RIVERDALE RAT
263 posts
Sep 13, 2009
3:47 PM
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Well I have a few more things for us to remember I tried to pick items that are not already on the board somewhere, if I duplicate some of them please forgive me. I was going to put these on the thread that I already started but I dont want one thread to swell so big that it becomes difficult to read and has to eventually be locked down....here goes.
Does anyone remember the home delivery trucks from Whites Bakery ? they were small faded yellow trucks with a red decal that read "Whites" I dont recall the bakery itself, just the trucks. they had the best coffee cakes around.
The Civil War museum on the 2nd floor of the old memorial hall building at East 1st street and St. Clair. I can remember my mother going to memorial hall one evening to see Jack Benny. if memory serves it was also home to The Kennley Players.
Watching Bob Shrieve and B.W. on late night T.V. Shrieve always wore that dumb hat and had the rubber chicken. his show was sponsored by Schoenling and I think he may have broadcast from a station in Cincy. B.W. was a Dayton local (I think)
Listening to U.D Flyers Basketball on the radio. coached by Tom Blackburn and sponsored by Mike Sell's Potato Chips and Vic & Mom's Pizza King.
The WING studio on west 1st street when the Disc jockey used to sit in the window and spin records. they were on the ground floor of the Talbot Tower just across from the Loretto. remember their jingle " High Flying W I N G" the girls used to crowd around the window and try to get the attention of their favorite Disc Jockey while he was on the air.
The all night coffee shop in the Biltmore Hotel. thats the first place I ever tried French Fries covered with brown Gravy. they was delicious and the ladies of the evening were everywhere at night.
Rinks Bargain Barn, the Traffic Circle.
When Downtown used to stay open till 9:00 PM on Monday and Thursday.
Red Cross and Schiff's shoe stores
The Virginia Cafeteria on East 3rd street. (just past Beermans Department Store)
Lou Emm on WHIO Radio.
$2.00 Beer Blast nights at the Diamond Club.
The old Blue front Lawsons Dairy stores, AKA Death Traps to LE.
Downtown Dayton Days (biggest sale of the year)
The Dog House Restaurant on North Main Street.
The Empress Chili House on brown Street. they served Cincinatti style 5 way Chili.
Jim Flynn's sporting goods stores.
Last Edited by RIVERDALE RAT on Jul 18, 2014 7:35 PM
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rodat6
86 posts
Sep 13, 2009
5:29 PM
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I remember Just Joe Bower who was a local DJ but forget which station, I think that he locked himself in the DJ room and played one song over and over and over for a few hours and I forget the name of the song. The song was very catchy but don't remember words, had a nice beat though. Could have been WONE but not certain,
I worked at Elder Beerman's on, was it 4th street, S/W corner? for a Xmas season as a stock boy, trained Santa Claus in being a stock boy. Bought my mother a nice clock radio and a faux bear throw rug, soft and white.,
One of the stock people, name of Healy, Dennis I think had a brother Tim who was a gang banger who liked to rumble, never did rumble myself. He was a Wall Gang member at the courthouse and Little MIke Kenney was another.
Above the Arcade were apartments.
Some kid somewhere figured out that if you bit into a pay phone cord and spit on it then rubbed it on the lock, you'd get a dial tone. I'm sure that caused the cable to become metal clad.
Another thing they did was stuff a piece of paper up the coin slot and would come by and get all of the returned coins by pulling the paper out. That surely prompted the metal insert in the coin area as they are today although I haven't used a pay phone in a decade I suppose.
On Main Street just south of 5th on the east side around the corner from Red White and Blue pool hall there was a pay phone that didn't have a money box, it was gone and stayed gone for several weeks, Several times each day I would go to that box and stick my finger in the area where the coin box once was and trip a spring loaded door at which time a hand full of coins fell out. This would have been around 1958 I suppose. Kept me in change for a few weeks, never saw another pay phone w/o the coin box though,
Remember the fire department poles where you could pull a door open and trip a lever causing a response from the fire department, Well I never pulled on but some kids did from time to time, the last one I saw would be in the early Fifties. I think they would put a little phosphorus on your fingers for identification but that's what I was told, don't really know if that were true.
