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Post by Clipper on Jul 23, 2008 10:52:18 GMT -5
I was reading on the OD homepage this morning that the Johnson Park Peace March will take place on July 31st from 6 to 8 PM. I would encourage anyone with the time and the interest to go and either take part, or observe.
It might be a good thing for folks that live outside the Cornhill area, that only hear about the crime and drugs in the inner city, to go and see that there ARE great people there. There ARE youth that are wonderful, peace loving, and drug free. There ARE residents in the inner city that have HOPE and FAITH in the idea that the neighborhoods can be saved, and in the theory that marching and promoting peace is a step in the right direction.
It might be an eye opener to some, to go and see that there are people there that need support, and need to be respected and held in high regard. It is an eye opener to go and see that not everyone in the inner city smokes crack and carries a handgun tucked in their waistband.
I hope to see Larry Tanoury Jr's comments on this event. I am sure he is much more familiar with the sponsors, the participating people and the event than I am.
I could be wrong, but it seems to me that simply going out, and attending this event, would go quite a ways in promoting good will, and hope in unity for the future.
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Post by Ralph on Jul 24, 2008 1:32:48 GMT -5
It is a good thing Clipper, just not quite what you may think.....nor does it have the impact you may think either.
I was involved with JCTOD for years, partly because it is in the community and partly because she was our secondary Safe Haven for Weed & Seed.
She has transformed that particular part of Cornhill like no one else has, but the impact has not been as far flung as you would have expected.
The Peace March is a yearly event that winds it's way through that section of Cornhill and is mostly for the kids, to send them a message.
But it attracts very few "real" people from the hood.
I drove in it for her for three years, so I know what it is all about. It is a good thing, just not with the results you would have expected.
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Post by tanouryjr on Jul 24, 2008 1:51:15 GMT -5
I'm glad you opined on this subject, Ralph. I was going to defer comments to you anyways, LOL. I will just concur with what Ralph said. I wish them well and will be sure to attend in support.
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Post by Ralph on Jul 24, 2008 1:59:31 GMT -5
Oh it is a great little walk, I just wish it would have had a bigger impact than it does.
Speaks volumes for the people in the community around there.
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Post by rickolney on Jul 29, 2008 22:00:59 GMT -5
I saw that topic header and thought there was an activist group against the war overseas holding a peace rally/march in Utica. You know, like they did back in the day.  |
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Post by tanouryjr on Jul 30, 2008 0:03:48 GMT -5
I saw that topic header and thought there was an activist group against the war overseas holding a peace rally/march in Utica. You know, like the did back in the day. Come on now, Rick. There wouldn't be any free taxpayer funded grant money available for that kind of march.  |
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Post by dgriffin on Jul 30, 2008 7:56:57 GMT -5
My grandmother lived near the corner of Stueben and Louisa and we used to walk over there, sometimes through Johnson Park, from Taylor. Just off of the park was a shoemaker. I seem to remember it as an informal place. No neon or big sign, maybe only a room just inside the side door. I remember he spoke little English. I think he may have been German. Would have been late 1940's or very early fifties. Ring a bell for anyone?
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Post by frankcor on Jul 30, 2008 12:39:25 GMT -5
Dave, that must be the shoe shop my cousin was telling me about. His wife's father passed away last month and he was helping his in-laws clean out their family home on Prospect Street. While up in the attic, my cousin found a trunk that contained WWII-era memorabilia that had belonged to his father-in-law. There were medals, scrap books, portraits and old uniforms that had belonged to the old man. As my cousin was going through the pockets of one of the uniforms, he found a claim ticket from a shoe shop at the corner of Stuben and Louisa. Studying it closely, he saw the expected pick-up date to be July 14, 1944!
Just for grins, my cousin took the claim ticket to the address and was surprised to find the shop still located in the same spot it was more than a half-century before. Curious, he walked in and handed the ticket to the proprietor behind the counter. The young man studied the ticket for a few moments, handed it back to him and said "your shoes should be ready next week."
