Published: October 19, 2009 12:25 pm      

Backtracking: Economic and social changes came to Oneonta in 1979

Recession was a word in the daily vocabulary. College students rallied to vote in their “gown towns.” Houses and Oneonta’s “Chinese Wall” needed and got help, and music at the nightclubs and on the radio was changing. It was October 1979 here in The Heartland of New York.

News was not good for workers on the D&H Railroad system early that month, as 200 employees would be laid off by the end of October, 50 being affected in Oneonta’s railroad yards.

“Federal railroad officials in Washington fear the layoffs could be just the start of serious recession problems for the D&H because the railroad has exhausted all federal loans available to it,” The Daily Star reported on Oct. 5, 1979. The D&H was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Norfolk & Western Railway at the time.

D&H officials said the railroad was losing about ten percent of its freight traffic each year.

On the same page of that day’s paper, one read that Interstate 88 would be opening a new 18.5-mile stretch of highway from Emmons to Worcester on Oct. 23, making the route for trucks much faster.

The two years leading up to 1979 had been active ones for home renovations. Oneonta’s Community Development director Joseph Bernier said that more than 100 houses had been improved through $346,000 in Community Development grants. These homes were in the River Street, central city and East End neighborhoods. A majority of the work included adding insulation, winterizing and electrical repairs. Home-energy costs had spiked in recent years because of oil crises in 1974 and 1979.

Also in need of repairs at the time was the sagging “Chinese Wall” under part of Chestnut Street. What was then already a century-old wall built of dry laid stone had endured heavy traffic and water runoff. In a plan introduced to Fifth Ward residents by City Engineer Richard Olton that month, the wall would be buried under an earthen embankment during the autumn. This widened that section of Chestnut Street where eventually a new sidewalk, green space and park benches were added.

If you were a fan of the “dime store” lunch counter, October brought some sad news for downtown Oneonta. The J.J. Newberry store, which occupied two currently vacant storefronts west of the alleyway between Wilber National Bank, would close at the end of the coming January. The store had been in that location for decades and expanded in April 1948 to include the lunch counter. Newberry’s officials said the store wasn’t doing enough business to stay there.

College students across New York were rallying to be able to vote in their college communities. Local politicians didn’t like the idea. Aldermen Ron Whalen and Sam Zummo felt most students didn’t know what was going on in town and were more concerned with campus activities.

The State University College at Oneonta became one of many sites for a rally for voting in “gown communities” on Wednesday, Oct. 17. Organizers said the rally was to show the community they were interested in Oneonta’s issues and wanted to vote here. About a dozen students also went to Cooperstown to picket the Otsego County Board of Elections.

Musical tastes were changing locally and across the U.S. Disco music such as the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack and other bands had been popular, but a new kind of music was gaining in popularity called “New Wave.” This was more like rock music.

Oneonta still had a disco nightclub on Market Street called Fleetwood. By 1979, their ads in The Daily Star were showing promotions that were no longer disco-music oriented.

New Wave bands were being played on local radio, such as The Knack and Blondie. The lead singer for the latter band, Debbie Harry, had parents who lived in Cooperstown that year. More outlandish New Wave music for the time, such as the B-52s and The Boomtown Rats, weren’t played on local commercial radio.

If you were looking to dine out on an October weekend, there were many choices. Some may recall Andy & Gay’s Restaurant at 279 Chestnut St. (now the American Legion), the Davenport Hotel with its specialty of German/American cooking, the Homestead in Colliersville (until recently an Italian eatery), Perkins Cake & Steak in Oneonta’s East End (presently Morey’s), or the Howard Johnson Restaurant on Southside (now Denny’s).

This weekend, Oneonta Normal School was incredibly overcrowded in 1929, and a solution to the problem was soon reached.

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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.