I remember Mike Sells Potato Chips.
How did you get the name Riverdale Rat, I knew a few from the Fifties, they were older guys, 10 years my senior, I was around 17 and this was in 1959? They had a 'cut em close club' with automobiles. I went to Colonel White and hung in Upper Riverdale, was attacked in Lower Riverdale by about 5 boys who beat on me once, said I was looking at their girls but wasn't necessarily,
In the late Forties I remember the milk man because in the summer we kids would get ice to suck on from the truck. I remember hiding in a closet with my mother when the milk man came to collect once.
I think that Monday was wash day and we had a tub with a hand ringer that they would get out of the pantry then hang everything on the line.
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dquartz
163 posts
Sep 13, 2009
6:02 PM
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i totally forgot about jim flynns. was there ever one downtown ?
dont remember a whites bakery or the trucks.
i remember lawsons but not the chili parlor on brown street. where was it ?
i remember the coffee shop in the biltmore, they used to have a brownie cop standing by the front door to keep out the hookers and the hippies. they could come in if they had money and promised to buy something and didnt solict or panhandle anybody while they were there.
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RIVERDALE RAT
266 posts
Sep 13, 2009
6:30 PM
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rodat6: I forgot all about the Arcade apartments.
I remember the phone tricks, another one was to stick a bobby pin or a paper clip up into the bottom part of the reciever where the wire came out and jiggle it around till you got a dial tone.
I remember the store on 4th and main. I was thinking that used to be just known as Elders before they merged with Beermans.
the old Fire Alarm pull stations were around as late as the mid 60s for sure because I know a kid that got sent to JDC for pulling the one on Mc Pherson st. they hi-tech ones used to be double sided. the front was painted red and contained the Fire Alarm pull station and the backside was painted blue and contained a old Crouse and Hines Police Call box that opened with a key. that was how the street cops used to check in with the station for calls and call for the paddy wagon when they had someone under arrest. this of course was back in the days when cops walked a beat and portable radios were unheard of. the Levers on the Fire Pull Boxes really were coated with phosphorus, this was true. they used to have a really bad problem with bored kids pulling the alarms and this was also a favorite Halloween prank. the phosphorus helped to identify the guilty party.
Riverdale Rat was just a name I pulled out of the air when I first found this board and needed to sign in to ask a question. I have had several questions about it. I was never affiliated with a gang or group of guys that was called the Riverdale Rats. somebody said that there was once a band called the Riverdale Rats. I also was not associated with this group. thanks for the post, you jogged back some old memories.
Last Edited by on Sep 13, 2009 7:25 PM
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RIVERDALE RAT
267 posts
Sep 13, 2009
6:40 PM
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dquartz: the Jim Flynns was close to downtown but not in the center of town. it was at west 2nd st. Just a couple of doors west of St Clair. on the south side of the street. they had their own free standing building. there was an old apartment building next door to the East of them with a bar on the corner.
Whites Bakery and their home delivery trucks was around till the mid 60s if memory serves.
The Empress Chili Parlor was on the west side of brown street just a couple of doors from Wyoming. the building sat back off the street next door to the Bar. if you Google it you will see that the building is still standing, it looks like some type of Asian restaurant is there now.
Last Edited by on Sep 13, 2009 6:41 PM
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RCINKY
6 posts
Sep 13, 2009
7:47 PM
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Somehow recall this jingle for Lawsons
Roll on Big O
Get that Juice Up to Lawsons in 40 hours
Now one man sleeps while the other one drives
On the non-stop Lawson's run
And the cold cold juice in the tank car caboose
Stays as fresh as the Florida sun
Roll on Big O
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rodat6
87 posts
Sep 13, 2009
9:07 PM
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Samstone, there was a Xray machine in Thom McAnn's on the corner of Ludlow and 4th street or maybe that was the next street over, northeast corner. Looking at our bones in our shoes was a fun thing to do at the time. lol.
Riverdale, the Rats were not a gang of bad people, they were good, Jim Gibson went on to be a city health inspector, Jim Allen was fairly brilliant and a guy by the name of Spike, that's all I remember.
