Published: February 11, 2008 03:45 am         

Growth was factor in 1953

If you like looking at old scrapbooks, consider this as opening up a volume with a lot of news clippings about Oneonta in 1953.

It seemed as if everything was becoming too small that year. It was a year when the Board of Education decided to purchase a 100-acre tract of land for a new senior high school, to replace the old building on Academy Street. The present plot on East Street was obtained just as all the Oneonta schools began to get crowded by "Baby Boom" youth, but it wasn't until 1962 that voters in the city school district approved bonding for a new school and students began classes at the building in 1964.

Good luck trying to get a seat if you went to Mass at St. Mary's Church, then located at the corner of Grand and Main streets, where the Benson Agency is today. When the church was built in 1884 it was designed for 200 parishioners. That number had grown to 1,800 by the early 1950s.

Father Arthur A. Cunningham announced at the many Masses on Sunday, Sept. 20, that a campaign would start at once to raise money to build a new church big enough to accommodate the growing membership.

The new church opened on Walnut Street in 1957, capable of seating 1,000.

Better water service expanded into a section of Oneonta that had seen a lot of new homes built in recent years, and more were on the way. The area embracing Bugbee Road, Woodside Avenue and upper East Street was called Eastland Heights. Service was extended from the city and water pressure increased.

Residents looking for new homes came to this new neighborhood during August for open houses and to witness the modern amenities of 1950s living.

Robert M. Bookhout was a local Ford Homes broker. These were factory-built structures and delivered by truck to the building site. They were furnished by local businesses. These homes were "approved for G.I. and F.H.A. financing," and advertised as "Cornell University tested modern living at low cost."

Not far away from that neighborhood was a growing new area on today's Ravine Parkway. On Nov. 7, 1953, you could come out to see an intriguing new home at the corner of Ravine Parkway and West Street. It was the new home of Mr. and Mrs. Harold Hall, a developer of the area neighborhood. The L-shaped, single floor 70' x 50' structure was simply called the "Trade Secrets House."

It was called this because leading home builders from throughout the nation joined together, sharing each others' "secrets" to make home living more convenient and more comfortable. The open house required a 10-cent donation, entirely given to Community Chest, known today as the United Way.

Grocery shopping became a better experience, as a larger, modern Grand Union opened a supermarket on March 25 at 334-336 Main St. Today, it is the intersection of Main Street and the James F. Lettis Highway.

Oneonta got its first taste of Dairy Queen on May 16. If you were one of the first 1,000 to show up, you were given a free cone "with the Curl on Top." The store is still found today at 413 Chestnut St.

Oneonta Junior High School students were doing their bit to help world relations in the fall of 1953. Many students became "pen pals" with their equivalents from "one corner of the world to another." Most were writing to students in England and Japan. The Oneonta Star reported that more than two-thirds of JHS students had become pen pals in recent years, spurred on by Mrs. Myrtle Mellott, a science teacher who had generated the interest in 1951.

Over in the Sixth Ward, a game craze was taking place on West Broadway, called boccia, or bocce. It was a game of Italian origin, "resembling shuffleboard with bowling balls on a horseshoe court." According to The Star on Aug. 8, nobody knew how exactly it was spelled, but it was also called "botch."

"Who cares," yelled Bernardino Colone. "Just play, that's all." The game was on a comeback in that neighborhood. Smoke from the old D&H Railway steam locomotives passing by the area obscured the players from their targets and the game just disappeared. With the new, cleaner-running diesel locomotives, boccia made its return.

This weekend: A Washington Monument "" in New Berlin.

City Historian Mark Simonson's column appears twice weekly. On Saturdays, his column focuses on the area during the Depression and before. His Monday columns address local history after the Depression. If you have feedback or ideas about the column, write to him at The Daily Star, or e-mail him at simmark@stny.rr.com. His website is www.oneontahistorian.com.