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GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTENMore memories, continued from Page L.1/1 j *The Yates Hotel was billed as “the most elegant hotel outside Manhattan,” when it opened in 1802. Located at Montgomery and East Washington streets, it boasted electric lights and a (jO-foot mahogany bar.The Yates Tap Room bar was the longest in (upstate) Mew York,” brags Bob Warne of Warne/McKenna Advertising. That is, until someone in Buffalo built a longer one.”When Warne started his advertising agency in 1968, he was hired to promote-the Yates., in part because he and owner Tom Popp were friends.“Tom's father bought the hotel during the Depression. The Yates bar was the meeting place for all the politicians in the '30s and ‘40s,” he says. “All theAnother Syracuse landmark that no longer exists is E.W. Edwards Son department store. Eleazer W, Edwards opened the full-service store in 1889 at Washington and South Salina streets.Jim Sterio, owner of the Landmark Slerio's Restaurant downtown and Trademark Slerio's Inn in Fayetteville, remembers it as being the store in Syracuse, before retail chains arrived. He and bis parents shopped there when he was growing up on the East Side.When I was a kid, Yd always go to their annex building, where they had the toys” he says. They had a monorail train hanging from Ihc ceiling we used to ride on.'rIn 1968, Sterio was hired tc run the\ a i \ Mi fmw:, siuiU,iwk V-iii-iiis ''•#.‘3?:; iVl.i.wd'4The Yatea Hotel, with It* 1892 Room, shown here in the 1960b, wee destroyed in 1971.1 mayors would go there, (Thomas J.) Cos-* itello, (Donald H.) Mead, (William F.) ' ;Walsh. The Yates continued (to be a s political watering hole) when politics; moved out of the bar and into the cock-‘ ’Uni lounge.”■' The cocktail lounge was called the 1892 Room, in honor of the year the - hotel was built. Women tended to fre-.quent the cocktail lounge more than ' the bar, Warne soys.' The first restaurant in the hotel was the Tabard Inn, which featured Stick-• ley furnishings in the arts and craft3 style papular in the early 1900s, he says. In the late '50s, Popp added the Steak and Rib Room, which Warne describes as “the best restaurant in town.”' “They tore the Yates down in 1971,” ho says, “and now it's a parking lot.”Edwards restaurants, including the pop-ular Tea Room and Cherry Valley Room. The menu featured baked macaroni and cheese, creamed salt codfish and fried salt pork — food that choles-Icrol-canseiauR diners would sniff at today.Ninety-five percent of the customers were regulars, he says. Often, they would call the waitresses by name lt;— Mary, Josie, Florence or Kate.The waitresses “were a Jot of nice ladies,” Sterio. adds. UI had . waitresses working for me for five years who had worked for (my predecessors) 25 years before. I was surprised to find out some were in their 70s. They were as good waitresses as you’d see in Syracuse.”In November 1972, Edwards moved across the street to Clinton Square with a big ribbon-cutting ceremony. A year later, Sterio opened his pwn restaurant.“I left on a Friday, and they closed their Shoppingtown store on Saturday,” he says. “And the downtown store closed in January 1974.”Syracuse realtor Ellie Hayman also has vivid memories of Edwards. Some 40 years ago, she had a brush with stardom on the Edwards Children’s Hour.Every Saturday morning, Lhe Children's Hour was broadcast on the radio from Lhe Edwards auditorium, she recalls. You had to take an old wooden rickety escalator to the auditorium on the second or three floor of the store. I remember singing a song, and I won a prize.”Of course, she chose a tune few judges would vote against: “God Bless America.”In those days, Hayman says, “the big treat” was going to the Pig Stand for a hot dog. Located on Genesee Street in DeWitt, the Pig Stand also sold pork sandwiches.*'I remember the hot dogs had paper wrapped around them and toothpicks,” she says. “It was like a drive-in. Car hops came out to your car.”After the hot dog came a lively game of putt-putt golf at the miniature golf course nearby, she says. “One time, I remember swinging the club and hitting my mother between the eyes. She had to have stitches.”Dayman’s parents, by the way, owned Berg's Diaper. Service, which began in 1936 on South Salina Street. It was the first diaper service in the area, she says.Hayman used to ride around in the diaper truck, which had a horn that played “Rock-a-Bye Baby.” On the top of the vehicle was a “doll with a king hat on it,” she says. Sometimes she would solicit business for the firm by “going up to women with big bellies and saying, ‘Won’t you get my Daddy's diapers?’ ”In 1870, the Wieting Opera House opened its doors on Salina and Water streets. The location had housed several of Dr. John Wieting's opera houses, which were destroyed by fire.The first performance featured Louisa Moore and Charles Wyndham in The Lancers,” and Sarah Bernhardt, another star of the era, made her first Syracuse visit in the production of Camille” inThe Keith's theater in the 1920*.1881. 'More than 30 years later, Joseph Wentworth of North Syracuse made his first visit to the opera house.”1 had to be about 12. My mother took me, and we were in the top gallery near the stage entrance. We saw ‘Rip Van Winkle,* ” said Wentworth, who is 89.The opera house became a stomping ground for young,Wentworth. “I practically lived there,” he said.He remembers-it as “grand ” with a main floor, balcony and gallery. Plays included a few operas, musical comedies, dramas and mysteries.“The Wieting really put On high-class shows. For the slory of the 'Prodigal Son,' they had 100 sheep coming down the ramp. It was marvelous to see how they set some things up.”Everyone attended the productions, which cost about $1.50 for seals on the main floor and 25 cents for the gallery, says Wentworth. It was a popular tradition for young girls to. save the ticket stubs and paste them on a glass dish or ashtray.Even the schools got involved.“They'd put on a lot of Shakespearean plays. Our school teacher would get a bunch of reservations, and we'd go all the way down on a street car from Liverpool (high school).”RKO Keith’s Theaterovics became a favorite Syracuse pastime in the early 1900s, I. and even the Wieting Opera House added films to its roster.From the 1930s to the ’50s, South Salina Street was movie theater row. There were Loew’s Stale, now the Landmark Theatre: Loew’s Strand; B.F.
Newspaper Details
Syracuse Herald American
Syracuse, New York, US
Sun, Jul 14, 1985
Page 98
Full Page
Clipped by
Edward E.
NA, 22 Jan 2022
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