JDC was Juvenile Diagnostic Center in Columbus, that's where they glue wires to your head and evaluate you. I was sentenced there but due to a quarantine at the local Juvenile Detention Home (DH) and the length I was there because of it, I was sent to a city psychiatrist who gave me ink blot tests and such, turned out that I was anti social and resentful of authority, I could have told them that. Look at our world and tell me that we have intelligent humans at the helm. LOL.
Growing up I did not like the choices offered by the troubled and less intelligent humans who were making the rules. Not a single year where there was no war, my my, L + )
I've worked for myself, created my own jobs all of my life except for 3 times for 6 months or less of working for others, In my profession I am semi world famous, my manual having sold several copies in Japan.
Last 8 months business all over including mine is like a roller coaster ride although this past 4 day work week was excellent so I will be able to help pay some of the expenses. Wife and I had 9 children, she wanted 12, lots of grandchildren, not many dull moments and basically became a slave to my efforts but live and learn and I have learned. I have also learned that you don't bring something that you love to a planet that is more interested in not making peace if you follow.
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dquartz
164 posts
Sep 13, 2009
9:33 PM
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RCINKY.. i remember that jingle it was always on television with the two guys driving the tanker full of orange juict to be delivered to lawson. i remember when they used to sell it in glass jugs. i also remember buying a quart of ice cream for 26 cents. it was 25 cents for the ice cream and a penny tax.
thanks for making me remember that stuff.
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dquartz
165 posts
Sep 13, 2009
9:38 PM
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rodat6: that was a really neat story. iam not sure what riverdale was talking about but when i was young we all used to say JDC to refer to the juvenile detention center. it was a quite common phrase among kids in those days and the last place we wanted to end up.
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dquartz
166 posts
Sep 13, 2009
9:53 PM
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riverdale..what was the loretto ? you said it was across from wing radio station. i think i saw another question about this place on another thread somewhere a while back. was the loretto a night club ?
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rodat6
89 posts
Sep 13, 2009
11:55 PM
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I think the Loretto was a place for young girls but I could be mistaken.
dquartz, we used to call it DH for detention home, I was there a few times for childhood mischief, they were in a old, large house just west of Salem avenue south of Superior, girls on one side, boys on the other. We had Thursday night being preached at by a Dayton cop, Detective Reed who partnered with Detective Parks. and we got to see the girls as well at a movie a month and an occasional square dance which was always fun.
We had school and arts craft by Mrs. Phillips and Cookie was the cook, Mrs. Lerner was the laundress and cue ball Bill, Dan, Frank and Russ were staff, I forget the supt. name but could probably remember if I thought. My memory is supposed to be bad since I had a aneurysm in my head in 2004 but it isn't, the only thing that I cannot remember is 6 weeks when that happened save for a few dreams. Mr Brown was a super for awhile and there was another guy...
I stopped getting into trouble when I turned 18, wanted to start fresh and I did but that took living in L.A. from 1960 to 1962. I worked with the guy who kidnapped Frank Sinatri, Jr. less than a year before the event, I even hired the attorney to defend him as it said in the paper that he had no money for an attorney, by that time I was living in New Orleans, had given him my 46 Cadillac when I moved and wondered if he used it in the kidnapping but he hadn't. Never heard from him again and later his attorney Gladys Towels Root wrote a book called Defender of the Damned in which it said that a unknown industrialist hired her. All she wanted to take the case was $50. and never asked for anything more, she just wanted the case... lol. Never saw or heard from John Irwin again, a friend and I were in the house painting business with John in L.A. for maybe 6 months and felt sorry for him.
He was a big fellow, told me that he used to be a bookie in New Jersey but decided to get out of the business, someone found out that he was leaving town, poured sugar in his gas tank, said he made it to St. Louis before his engine seized. We painted a large house in Long Beach, John had a old panel truck we used to ride there from our home in L.A. every day there and back for a few weeks. He was an interesting person, probably dead now but not sure. He wasn't the principal in the kidnapping, he was the boyfriend of the kidnappers mother who went along to keep Frankie safe which he did and Sinatri said on the stand that had they met under other circumstance they would have been friends
Living in New Orleans for 6 years was interesting, on this board there is a lot of talk about different restaurants but New Orleans has the best food I have ever had access to, the seafood was especially good, the poor boy sandwiches were terrific, a trout or roast beef poor boy were scrumptious to say the least although I do remember chicken in the red basket in Dayton and the fries, my mouth waters. I even miss the soft pretzel sales at school, a nickel a piece and they were good, never had anything like them since.
