Post St. Blues-Fiona at the library

[jon]

Soon after she reached Utica she ran across a young man about town who thinks he is a real live wire, but she short circuited him and ran him into the ground so quickly that he yelled "police," and Miss Babbitt was arrested. The young man claimed he had been "touched" for $27, but the prisoner claimed she knew nothing about it. She was arraigned in City Court yesterday morning on the charge of public intoxication and pleaded not guilty, her case going over until this morning for examination. When arraigned to-day she changed her plea to guilty and was released on a suspended sentence under promise to leave the city.

In a raid on Post Avenue Saturday night four arrests were made, In the number was Michael Doti, an Italian, who was caught in the raid of the week before. The other three were Charles Varman, Manuel Deizelra of 139 West street and Nicholas Kroutsh of 133 West street. In City Court yesterday morning the three last named were released after investigation, and Doti was held in default of $100 bail for examination to-day.

Varman, Delxeira and Kroutch are indignant over their arrest and threaten legal proceedings. They claim they had been to buy some articles at the auction room of Hanass, which is on Bleecker street near Burnet street, and on their way to their homes on West street, went south over Burnet street and east over Post Avenue just in time to get nipped in the raid. They claimed they had not been in any of the houses there and had been guilty of no misconduct.

[jon]

Doti was arraigned in City Court this morning on the technical charge of vagrancy, but he denied he was a vagrant, claiming he had a job with the Canton Bridge Company. He was released with the admonition that if he were again caught on Post Avenue he would be sent to jail for six months.

John Cummings went to jail for 38 days on a charge of drunkenness and James Forbes and Thomas Clark were reprimanded and discharged.

Report was made to the police yesterday that a couple of men were stealing junk from the vicinity of the plant of the International Extract Company on North Genesee street. James Clark was found filling a bag and was arrested, while his companion, William Carson, made his escape. The latter was subsequently arrested on Post Avenue, and both were arraigned in City Court this morning on the charge of petit larceny. Both pleaded not guilty, and were held under $200 bonds each for examination February 1.

Patrick Hines took 30 days for public intoxication.


UTICA HERALD DISPATCH - JANUARY 29, 1906

[jon]

POST AVENUE HOVEL RAIDED
_____________________________________

OTHERS SHOULD BE BROKEN UP[/size]
_____________________________________

A Mix-up of White and Colored People in a Small Room - Charges Made By Two Italians Who Had Been Relieved of a Small Sum - A Place That Should Mot Be Tolerated[/size]

A bit of the undercurrent of life's highways as degraded and as much depraved perhaps as could be found on an excursion through New York's slums, was uncovered in a Post Avenue hovel last night by policeman Clark and Mulee. The incandescent lights on the gilded cross surmounting St. John's Church will cast a little shadow into the doorway of the place on Easter Sunday morning, two weeks hence. The Y.M.C.A. is not so far away but that the shouts of the boys can be heard as they play basket ball in the gymnasium week nights. Nearly a hundred yards away, at the end of the sileys in the girls entrance to the Advanced School Around on the other side is the site for the new court house. People who pass along Elizabeth street and notice a shoemaker's shack leaning halfway over the sidewalk as though it were about to topple over, can look through a twenty-lited wide areaway and see the fear of the hovel. It was this areaway that gave the policemen access to the place.

[jon]

Through the back door they made their way into a two-story wooden tenement at 11 Post Avenue. There are several families in the place, white, negro and nondescript, intermixed. The part of the place to which the officers gave attention was a ground floor room about ten feet by twelve feet in size, which, according to the statements of two Italians came a rises a "disorderly house." The officers found there Mrs. Addie John, colored, who is charged as being the keeper of the place, her two children, a two-year-old boy and a year-old infant; the white man with whom she has been living, George Gwilt, who has never done any work except when the county had its jail prisoners building made: Emma Monroe, white; a colored man and Gussie Robertson, colored. There were persons in the room and to all intents it was their only stopping place. The room contained a stove, a table, a bed and bunk. The walls were stained and black with soot and dirt. A single kerosene lamp lighted up the dingy apartment. Two or three strings of newly-washed clothing hung near the stove. The door to the hallway leading to the street had for a fastening a piece of twine, and the hallway itself was merely an unlighted opening through which the occupants might stumble into the street.

[jon]

The Italians stated that they visited the place and were relieved of money, one of 15 cents and the other of 25 cents. Where the colored people had their money they laughed at them. Then the Italians made the complaint which gave the police what they had been awaiting- a legal excuse for cleaning out the place. Of the occupants of the room they only left Mrs. John, who had to care for the children. The Robinson girl before being taken to the police station gave a lurid exhibition of cursing. The Monroe woman admitted the crime charged against her. All were locked up charged with being inmates of a disorderly house.

