Question: Team shirts identify this group as the Dolls bowling team. The ball announces that the year is 1912 and the photo mat bears the imprint of Baldwinsville photographer Mark Chapman. Bowling was very popular in Baldwinsville at this time. Do you know anything about the fellows seen here?
Last week’s answer: The photographer stood in front of Village Hall in February 1936 to take last week’s History Mystery photo. From left to right, the buildings are numbers 9, 11, 13 and 15 W. Genesee St. No.15 is at the eastern corner of West Genesee and River streets. Once a vital section of the village’s business center, the block had fallen victim to the Great Depression.
Calling itself “The Store on the Square,” Thrifty 5 and 10 Cent Store occupied No. 9, the western end of what had once been W. H. Downer & Son’s prestigious department store. Thrifty announced a “Disposal Sale” in the February 6, 1936, issue of the Gazette and Farmers’ Journal.
The Community Store, No. 11, occupied the Kendall block which had been built by Dr. James Kendall in 1872. The Community Store was one of a chain of 60 Syracuse based food stores. The first floor grocery had once been the home of Miss Nettie Turner’s Millinery Shop. The upper floor was designed as professional office space. J. Amos House, Real Estate Broker, was the occupant in 1936.
No. 13, once the Brooks wallpaper store, sports a marquis proclaiming “Theater” but the building appears to be unoccupied. The Orpheum Theater opened in November 1911 at a time when Vaudeville was still popular and silent movies were the new trendy entertainment. The imposing and spacious Howard Opera House was the village’s premier entertainment center. Although smaller, the Orpheum was “thoroughly modern” with fireproof brick walls, a steel lined projection room, an orchestra and a balcony. A stage accommodated live presentations. The Orpheum was also the only ground floor theater in the village. The Opera House burned to the ground in 1914 and was soon replaced by the Grange Theater, even “more modern” than the Orpheum. The theater business was struggling to keep pace with improvements in technology.
In the 1920’s the Variety Theater, later redone as The Palace, opened on Oswego Street. The Variety was upgraded to “sound” in 1931 and the death knell sounded for the Orpheum. In 1939 the old Orpheum was purchased by the grocer next door and now helped feed the body rather than the soul of B’villians.
The building on the corner, No. 15, appears to be the best kept of the lot. For more than 60 years it had been steadily occupied by an undertaking establishment. It was common for such enterprises to also serve as retail furniture venues. At the time of the photo the business was carried on by the firm of Madden and Van Wie.
Within a few years the south side of West Genesee Street would be enjoying a revival. The western corner of River and West Genesee streets was selected as the site of a new Post Office, a WPA project. A handsome brick building of “Colonial design,” the facility was dedicated in 1939. Its very presence on the streetscape boosted civic pride while Baldwinsville weathered a most difficult time.
Timothy Kennedy was the first person who commented on the Messenger’s Facebook page with the correct answer.
Email [email protected] or leave a message at 434-8889 ext. 310 with your guess by 5 p.m. Friday (please leave the information in the message; we are not generally able to return calls regarding History Mystery responses). If you are the first person to correctly identify an element in the photo before the deadline, your name and guess will appear in next week’s Messenger, along with another History Mystery feature. History Mystery is a joint project of the Museum at the Shacksboro Schoolhouse and the Baldwinsville Public Library.