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rodat6
90 posts
Sep 14, 2009
12:01 AM
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I don't remember a x-ray in McCook plaza during the Forties or up to 1958-9, the only one I ever saw was downtown. I spent a great deal of time at the McCook complex since I lived nearby and that was the heart of my paper route, picked up my 63 papers early in the morning at Gallaghers there, 6 days a week. Two of my customers were 24 hour machine shops, had 1 motel, delivered to Kathleen Kennedy Brown's mansion for a year, dogs barked at me, Doberman Pinchers chained at the first house, scary times.
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RIVERDALE RAT
273 posts
Sep 14, 2009
12:01 AM
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dquartz: the Loretto was like a Catholic Y.W.C.A. it was a residential type place where girls stayed while going to school. thats all I know about it. if memory serves it was operated by a order of Catholic sisters.
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tlturbo
153 posts
Sep 14, 2009
5:09 AM
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Beer nights at Diamond Club - of course. Wed & Sunday.
And we would listen to the UD games with Blackburn or watch them on TV. I dated a girl for a while because her company had a box at the new 'underground' Flyer Stadium. When I worked on UD campus for MISCO, we would eat dinner at the Italian restaurant across from the Fairgrounds and watch the games on TV.
Around the late 60's, there was a show on BEFORE Dr Creep came around that showed old spook shows. It had another guy that dressed up weird and I thought it was sponsored by a local beer company too. Anyone know the name of it?
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pie8me
40 posts
Sep 14, 2009
8:51 AM
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Bob Shrieve, lol, I watched him a lot when I was in my teens. He'd get aboult half shnokered as the night went on. For a time he did Fridays at WHIO in Dayton then do Saturdays at WCPO in Cincy. I remember one night, Bill Cosby was on the show. Bill was doing standup and caught Shrieve's show in his hotel. He must have thought it was funny, went to the studio and more or less walked on the show.
One really cold February day, Steve Kirk gave concert tickets or something to the first girl that showed up at WING in a bikini. Kirk also did the 'repeating song' bit while other personalities desperately tried to talk him out of the 'locked' studio.
I've been told that Emperess Chili was really the first Cincinnati chili and that since they closed, Skyline has been fudging history a bit. Can't verify though.
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driver62
251 posts
Sep 14, 2009
1:09 PM
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turbo - Would that person happen to be the Cool Ghoul or was he on a Cincinnati station? Bob Shrieve was sponsored by Schoenling beer so maybe he's the one.
Edit: Oops. Just read the above post and the question was already answered. Read before typing.(lol)
Last Edited by on Sep 14, 2009 1:11 PM
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pie8me
50 posts
Sep 14, 2009
1:44 PM
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Wasn't the Cool Ghoul out of Indy? Channel 4 I think. Late at night, weather permitting the signal would reach Dayton. Never understood why we could get an Indianapolis station but not Columbus.
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dquartz
176 posts
Sep 14, 2009
7:11 PM
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i remember buying stuff at jim flynns but i dont ever remember being in the one downtown.
did jim flynns sporting goods have a store in forrest park maybe ?
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RIVERDALE RAT
280 posts
Sep 14, 2009
7:31 PM
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rodat6: JDC was what the kids used to use in my neck of the woods to describe "juvenile Detention Center" (like quartz said) that was Elmo Careys opening line when you were doing something that he didnt like. I can still hear him. " hey son come here a minute, do you wanna ride down to JDC ?" luckily I avoided the place.
tlturbo: I forgot which nights it was but you are right, Wed and Sun. what good times that was.
pie8me: I remember the call for the first girl in a Bikini, if memory serves there was quite a few takers.
Emperess Chili was the first Cincinnati chili to come to dayton. I think Skyline may have been the first in Cincinnati. is Skyline in Dayton Now ?
