SignWall

Alhart's Hardware / American Sportsman

This unusual sign once belonged to Alhart's Hardware, located on Culver Road at the corner of Grand Avenue. If you look closely, you can still see the raised lettering advertising "Appliances.” American Sportsman, a gun shop which has since moved to East Rochester, took over a portion of the old Hardware store and top billing on the sign.

Text by Pat Domaratz / Pictures by Jason Crane

Jason says: In the close-up shot, you can see the GE and Maytag symbols at the top of the pole.

UPDATE: According to reader Dave Migliore, the hardware store was named Alharts, not Aberts, as was originally listed on SignWall.com. Dave said he thinks it was owned by the father of local news anchor Don Alhart.

Calabrese's Culver Bakery

One of the favorite Italian bakeries in Rochester’s northeast section was Calabrese's. Started in the 1920s, the successful bakery was owned by the Calabrese family until the 1980s. The Calabreses sold it to new owners, who continued to churn out bread, cookies and sweet breads (pumpkin and zucchini among the favorites) until the late 1990s, when a third set of owners took over. The bakery closed in 2001.

Text by Pat Domaratz / Pictures by Jason Crane

Labor Lyceum

Rochester's original Labor Lyceum, inaugurated in 1897 by local unions and socialists, met Sundays in the Common Council of the old City Hall. The Lyceum presented speakers, papers and debates on topics ranging from the principles of trade unionism to child labor, from issues of academic freedom to current socialist literature. In 1911 the mayor, upset with such programs, expelled the Lyceum from City Hall.

The program was continued at the Progressive Working People's Lyceum, built on St. Paul Street in 1912. The Lyceum housed radical unions such as the Amalgamated Optical Workers and the Brewers, provided space to socialist organizations, and continued to host weekly lectures and discussions on labor topics through the 1950's.

The St. Paul Street building displays intricate sculptures of three figures: one a male carpenter holding a mallet with wood workers tools in his belt. The second is a veiled woman holding a sheaf of wheat, and the third (above the other two) is the Statue of Liberty. The three images represent the Labor communities’ respect for the dignity of working people and dedication to their community. (From www.rochesterlabor.org).

Text courtesy of Pat Domaratz / Pictures by Jason Crane

Carnegie Building

I'm a regular at Village Gate Square on North Goodman St. in Rochester for three reasons -- Comics, Etc.; The Bop Shop; and Yankee Peddlar Book Shop. Driving there as often as I do means that I've driven by the Carnegie Building on Goodman St. scores of times without ever knowing what it was -- or what it had been. Turns out the Carnegie Building housed the University of Rochester's Applied Sciences Department back when the U of R was actually on University Avenue. The Carnegie Building was built in 1910 with funds donated by Andrew Carnegie. The fascinating story of the building's funding and construction is at the University of Rochester Library's history site.

Eastman Dental Dispensary

One thing that this SignWall project has really pointed out to me is this: I spend an enormous amount of time driving around in my car and paying no attention whatsoever to my surroundings. The Eastman Dental Dispensary is at 800 East Main Street in Rochester. It's huge. Enormous, in fact. And it's been there since 1915, when George Eastman donated the money to build it.

According to this chronology of dentistry at the University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester was home to the first free dental clinic in the United States. The clinic opened in 1901 and closed again in 1903. In 1904, a dispensary was opened on South Washington St. In 1910, Captain Henry Lomb (of Bausch & Lomb) put together the funding and equipment to open a dental center at School No. 14.

Five years later, in 1915, fellow philanthropist George Eastman oversaw the creation of the Main Street dispensary, which opened on 15 October 1917 with 37 operating units. The Eastman Dental Dispensary soon became a major teaching center, affiliated with the University of Rochester (which was in that part of the city at the time). By 1930, Eastman Dental Dispensaries had been built in Rome, Italy; Stockholm, Sweden; Paris, France; and Brussels, Belgium. The Dispensary continued as a major treatment and teaching center until 1976, when it was relocated to the campus of the U of R Medical Center on Elmwood Ave. In 1999, the Eastman Dental Dispensary was listed as one of the seven most endangered buildings in New York State by the Preservation League of New York State.

Valley Cadillac

Valley Cadillac opened its doors in 1936. The dealership is now on Winton Road in Rochester, but it used to call East Ave. home.

Donuts Delite

Talk about your Rochester landmarks. Donuts Delite put a smile on the faces of tens of thousands of Rochesterians from 1948 until its closing in 2005. As a matter of fact, the shop isn't the only institution. The Malley family, which opened the place and ran it for its entire existence, is also responsible for others Rochester classics, from the Highland Park Diner to Mercury Posters.

From the Dan Delite character on the rooftop tower to the original formica counter inside, Donuts Delite was the kind of place they just don't make anymore. When it closed its doors in 2005, there were still customers who'd been going there since 1948. In these times, it's hard to even imagine that kind of loyalty.

The sign on the window said it all:
WE'RE NOT THE BEST DONUT SHOP BECAUSE WE'RE THE OLDEST...
WE'RE THE OLDEST DONUT SHOP BECAUSE WE'RE THE BEST!

