Post St. Blues-Fiona at the library

[jon]

RAISED A ROW ON POST AVENUE

A colored woman giving her name as Rosie McClellan was arrested on Post Avenue last evening for being drunk and creating a disturbance. At the police station she said that she had a husband, J. McClellan, who is now in Syracuse and from whom she expected some money last night. She is about thirty years of age. A neighbor stated that about nine o'clock last evening she heard a racket at No. 14 Post Avenue, accompanied by some very strong language. A man in the crowd which collected said that Mrs. McClellan was trying to kill her daughter.


UTICA SUNDAY JOURNAL - SEPTEMBER 6, 1896

[jon]

RAID ON POST AVENUE

Police raided a disorderly house at No. 14 Post Avenue Saturday night. the proprietress, Susan Gray, colored, was fined $10, and Clara Lepper, white, an inmate, was sent to jail for 50 days. Three other white inmates were released.


UTICA MORNING HERALD - NOVEMBER 22, 1897

[jon]

JUSTICE TO POST AVENUE

Frank Hall says that very neat and cozy homes are in Post Avenue. It is the transient element from Water street and Roberts Lane that makes the Avenue what it is - to the outsider. If Rev. Mr. Temple spend more time on the above streets he would make a few more converts.

Mr. Hall further states that the Afro-American League was organized by him and not by Mr. Temple, who was made president out of respect.


UTICA DAILY UNION - FEBRUARY 9, 1897

[jon]

PICNIC OF COLORED PEOPLE
__________________________________


A Swell Affair at Madison Lake - Utica Won the Ball Game[/size]

The colored people of Utica, Rome, Syracuse, Oneida and Norwich had a picnic at Madison Lake yesterday. It was a swell affair and about 800 of the high-toned colored population of the cities named, honored the occasion with their presence. Post Avenue was out in force and the street presented a deserted appearance all day, but its dwellers were very much in evidence in another place.

The chief event of the city at the lake was a ball game for a purse of $36, between two colored nines representing Utica and Norwich. As usual the denizens of the Ave were too swift for their out of town friends and they won by a score of 4 to 5. Dancing was enjoyed all day and evening to the music of Pell's orchestra. Several minor sports were also indulged in. Floyd Persette and Peter Charles had charge of all arrangements.


UTICA DAILY PRESS - 1899

[jon]

A PERPLEXING QUESTION
________________________

That is Just Now Under Consideration By Postmaster James Miller[/size]


Postmaster Miller is presumably considering a good many problems of practical police and postal administration. Among the points to which his mental faculties are directed are these two: Shall a colored man have an appointment in the Utica post office? If so, who shall it be? The Republicans look to the negroes for votes twice a year and sometimes succeed. The negroes look to the Republicans the year round for political favors and at last accounts were still looking. There is no good reason why a colored man could not make as good a letter carrier as his pale faced brother and certainly that race is entitled to some consideration. In the local instance there are two candidates who have any number of friends who are urging their cause.

[jon]

One aspirant is John Dining, who is regarded as quite influential in politics, and has a "pull." He has a prominent part to advising the residents of Post Avenue how to vote and shrewdly manages the politics of that neighborhood. He is a good businessman and has considerable property. He is well and favorably known in the community. The other candidate is Arthur P. Backinghan, who for years has been in the employ of T. R. Proctor, and who is now head waiter at the Butterfield House. His name has been suggested by several gentlemen who know him to be honest and reliable, and who would go on his bond if required. Mr. Backingham has an excellent education,is a young man of good character and a tax payer. Whether another or neither of these gentlemen will receive an appointment in the post office remains to be seen. There are colored carriers in other cities, why not in Utica.


UTICA DAILY PRESS - 1891

[jon]

ROUND ABOUT

Monday afternoon Glen Taylor and Julius Haynes, the negroes who engaged in the stabbing affray in Jackson's dance hall on Post Avenue. Utica, a week ago last Saturday night, were arraigned on the charge of assault in the third degree, and both pleaded guilty. Taylor was sentenced to one year in the penitentiary and to pay a fine of $200, and Haynes was sentenced to one year in the penitentiary and to pay a fine of $500. As they had no money they were committed.