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Steve K
111 posts
Sep 15, 2009
8:20 AM
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Didn't WING have a girl in the window back when "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" was a hit? We used to watch the Cool Ghoul in Cleveland... I suspect there may have been more than one of them? Empress Chili is the Wah Fu restaurant now I think.
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RIVERDALE RAT
294 posts
Sep 15, 2009
10:14 AM
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SteveK: dont remember the girl but that sounds like something they would do. funny you should mention that song, I just listened to it Sunday on You-tube. and you are right about Empress, I just checked it out on Google and that is their building where Wah Fu now is.
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rfk61
57 posts
Sep 15, 2009
5:00 PM
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Riverdale...I see the old Lawsons buildings all the time. You can tell that they used to be Lawsons stores, they have that "look". There are two within minutes of my house. We used to have one behind our house when growing up in Beavercreek in the 70s. My sister worked there for awhile. Mom used to send us up there to get milk or lunch meat and then we could get ourselves a treat with the change.
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RIVERDALE RAT
303 posts
Sep 15, 2009
7:54 PM
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rodat6: Thats quite a story and reminds me of several times I could have gotten jammed up because of things my idiot friends done. luckily I avoided most of the mishaps. the closest I came to a serious problem was when I helped two guys push their broken down car up the street and into their garage. turns out the idiots were stealing the car from some old ladies driveway a few doors down from where I became involved. I got stopped a few blocks away and taken to the Police station for questioning. not JDC but the police station on west 3rd. I was on the second floor in some guys office the whole time. I think his name was Moss if memory serves. They finally let me go after about 5 hours and even gave me a ride home. that was the longest five hours of my life, I thought I was a goner. JDC was at a new or semi new location on Perry (I think) between 1st and 2nd street.
rfk61: Yes, I remember when the town was full of Lawson stores, they was all over that part of the state. they always had a fairly simple inventory and their products was always fresh. too bad they never stuck around. another piece of Americana thats gone forever.
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rodat6
97 posts
Sep 15, 2009
8:32 PM
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I was in the old large building but then I visited Dayton, took a train from New Orleans in the mid Sixties in the dead of winter to visit family, it was really cold and the wind was strong and I was wearing a full length wool coat that was long but I still froze. I went and visited superintendent Brown at the new place and he showed me around, the gym was huge.
At the old Detention Home before that fateful New Years eve, a school friend Paul Souder was in there for some mischief, I forget what but I went in the alley one night and he was in isolation and we could talk and he wanted some cigarettes so I climbed over the high fence, ran across the outdoor recreational yard about 100 feet up to the back of the building and handed him some smokes.
Paul was in one of my Colonel White classes, he lived out north Salem around Free Pike I think. He was the wildest person I have ever met in my life thus far. To sneak into the RKO Colonial he would walk through the door past the ticket taker and when challenged, he would run up the stairs into the balcony, down and to the Ludlow door and let me and his brother Don in at which time we would find a seat and watch the movie. One time during the day we all went in past the ticket taker and kept running, only problem was there were no people in the theater and no movie showing so we were chased by all of the usher and the 3 of us made it to the Ludlow door and ran our butts off.
Another time Paul and I got a case of Carlings Black Label Beer and were driving around on the outskirts of Dayton going somewhere to drink it and party. I am so glad that we were stopped by the police and had out been confiscated. Very glad. Whew, I was in my mother's tummy when Pearl was bombed, she had me during the summer when the USA was doing terrible with all of the east coast shipping being sunk and other loses around the globe. She had it rough, her milk must have soured or something, l.
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dquartz
180 posts
Sep 15, 2009
9:28 PM
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Riverdale..what did you mean by aka death traps to le on the lawsons store posts ?
Last Edited by on Sep 15, 2009 9:28 PM
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RIVERDALE RAT
310 posts
Sep 16, 2009
1:45 PM
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dquartz: anybody who has ever had to deal with problems at the old lawsons stores will know. lets leave it alone and see if anybody knows what I am talking about..lol
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RIVERDALE RAT
311 posts
Sep 16, 2009
7:05 PM
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Mikey: I forgot all about the "Johnson" part of Elders. I think Johnson may have already been out of the picture by the time they merged with Beerman. (just a guess) I never made it to the Paris store but I did attempt to find the one in London. I was on the way back from Columbus and I stopped off I-75 in London, looked for the place almost an hour and all I found was a Prison and a bunch of cows. I stopped some folks and ask them where their Elders was located, they thought I was checking on the whereabouts of their grandparents. I gave up and came back to Dayton.