Post Avenue has existed about long enough, surrounded as it is by churches, orphan asylums, schools and a Y.M.C.A, There are even worse places there than the police cleaned out last night. There is no excuse for having tenements there, when vacant lots are so numerous and extensive.


UTICA DAILY PRESS - APRIL 10, 1903

[fiona]

I think that little grouping of buildings above in the Bing ariel shot is all that is left of the New York Bakery.

[fiona]

a continuation of "the romance of an old street."

Local history is not very full of what Post Street stood for before 1850, which is as far back as we can grope our way. At that time, however, it was populated by colored people and a few white families who were attracted to the low rents. The street was named after John Post, a pioneer merchant of Utica, who traded red -eye, the white man's solace, to the Indians for there cache of furs, and made some money doing it. Evidentally, when the noble red man got tanked up, they stayed there to sleep off there jags, for an early writer says: It was no uncommon thing for 30 to 40 Indian men, women and children to remain all nite at his place, and that Mr. Post kept the dirtiest tavern in the State of New York. Whether or not the sins he committed, like chickens, came home to roost, Post Street has had a bitter flavor for many years. Back in the years following 1850, Trum Smith conducted a grocery store at the southwest corner of Post and Charlotte Streets. There the darkies used to gather on summer evenings to sing and dance, as happy and contented as the day was long. On the other corner lived Nance Whitaker,a matron of goodly proportions, who was the arbiter of all questions of ettiquette, fashion and social preference. A veranda ran along side of the house and there Nance would sit and hold court. She was the mother of Charlie Whitaker and the stepmother of Johnnie Jackson, two of the leading sports of the street. Charlie was a robust, industrious boy and one of the star players of the Fearless Baseball Club, a team of colored Uticans who waged a bitter war with the heavy hitter of Canajoharie for the colored championship of the Mohawk Valley. (to be continued)

[Dave]

May 15, 2010 16:14:17 GMT -5 fiona said:

I think that little grouping of buildings above in the Bing ariel shot is all that is left of the New York Bakery.

The building looks like the old bakery to me, too, but I persist in thinking the bakery was on the east side of the street. Faulty memory, I guess.

[Dave]

The Fearless Baseball Club. I love it! And come to think of it, those black men had to pretty fearless in those days to travel around the valley just to play ball.

[jon]

The picture I posted her of Gerber's Grill, Batchelor Seed, Genesee Office Equipment is still there on the East side of Hotel at Liberty.

[jon]

May 15, 2010 16:14:17 GMT -5 fiona said:

I think that little grouping of buildings above in the Bing ariel shot is all that is left of the New York Bakery.

The New York Bakery is completely gone. It was on the East Corner of Broadway and Liberty.

[Dave]

Yes, that's right! The the NY Bakery was at the corner of Liberty and Broadway. So the place in the center of this photo is, I'll bet, the bar that I remember.

[jon]

You can still get alcohol there, but they put it on your face when you get your shave and hair cut at Freeman's Barbershop in the picture above. The upstairs windows are all boarded up, as is the connecting building on Liberty to its West. The large window of that building says Steve's Cold Cuts. I seem to remember Fenton's Shoes awhile back on that corner.

[jon]

Store Proprietor
Foils Holdup Try

_{By CHARLES McCARTHY}

A 66-year-old Liberty Street shoe store proprietor foiled a holdup late yesterday afternoon at his store by being his own gun.

Capt. Nicholas D. Russo of the criminal Investigation Division nightwatch, said Henry Fenton, of 120 Ridge Road; operator of Fenton's Shoe Store at 200 Liberty at the corner of Washington, said the incident occurred about 5:15.

* * *

[jon]

HE SAID Fenton was in the store when a woman came into the store on the pretense of buying shoes. He said two men came in behind her.

Fenton said one of the men said "This is a holdup," and pulled out what appeared to be a revolver and pointed it at Fenton.

Captain Russo said Fenton then pulled out his own .38 caliber revolver and fired several shots. He said the trio then fled the store.

* * *

RUSSO SAID he didn't know whether a car was used, or whether any of the shots from Fenton's gun struck any of the intruders. However, he said a number of cartridges were found in the store. Nothing was taken from the store.

The captain said a number of persons were being questioned and the investigation was being continued by Investigator Fred Bruzzese and David Newman.

UTICA DAILY PRESS - 1972