ROMAN CITIZEN - AUGUST 17, 1892

[jon]

CITIZENSHIP ADDRESS

Utica papers printed in full last week an address of "Citizenship," delivered by Chas. H. Searle at the Post Avenue Baptist church by special invitation. Most favorable comment was elicited. Municipal reform is a subject upon which Mr. Searle is well qualified to speak. As president of the Good government Club his utterances carry more than ordinary weight. His speech was full of telling points in favor of clean politics and of scathing sarcasm against the methods adopted by machines and of evils following ring domination. down this way we know that Mr. Searle is capable of making a rattling good speech. It is easy to behave that on such a subject in which his sympathy id thoroughly enlisted that the good effect upon his auditors can not be but great and lasting. Another former resident, John C. Hoxie, of the firm of Griffin & Hoxie, is prominent in the good government movement. Both Mr. Searle and Mr. Hoxie are strong partisans on national affairs but they believe thoroughly in non-partisan control of home government. The influence of such men is a power for good in any community fortunate enough to include them among its citizens.


BROOKFIELD COURIER - OCTOBER 16, 1894

[jon]

PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES

On Monday it was reported to the town authorities that several colored people from Utica had taken up lodging at the "old farm house" on Kellogg street, and that the new-comers were fresh from Post Avenue, where a case of small pox had just been discovered. It is not claimed that these people have been exposed to the disease but from the fact that they had lived within a few doors of the infected premises it was deemed prudent to take all necessary precautions, and therefore the Board of Health was called together and it was ordered that the Kellogg street premises be quarantined and that all those residing there should be vaccinated. accordingly placards were posted on the house ans a guard placed to prevent all ingress and egress for at least ten days. There is no occasion for alarm and the action of the Health Board is only taken in order to be on the safe side. Meantime the visitors from Utica will probably remain as guests of the town.


CLINTON COURIER - MAY 16, 1894

[jon]

POLICE BUSINESS

There was a dark, impenetrable cloud hanging about the city court yesterday morning. While all was bright without everything seemed somber within. This was easily explained by the fact that Post Avenue had been transferred to the city court. During the night a house had been raided by the police, and Richard Bacon, Lucius Egert, William Wentworth, Lena Butler, Lizzie Ford and Mary Welch, stars on the Avenue,had been cruelly torn asunder and made to endure all the tortures of separation. Wentworth was the only white member of the party, and he was the least respectable of the gang. The butler woman was made to pay a fine of $28.50 for keeping a disorderly house and the Ford and Welch women were fined $13.50 each. The men were discharged. It is a queer kind of law that condemns the woman and exonerates the man.


UTICA MORNING HERALD - MAY 1, 1883

[Dave]

Fiona, I've taken the liberty of copying your post in the "New Series in OD" thread to this thread, Post Street Blues. Hope you don't mind, because you raised some great discussion points that merge in with this thread.

Fiona wrote:
"I think Post street runs North, south, but the structures were facing West. mabye I'm confused... I plan to be in that area on August 9th. As a matter of fact, the old central fire station, which is now a law library, is not that deep of a building. I don't know how far back into the Avenue they extended it, but Post Street is quite narrow, When I think of all those people crammed into that small area, with possibly no sanitation , a mud paved street, no wonder it was cheek to jowl with disorderly houses, ect. Anyone living there never had a chance. I am not surpised there was small pox, quite possibly TB also. From what I have read in all these reports, it sounds like something, a European ghetto from the middle ages. I wonder who owned all these buildings? Certaintly not the people who lived in them. And another thought... what purpose did all this so called social evil serve in the cultural scheme of things? It certaintly kept the police busy, the judges busy, the jails full, the city coffers full. Plus, all these people had to 'work" somewhere. Let's not forget that the upper class Victorians had a world view of "nobless oblige". They certaintly weren't going to do the work - all these Well's and Miller's and Munson's and Proctors and Searle's and Latcher's, ect, ect, in there big houses" up the hill". Like it or not, it was to their benefit to maintain an underclass of servants to do the really bad scut work -launderesses and night soil carriers and garbage haulers, even prostitutes. The immigrant Irish were, by the 1870's, moving up into jobs as brewery workers, house maids, governesses, gardeners, tavern and store owners, cigar makers, craftspersons, as you know. As this happened, the unfortunates of Post Street flodded in to fill up the gaps available in the jobs the Irish and the German's no longer wanted. It stands to reason this would happen. I mean, what ethnic group was left - the Indians??? Not very likley they would be doing any of it."

[Dave]

Here's a composite of maps and photos and artist renderings of Post St.

[Dave]

Post Street runs from the Burnet St. WestNorthWest to Charlotte St., if I'm reading the maps correctly.