Last Edited by on Sep 16, 2009 7:08 PM
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dquartz
187 posts
Sep 17, 2009
5:04 PM
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riverdale, thats funny....but not a true story i hope ?
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RIVERDALE RAT
315 posts
Sep 17, 2009
10:51 PM
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dquartz: Of course it's true. wink, wink.
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dquartz
197 posts
Sep 18, 2009
9:36 PM
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riverdale...ok you had me wondering because there is/was really a prison in london...lol. i remember hearing my mother call it elder & johnson too but i forgot all about the johnson part too.
Last Edited by on Sep 18, 2009 9:36 PM
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dquartz
211 posts
Sep 19, 2009
3:21 PM
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riverdale...nobody knows what death traps to le, aka lawsons means, can you tell us now? and maybe we will remember it too. (my curiosity is getting the better of me) also i dont remember there ever being any kind of museum in memorial hall, just a place where they put on shows. are you sure it was in the same building ?
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Curt Dalton
189 posts
Sep 20, 2009
7:50 PM
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Roll On Big O - commercial here ..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7r6A6YQdtI
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RIVERDALE RAT
350 posts
Sep 21, 2009
8:00 PM
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Curt: Thanks for the "Big O" link and the information on the relocation of the Museum Piece's. I can remember my Dad taking me up to see the display. I remember that they had a lot of Uniform parts, Belt Buckles and pieces of equipment that were in incredibly good shape for their age. Thats about all I recall, I was only there once and it's been a lot of years.
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dquartz
226 posts
Sep 22, 2009
10:57 PM
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good information on memorial hall. i wish i could have seen the museum. i walked/drove past there a thousand times on the way to sears. does anybody else remember this ? just wondering how popular it was and why i never knew it.
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RIVERDALE RAT
373 posts
Sep 26, 2009
8:30 PM
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dquartz: The Civil War display at Memorial Hall was never a tourist attraction in my era. we found it one day by following a sign up the stairs off of the main lobby. maybe it was a big attraction back in the day when the place first opened. but by the 60s-70s it never seemed like that big of a deal.
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dquartz
249 posts
Oct 01, 2009
2:51 AM
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i remember passing there on the way to sears. sears used to be one of my favorite stops. they had a snack bar in the back off the monument ave entrance. they had the best hot dogs and root beer in all of downtown.
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tlturbo
166 posts
Oct 01, 2009
4:55 AM
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I have this crazy rememberance of Sears as a little kid (early 50's) having an entrance from the parking lot that went to a level underground. Did this store have a first floor below ground level or am I really loosing it this time?
Remember all the pawn shops along 3rd street St going East from Main toward the libraby? I used to walk from EF McDonalds out to the Army/Navy Surplus Store at lunch and I always had to look at all the neat stuff in the pawn shops.
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Marck1957
83 posts
Oct 01, 2009
5:47 AM
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Sears did have a lower floor, what I would call a basement. There was an escalator in the middle of the store that took you downstairs. I don't remember an entrance to the basement from the parking lot, but there may have been one.
Last Edited by on Oct 01, 2009 5:48 AM
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RIVERDALE RAT
383 posts
Oct 01, 2009
1:43 PM
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Same here, I remember a Basement level and the Escalator but no entrance to the lower level from the parking lot which was on the East side of the building.
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RIVERDALE RAT
384 posts
Oct 01, 2009
3:53 PM
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SteveK: Are we talking about the Sears at 1st and Patterson ? because I cant seem to remember that. and the parking area was flush with the 1st floor so I dont see how you could walk into the lower level without going down a flight of stairs ?
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dquartz
251 posts
Oct 01, 2009
5:18 PM
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i cant remember that either, i think one of the suburban stores was set up like that. the parking area was around back and even with the basement level of the store....not saying it wasnt there just i cant remember anything like that at 1st and patterson.
