The Greece Press

Bicentennial Snapshot No. 54: Gone, but Not Forgotten

by Maureen Whalen and Pat Worboys
Bicentennial Snapshot # 54: Gone but not Forgotten
Monroe County Bookmobile in front of the old town hall, 1955 from the Rochester Public Library Local History and Genealogy Division

Today, as we acknowledge all those who helped us produce these Bicentennial Snapshots, please enjoy photos of places and businesses no longer part of the Greece landscape.

We would like to thank the following individuals with their contributions to the snapshots:

First of all, we are tremendously thankful for all the photos provided by Society President Bill Sauers. He has a vast archive of photographs that he generously shared with us.

Edgewater Hotel from Bill Sauers
Odenbach Shipbuilding, 2012, photo by Bill Sauers

If he didn’t have a photo we needed, he went out and took one, especially for the snapshots.

We greatly appreciate Greece town historian Keith Suhr giving us permission to use photos from Greece Images.

Dutch Mill, 2017, from the Office of the Town Historian
Mount Read Chase-Pitkin

Thank you also to our other photographers or those who provided photos for various episodes: Alan Mueller, Ben Kerr, Bonnie Stemen Fiser, Carolyn Kerheart, Dick Halsey, Deborah Cole Meyers,

Douglas Worboys, who worked at Chase-Pitkin and helped you find the tools and supplies for that home improvement project you had going on in your home,

Maiden Lanes Bowling Alley, photo by Mike Callen

Gene Preston(Retired North Greece Fire Department / Kodak Fire) and owner of Preston Fresh Produce on Long Pond Road, Gina DiBella, Gloria LaTragna, Gretchen Howe, Dr. George Sanders, “Booze, Barns, Boats and Brothers” by H. Dwight Bliss III, John Cranch, Jane Grant, Author of Barns of Greece, Kathy Gray who provided pictures of Frank Siebert that were added to the snapshot on Ridge Road Fire District, Jo Ann Ward Snyder co-author of Pioneer Families of the Town of Greece, Joan Winghart Wilcox Sullivan who wrote about her father, Bernie Winghart, Gordon Massecar,

Joe Vitello, Marie Poinan co-author of Pioneer Families of the Town of Greece as well as the co-author of two books with Maureen Whalen, one book with the late Tom Sawnor, and 5 books on her own, RRFD/Greece Ridge FD Historian and District Photographer Matthew Pillsbury, Battalion Chief Brian Gebo for providing Ridge Road/Greece Ridge Fire Districts 100 Years logo for our use,

Rochester Gas & Electric, Russell Station from GHS
Lincoln First Bank postcard at Dewey and Haviland

Patricia Conklin, Paul Pakusch who let us use the personal home video that he recorded on his way to work at News 10 (WHEC) NBC in 1991 during the ice storm, Mike Parker, Robert Bilsky, Ralph DeStephano, Ed Spelman, Tom DiBello, Travis Beaver, Francis Howard Whelehan, Stanley Hwalek, Mason Winfield the Author of “Haunted Rochester”, William Aeberli, Helen Edson Slocum, Virginia Tomkiewicz, Shirley Cox Husted

We would like to thank the following organizations, news outlets, local colleges and libraries

North Greece Fire Department, Greece Ridge/Ridge Road Fire District, Barnard Fire Department, Barnard Exempts, FDNY(Fire Department of the City of New York), Greece Police, Center for Governmental Research,

Island Cottage Hotel, 1977, from GHS
Streb’s Steak House from GHS

Rochester Public Library, Buffalo and Erie County Public Library’s Recording Studio in the Launch Pad Maker Space at the Central Library, The University of Rochester, Rochester Institute of Technology, Wayne State University, Princeton University, University of Iowa, nebraskastudies.org, SUNY School SOAR

Democrat and Chronicle, 13 Wham TV, WHEC, WROC, Spectrum News, Histrotic Detroit, The Hilton Record, Rochester Times-Union, The American Issue, New York Daily News, Global News a Division of Shaw Media, newspapers.com, Rochester Gas & Electric News Publication, Rochester Daily Advertiser,

Verhulst Brothers Farm Market from GHS
Our Lady of Mercy Rectory designed by James H. Johnson from GHS

Our Mother of Sorrows Church, Greece Baptist Church, Greece United Methodist Church,