Gold Medal Flour / McKechnie's Grocery Store

Here's another multi-layered ad, this time from a building in Canandaigua, NY. The building is on the corner of Buffalo St. and Main St. You can easily see the Gold Medal Flour advertisement. I was baffled by the clearly visible word "Eventually" at the top of the Gold Medal ad. What could that mean? Try all the other flours, and then get around to Gold Medal? A little detective work turned up the explanation. The word was part of one of Gold Medal's most successful ad campaigns . According to the General Mills Web site:

"In 1907, Washburn, Crosby launched its long-running advertising slogan, 'Eventually-Why Not Now?' B.S. Bull, the company's advertising manager, is credited with the creation of the slogan. As the story goes, he was editing a wordy text about the superior quality of Gold Medal Flour and found, that when he was finished he had edited out all the words except 4: 'Eventually.' He then added, 'Why Not Now?' Having had this brilliant idea, he was struck with self-doubt and tossed the paper into the wastebasket. It was said to have been found by a young member of the firm, James Ford Bell, who later became the first president of General Mills, Inc. (The slogan was used on billboards, company trucks, train cars, flour bags and in the company's printed advertisements, appearing as late as the early 1950's. Other companies adopted the slogan as their own; it was seen in political cartoons; the slogan was the title for a Sunday sermon; and it even appeared as the front-page headline of the Cincinnati Times-Star with a small-print notation, 'With apologies to Gold Medal Flour.")" (If you get out the old magnifying class, you can see the words WASHBURN, CROSBY'S above the word GOLD.)

If you look closely at the sign, you'll see that another sign was painted on the same section of wall. Upon close inspection, that sign reads:

JUICE CANDIES
AND FRUIT
CIGARS AND TOBACCO
CASH PAID FOR
BUTTER AND EGGS

As our English friends would say: What's all this then?

I have the answer. I happened to take two photos of the front of the building, too. The first is a mundane shot, but the second solves the puzzle. The small inlaid stone at the top of the building reads:

W.S. McK
1886

A little digging turned up this obituary from the Ontario County Times of Wednesday, 6 August 1924:

"William S. McKechnie, a life long resident of Canandaigua and for many years a prominent merchant at the Four Corners in upper Main Street, died at his home Wednesday morning about 9 o'clock, following a long illness. Mr. McKechnie, who was a nephew of the late J. and A. McKechnie, the well known brewers, was born in Canandaigua in 1847, and was educated at the Academy here. After a course in a commercial college in Rochester, he engaged in the business in Main Street North, first as an employee in the J. and A. McKechnie grocery store at the Corners, then as a partner in the same store with William McCabe, then with John Browning, and finally on his own account. In 1886 he built the brick block in which he thereafter for eight years conducted the store, following which he sold out to the present proprietors, O. C. Frary and Son, and retired from active business. Mr. McKechnie was a member of Canandaigua Lodge, F and A. M. and Excelsior chapter, R A M, and had held high offices in these organizations. He leaves only his wife and a number of cousins. Funeral services were held from the home Friday, Rev. H. L. Gaylord of St. John's church officiating. Interment was in Woodlawn Cemetery."

So there you have it. Apparently, the store paid cash to farmers who brought in needed goods. I went to high school in Canandaigua, and I've probably passed that corner a thousand times. Now I know a little bit more about it.

Knopf Clothes

Knopf Clothes was a Rochester-based clothing maker that was in business from 1882 until at least the 1940s, according to two pieces of evidence I was able to find:

The first piece of evidence is this page (PDF) from a 1922 edition of the Fulton (NY) Patriot newspaper, which features   an ad for Knopf Clothes that reads, in part: "NO BETTER MATERIALS and Tailoring are on the market than that of KNOPF CLOTHES -- Rochester make (sic), That have a reputation for high class tailoring since their organizing in 1922."

The second piece of evidence is in the collection of the Rochester Public Library. The library has a collection of clothing industry advertising materials that makes reference to Knopf Clothes catalogs and circulars from the years 1948-50.

If you look at these pictures, you'll clearly see that more than one sign was painted on this wall. If you can make out the rest of the sign, let me know.

Upton Cold Storage

It's amazing what you find when your eyes are opened to this world of vanishing history. I was driving up State St. in Rochester and noticed Upton Cold Storage looming up from behind some modern buildings. This was a cold storage facility back in the day when that meant ice trucked in by cart with no electric refrigeration. My research into Upton Cold Storage led to two fascinating Internet destinations.

The first is the Urban Exploration Resource, which is apparently a site dedicated to exploring the insides of abandoned buildings. There are some really breathtaking photos of the interior of Upton Cold Storage, and I strongly urge you to take a look.

The other thing I learned is that Upton Cold Storage burned in January 1920. The Rochester Herald was there, and Charles Zoller took some amazing photographs of the building covered with ice after the firemen had doused it with water on a cold January day. You can see Charles Zoller's photos at the Web site of the George Eastman House.