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Curt Dalton
196 posts
Oct 01, 2009
5:18 PM
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Hi guys. I have added a new picture album that will eventually have a couple hundred pictures of Dayton from the 1950s if the site stays up past December. I have placed a couple of pictures of Sears on First from 1953 that I have. Look under the Dayton Images/Videos section under "Dayton in the 1950s" or go here http://www.daytonhistorybooks.citymax.com/dayton1950s.html. Click on the pictures to make them bigger.
Curt
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dquartz
253 posts
Oct 01, 2009
5:24 PM
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curt...gee, thanks thats a really great addition to the site.
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corvettes6
55 posts
Oct 01, 2009
7:40 PM
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there was a section of Sears along Monument Ave that was 3 or 4 steps down to a mediam leval i think the livestock area was there and insurance when you went into the main store up 3 or 4 steps there was a lower leval {basement} that had sweepers at bottom of stairs and the tool area among other merchindise
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Steve K
141 posts
Oct 01, 2009
7:44 PM
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Yeah... what corvettes6 just said.... there was a full basement where the appliances, tools, and bicycles were, but this was different.... sort of barely sunk into the ground... lower than the "real" first floor, I think.
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Curt Dalton
197 posts
Oct 01, 2009
10:22 PM
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Hey guys, it has been pointed out to me that perhaps the entrance I have as being on First Street may have been the Monument Avenue entrance instead? They have a point, as it looks like downtown on the right in the first picture (big building in the background). Which makes the other view from where? I only went there once so I can easily believe that I am confused.
Curt
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RIVERDALE RAT
385 posts
Oct 02, 2009
2:35 AM
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Curt: We can see how the rest of the guys think, but I am convinced that's Monument Avenue. the building showing in the corner of the photo and off in the distance, is the rear of the Biltmore Hotel (much farther away than it looks). also looks like traffic flowed Eastbound in those days ?
I am somewhat confused by the loading dock photo. my best guess on this one is Monument and St. Clair, looking East, or perhaps on the East side of the building (prior to parking lot expansion) but that really does not look like a Westward view towards Downtown. any better ideas guy's ?
Last Edited by on Oct 02, 2009 2:44 AM
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Marck1957
84 posts
Oct 02, 2009
5:09 AM
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That entrance photo is facing north, towards the river, and across the street from the Sears car service building. That's Monument Street in the foreground. I am going to suggest that the reason we have a hard time seeing that entrance in our minds, is perhaps because it was closed off in later years (?).
The dock area was in the rear of the building, facing west,as Rat indicates. Monument Street is on the left, and I think that most, or all, of downtown's street were two-way streets back then. That would be an interesting topic, if anyone has any knowledge of it.
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LINDA09
4 posts
Oct 02, 2009
4:06 PM
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Hey all...I can remember that the "basement " level at Sears was also the toy department.At Christmas it was GREAT. One year I remember seeing Bonnie Lou(from the Midwestern Hayride show) at Sears. They paid her to walk around and yodel Christmas carols. It was around 1958 or 1959. I was probably about 7 or 8 yrs. Is'nt it funny that I can remember that,but no clue what I had for lunch yesterday!!!
Last Edited by on Oct 03, 2009 7:25 AM
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Mikey
52 posts
Oct 02, 2009
9:22 PM
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Cross-posted to Rike's Memories: remove if inappropriate....
Now, I'm not trying to start a holy war of The Elder and Johnson Co. vs. The Rike-Kumler Co., but Rike's was always far more elegant and fashionable than Elder's. More floors (nine at the height of the downtown store, I think) better customer service and more varied inventory. Heck, in the fifties, when Harley-Davidson was owned by the American Machine and Foundry Company (AMF) and was on the ropes, they sold Harleys in the sporting goods department!
Free alterations, even for the ladies and home deliveries of your purchases so that the ladies could have tea at the Maud Muller Tea Room, next to Lowes, unburdened by their recent purchases and not soiling their white gloves on those dirty $0.05 shopping bags.
In my humble opinion, the area north of Third Street was the most genteel and fashionable area of downtown, probably because of the proximity to Rike's.
The area south of Third was far more bohemian, qaint and generally interesting to a young teenaged boy.
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Mikey, Gatlinburg, TN
Last Edited by on Oct 03, 2009 1:52 PM
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