Tuesday, March 25, 2008

How many remember this?

This will be an article about many things I remember in my past which are no longer with us. I was riding and elevator the other day and my thoughts went back to my childhood. In those days there were no shopping centers, If you wanted to "Shop" you had to get on a streetcar and go to downtown Cincinnati. Usually women would make it an all day excursion and hit every department store with a stop at the "Mills Restaurant" on fourth street for lunch. Some of the stores I remember were The John Shillito Co. store on 7th. Street where I once worked and met my future wife there, There was also the H. & S. Pogue Co. on 4th. street where I always considered the upper crust shopped. There was the Mabley & Carew store located at 5th. and Vine in the Carew Tower Skyscraper building. Across the street from there was the Rollmans department store. There was also McAlpins located on 4th. street. A long way from there at Main St. and Central Parkway (known then as the Erie Canal) was the Alms & Doepke store, it was a huge 7 story store. By the turn of the century, Alms & Doepke was the second largest mercantile establishment west of New York City. With the decline of the Over-The-Rhine which was the major source of customers for the store, profits fell and the store closed in 1954. The building now houses local government and court system offices. There were many other stores downtown such as Woolworth's or Kreske's both of which had lunch counters. There were many others I will not bore you with but the original point of this story was not the stores but the fact they were multi floored with each level dedicated to a certain type of product. The only way to get to these floors were the stairs or take an elevator.
AhHa! The whole point of this story, I guess I babel on too much. In those days the elevators were not automatic. Each one had an elevator operator!!! When you got on you had to tell him what floor you wanted or what type of product you were looking for. As you went up or down the operator would announce what could be found on each floor you came to such as " Second floor, Ladies dresses, underwear, millinery, coats and accessories. To operate the elevator there was a large round brass hubcap looking device with a handle on it. To go up he pushed it one way and another to go down. The trouble was stopping the darn thing. When he got to a floor it usually stopped 6 inches too high or too low. He then would have to jiggle it up or down until he got it close enough that he felt you would not trip over it on your way out, it was never exactly even. To open the door he had to manually pull down a handle which opened 2 sliding doors to allow you to exit. There also were no escalators and no shopping carts. everyone used shopping bags.
More to come later, Anyone remember these days?

2 comments:

Junosmom said...

Believe it or not, at my very young age, I remember all these names except Rollman. And, believe it or not, I do remember riding an elevator (no - impossible, I'm too young) with an operator. I have a very distinct memory of one outing with Grandma Eleanor to downtown Cincinnati to shop. Two things I remember distinctly is the elevator man, and the ride home in the taxi. Both things were very foreign to me, a country girl. I do remember we were I think at Shillitos, and that she took me to the basement, because that's where the toys were. AND I remember some stairs leading a bit up from the basement and a candy store within the store. Oh, and a restaurant there - we at there and there was a large counter where you could sit but we sat at a booth. I remember more than I thought!

Anonymous said...

Good post.