpress.com/essays.htm

[jon]

I asked Dick if he could identify the O.K Lunch from these pictures being that his wife Sharon used to work there. He said;

OK lunch was on the west side of Genesee St. a few doors north of Dickie Franks' Birdland.
In the "modern" view of the area, as shown on Dave's website, it would have been the ground floor space, in the last red brick bldg. going north towards the bridge. It is shown as painted white with, maybe, a white awning.

I'm pretty sure that was it.

Directly across Genesee St from OK lunch, was a bar where they had some live entertainment.-

Dick

[jon]

Nov 18, 2010 22:35:16 GMT -5 jon said:

Dick said:
Directly across Genesee St from OK lunch, was a bar where they had some live entertainment.

I think Dick is referring to The White Elephant where Dick and I used to sit in on Sundays with a Western group.

[Dave]

Jon, I remember the OK Lunch, but didn't go in often since I didn't live in Utica as an adult for very long, leaving at age 20. But in fact I remember Sharon, a pretty girl, behind the counter there, although I didn't know who she was (Dick's girlfriend) until she came along with him one night on a gig. (I don't remember any of us calling it a "gig" back then, come to think of it. We had a "job.")

My Dad would visit the OK, walking over from the OD, but more often took his lunch to work. And I remember a splash of color at night where you describe the White Elephant. It must have been their large lighted sign I remember passing when I'd walk or ride the bus back from North Utica on a Friday or Saturday night after taking my date home when I was in high school. Was the sign an elephant? I just remember thinking the place had such a large sign for such a small place.

[fiona]

Bird Land? Oh, boy! Being a good Catholic girl, me Ma would have wailed the tar off a me had I even beathed the name of Bird Land in our parlor. She said that " certain directly despicable types" went to Bird Land and that was the end of it. There was simply no more to say. But, when I turned 16 I headed directly for Charley Parkers...

[Dave]

Fiona, thanks for mentioning Great Grandpa Patrick (and Uncle John) in your tour. Their cigar store will appreciate the business. They hand rolled the cigars right on Bleecker Street. Patrick's son, Michael, the baseball player who is in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown (he was a star player for the Brooklyn team that would become the Brooklyn Dodgers) would travel to Cuba each year to select the "leaves" and bring them back aboard ship (and train) to Utica.

[fiona]

Thanks, Dave. I am reminded of living on 1215 Steuben ( no longer exhists) and playing baseball cards, "topsies" and of all the hundreds of cards I had stored in cigar boxes under my bed, and how good I was a the game. I was light and fast and could run like a cheetah. All the big boys wanted me on their teams ( the Ellis's). My knees were perpetually scabbed, but what a summer I had. That old bat and ratty glove. Home plate was whatever we had - an old pillow- whatever - the mound was whatever - Steuben Street rang with the voices of kids - everywhere. And the Roberts's next door - Gob Bless her soul - she always had a smile and a plate of cookies. Even now it brings tears to me eyes. Thank you.

[Dave]

You lived near where my mother grew up on Steuben St. If you stood in the middle of the intersection of Steuben and Louisa and turned to face the Hollywood bar, my grandfather's house was directly next door to the Hollywood on the left side. The home was a bungalo, parts of which he said dated back to the 1700's. Gramps ran a furnace installation business from a shop in the back of the house. He had no sign and business was entirely word of mouth. He was mostly retired when I was a kid, but he was basically a tinsmith (sheet metal worker) and built the old style octopus coal furnaces in place, right in your basement. And if you were converting from stoves upstairs in the living space and worried about this fire belching behemoth in your cellar, Grandpa would sleep in a chair down there next to his creation for a couple of nights until you felt safe with it.

[fiona]

I can almost picture it. Did your grandfather have a garage which opened out to the corner of Louisa and Steuben? Did he have a lot of plate glass and windows in there? When did he pass on? We lived there around 1956 -57.

[Dave]

Grandpa died around 1949 and Grandma sold the house in '49 or '50 and came to live with us. So, if you're thinking of the right house, the stuff may have belonged to whoever owned it afterward.
The house is gone now, torn down, but some time in the 70's or '80's, my brother drove down Steuben St. and saw a man sitting out on the front porch. He stopped and explained his grandparents had lived in the home and asked the man if the two of them could step inside to just take a look at the living room and kitchen. The man claimed he didn't live there, was only house sitting for a few days and didn't feel he could invite my brother inside. My brother didn't believe him, but didn't push it.

By the way, Grandma had a dickens of a time deciding to NOT have Grandpa "laid out" for the wake in her living room, or front room as we called it. . She knew he'd be very upset she wasted money on a funeral parlor, but her friends (and my mother) were persuading her to take the modern approach and let the undertaker do his stuff in HIS parlor. But a waste it was, really, because Grandma and Grandpa's front room was used only for very special guests, and for being "laid out." The last time anyone could remember being in it was after my parents' wedding.

[Dave]

Regarding "downstreet."
We said "downtown," but I remember often hearing the term "downstreet," I think from older residents and neighbors. And maybe my maternal grandmother. I wonder if it was a Utica-ism or if the usage was more universal.

[fiona]

everyone I knew, who was older, when I was growing up, said " down-street". The younger people all said "downtown".

[dicknaegele]

The term "downstreet" was still around when I lived in Newport in the 60's. We always talked of going downstreet for a coke and fries at the diner in the old Pioneer Inn. I also remember when we lived in Barneveld in the 50's that my dad would always say he was going "upstreet" for a pack of smokes. I guess those terms simply went away with time.

[Dave]

Dick, about an hour ago I was searching for "downstreet" via google and a few on line dictionaries without success. Except for the Urban Dictionary which said the term was used in small towns that didn't have a downtown big enough to call a downtown, just one street. I laughed at that and thought it condescending. But maybe it's true. Many members of the previous generation Fiona speaks of came to Utica from surrounding small towns.