Google Earth reads the street's length as 386 feet. For comparison, that's almost exactly the same distance you would walk if you stood in the exact center of the Busy Corner intersection and walked southwest to the exact center of where Genesee, Elizabeth and Columbia Streets join.

Roscoe Conkling, were he inspired to walk a distance of 386 feet, would descend his front steps on Rutger Park, cross Rutger St. and walk down John Street only past the first house on the corner.

In West Utica, 386 feet wouldn't take you much more than half way from Court St. up the driveway to the main Psych Center building.

In South Utica, 386 feet would take you from Genesee St. down Barton Avenue to the second door on Our Lady Of Lourdes School.

I spent my first nine years of life in a flat on Taylor Avenue between Leah and Square Streets, which Google earth measures as a distance of 427 feet. I can remember every single house on that street and who lived in them. And there weren't that many. If I swung my warms out in a circle about me while standing on our front porch ... the downstairs porch; Mom was afraid the upstairs porch would give way with any weight on it ... Dad didn't agree, I found out years later, but didn't want us on there anyway ... my circle would encompass the neighbors I remember almost 60 years ago. Clockwise was Mr. Meehan, then next door were the Winslows, then the Papes, then the two old ladies with the Reidells upstairs, now across the street to WhatsTheirName on the corner, then to Bobby Jones, then the Talerico's, then the Reilly's house, then WhatsTheirNames (not related to the other WhatsTheir Name), then the Nicotera's place, then that little house on the corner of Leah. And now back to my side of the street with "Mr. Walter's" grocery store on the corner, and coming back up the street that pissy childless couple in the yellow house, then Wienows and Slocums and back to us.

We probably weren't as packed in as the folks on Post Street, of course, but when I think of the amount of news and mayhem from such a small area, I try to compare it to our little block on Cornhill.
And I can't imagine it with the true flavor it must have held.

[Dave]

Regarding Fiona's post, which I reposted on this thread. It was all about land. By the time the Irish got here (and then the Italians, the Welsh, the Poles, etc.), there was none left, unless you wanted to buy it. That was not the preferred way to get rich. It was much more profitable to have the King give it to you or your ancestors, or to buy it up when it was cheap, or to inherit it, of course. Once you had substantial holdings, you rented out small chunks of it to farmers. These were poor peasants who rather than starve to death accepted your help to come over here from the War Capital of the World, Europe. Certainly you were doing them a favor; their only alternative was death at the hands of one invading army or another, sent by some God-anointed King or Baron who had been insulted by a peer at a garden party and used that as an excuse to rape and pillage his rival's country.

But land, no matter how acquired, was worthless unless you had some means to extract the wealth from it. So you owned hundreds of thousands of acres. So what? So rent it out to small farmers and they'll give you a portion of their crops or a cash equivalent and voila, you're now the richest person around. You could be dumb about it, like Livingston down here on the Hudson. He was smart to bankroll Robert Louis Stevenson's steamboat, but not so smart to insist on renting out all his land. When the next frontier beckoned, many of his tenants left him holding empty acres. General Cooper, on the other hand, sold his parcels to farmers and then stayed to help them make each of their farms profitable in what we today call Cooperstown, organizing marketing outlets in Albany, etc. He became just as rich as Livingston, but stayed rich in the long run.

Although the Irish missed the land grab, they might not have been disposed to land-based income anyway, having just witnessed what happened on the Ould Sod. What was now dawning on the working man was the concept of becoming independent by offering a service, rather than by growing another's crops.

But black men and women were at the absolute bottom of the ladder. They weren't considered human by many whites, and southern society had for centuries been trying very hard to keep them uneducated and segregated and dependent in order to keep them from rising.

[jon]

POLICE MATTERS

Post Avenue was in holiday attire yesterday, and the denizens of that classic precinct held a reception at the city court rooms in the morning. As is usual in such cases, two women were the cause of all the trouble. Carrie Jackson is proud, and when she goes out she likes to fix up. So last Saturday evening, she put on extra frills in her hair, an additional bang in front and a finer twist than usual behind. She then sallied forth to make her female friends green instead of black with jealousy and to set the hearts of the male portion of the colored race in a flutter. She succeeded admirably, between 10 and 11 o'clock on that evening, she strolled with an air of grace and easy indifference into the saloon of "Shad" Jackson in Post Avenue, looking for another "schooner" of beer to conquer. There she met "Mamie" Welch, who was making love in the most approved manner to Hart Miller (white) and was listening, joyously to the pretty chattering speeches, which often are designated as taffy and which the gallant Hart, knows so well how to say.