::rimshot::
<g,d,rlh>
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Post by rickolney on Jul 30, 2008 15:15:11 GMT -5
;D Yup, that was the pick-me-up I needed today. Thanks Frank!
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Post by dgriffin on Jul 30, 2008 21:41:36 GMT -5
Louisa St. came over from where UFA was and stopped at Steuben. On the southwest corner stood a saloon that was called the Hollywood when I was in high school, but had been (I think, but may be wrong) McCarthy's or some other Irish name since way before my time. The house next door to the saloon ... same side of Steuben, going south ... was where my mother grew up and my grandparents lived until he died in 1949 and she came to live with us on Taylor. I don't remember a shoemaker there, but maybe that's how Grandma got to know him and followed him up to Johnson Square if he moved. It sounds odd today, but just a couple of blocks was a long way when everyone mostly walked and people began businesses based upon what was needed in the neighborhood. Grandpa had his business there (sheet metal and furnace construction) and wouldn't leave the neighborhood, until they carried him up to the funeral parlor on Eagle St. The only other time he left the block was to go find the god damned newspaper boy who had come down the street shouting, "Extra, Extra, US at War Again!" in 1933 and sold him a folded copy of yesterday's paper for a nickel.
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Post by Ralph on Jul 31, 2008 2:50:35 GMT -5
The Hollywood's been gone for a while now Dave, though I do remember it. It's now a Spanish grocery store.
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Post by dgriffin on Jul 31, 2008 6:36:21 GMT -5
The Hollywood's been gone for a while now Dave, though I do remember it. It's now a Spanish grocery store. Yup, I saw the bodega when I drove by there a few years ago. My grandparents house has been gone since the 1970's, torn down. It was quite old, my grandfather said. In the late 1700's it sat almost alone on the land, serving as home for the farmers who inhabited the place and sold produce up over and the down the hill in the place they would eventually call Utica. |
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Post by Clipper on Jul 31, 2008 9:10:27 GMT -5
Wow Dave. That is interesting. It always intrigues to me, to picture Corn Hill as we have known it in our lifetimes, and to compare that with the days you speak of, when farmers grew corn on "Corn Hill".
If YOUR relatives go back that far, I am surprised it wasn't "potato" hill. LOL. (could be that the "potato hill" area near Booneville already had the distinction.) If I am not mistaken, that area was settled by the Welsh or possibly the Dutch.
It warms my heart to hear family stories that go way back in time. You are blessed, to have such a "collection of recollections" from those that preceded you.
One of my favorite things, is reading things about Utica, present and past, and letting my heart and mind wander back to the area that I love. Thank you guys for the memories, and for fueling my daydreams of home.
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Post by dgriffin on Jul 31, 2008 22:50:49 GMT -5
Well, my grandfather, Robert Stephenson, was English (I'm a quarter) and he grew up on a farm in West Winfield. He told my father, his son-in-law, that he was a virtual slave on his father's farm and his older brother would inherit it all, anyway. Primogeniture was evidently practiced, although technically illegal here in the US. He came to Utica as a young man and worked first in the Cutlery. That was probably around 1890, because Bert was almost 80 when he died in 1949. I don't know when he bought the house next to the Hollywood, probably in the early 1900's. Also don't know how he knew the age of the house, I assume from records. Even my father, born in 1911, said he remembered Cornhill as mostly corn when he was a kid before 1920. Old maps of Utica I've seen don't show the crops, but the houses are sparse enough to indicate there were indeed farms. A great many of the 2 family houses on Cornhill were built around WWI, I was told years ago.
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Post by dgriffin on Jul 31, 2008 22:55:35 GMT -5
One of my favorite things, is reading things about Utica, present and past, and letting my heart and mind wander back to the area that I love. Thank you guys for the memories, and for fueling my daydreams of home. I think you've read this, Clip, but I'll put in a plug for "Blanche," a story of a strong woman in Utica and the building of her life. Blanche was my grandfather's third and final wife (the death of wives was common) and the "grandmother" I remember. www.windsweptpress.com/blanche.pdf |
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