Greece Central School District, Archive.org, BoxRec.com, US Treasury National Archives, FBI, National Archives, Department of Defense, U.S.C.G.S. ( United States Coast Guard), Library of Congress, USDA, Wikipedia, IMDB, National Weather Services, NOAA, NASA, Canadian Ice Service, US PTO(Patent and Trademark Office), Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), Rochester Baseball Historical Society, Monroe County GIS Map Gallery which contains 11 interactive maps that were used in some of the snapshots as well as the parcels map that was used to verify data on certain properties,

District School #5, 2007, photo by Bill Sauers
999 Long Pond Road from GHS

The Landmark Society of Western New York, Rochester Museum and Science Center, Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, mcnygenealogy.com, New York State digital archive, Monroe Historical Society, Charlotte-Genesee Lighthouse, Cobblestone Museum, Buffalo Maritime Center, New York State Department of Transportation, Bob Johnson Chevrolet

We relied heavily on past newspaper accounts and are so grateful that the Greece Historical Society secured grants to have the Greece Press, Greater Greece Press, and Greece Post digitized.

Bull at Scarlett’s Island Cottage from GHS
Lake Shore Drive-in Sign from GHS

History writers of the future will have a more difficult time documenting the past with fewer newspapers available.

Cine 1234 Ridge Rd (FB Gina Beebee)

The maps digitized by the Rochester Public Library’s Local History and Genealogy Division are a marvelous resource.

St Charles Borromeo school photo by Bill Sauers
Movie Theatre in Stoneridge Plaza from GHS

If these Snapshots brought back memories or taught you something you didn’t know, then we succeeded in our endeavor. They will remain a resource for future students of local history.

We encourage you to get out and photograph what will be tomorrow’s history. Keep a journal documenting your lives and bequeath them to future generations.

Johnny Maier’s Hotel and Restaurant, 4454 Dewey Avenue, from GHS
Friendly’s Restaurant on Dewey Avenue from GHS

Lastly, we invite you to visit the Greece Historical Society and Museum to learn more about the history of the town of Greece.

Greece Volunteer Ambulance (GVA)
Greece Volunteer Ambulance (GVA)

This is Maureen Whalen, on behalf of the Greece Historical Society, Pat Worboys, and myself, saying thank you to our loyal viewers and wishing you the best as Greece begins a new century.

Frear’s Garden Center, 2022, photo by Pat Worboys
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The Ridgeway Air Park

by William Sauers

For years during the 20th century, many communities in our area had their own airports ranging from grassy fields to paved run­ ways with hangers to store airplanes. Hilton had the Hilton Airport on Burritt Road. The Brizee airport in Pittsford was on Marsh Road. In Henrietta, there was the Hylan Airport and the short-lived Genesee Airfield. Woodward Field was well-known in Leroy; even Honeoye Falls had a small airfield. Let’s not forget the very early Britton Field on Scottsville Road organized by former Greece Supervisor Willis Britton.

What about the Town of Greece? Our first known airfield was run by WW I Ace, Roy DeVal, located in the Shoremont area in 1927. It had one of the first hangers in Monroe County. During the 1960s and 70s, the Greenleaf Flying Club had a private field on Kuhn Road. Of course, there were other landing areas on private farmland.

The largest and most infamous in the Town of Greece was located at the Southeast corner of Ridgeway Avenue and Lee Roads.

Shortly after WW II, Richard (Dick) Kaiser opened Ridgeway Air Park. At the time many veteran pilots

were looking for a place to store their planes or just a convenient field to land and rest, and this seemed to be an ideal spot. The place had a small hangar and at one time 16 private planes were quartered there.

But by the summer of 1947, neighbors began to complain about the low-flying planes over their homes. In July The Greece Press reported that the Town Board received petitions from the residents of the Latona Tract and Koda Vista neighborhood, citing flights allegedly created by the airpark that were “detrimental to the physical and mental health of the residents, especially children.” They wanted the place closed down.

Kaiser claimed that Ridgeway fliers were getting blamed unfairly for the low-flying acrobatics, but eventually did change the flight patterns of the planes flying in and out of the air park. This seemed to have calmed down the nearby residents.

However, a tragic accident occurred in October of 1947 when an Army Air Corps veteran flew too low while coming in for a landing and crashed into the Erie Canal embankment just north of the landing field killing himself and an 18-year-old passenger.

In June of 1948, a social organization, the Greece Aero Club, was formed at the airpark, and in August of ’48, Jim Earl, also an Army veteran, took over ownership of the place. But soon news reports about the airpark vanished.

Dick Kaiser and his wife, June, eventually moved to Utah. By 1956 Kiser’s wife, also a pilot, was flying in (I kid you not)a “Power Puff Derby” in Salt Lake City and Dick was employed by a company in Utah.

We are not sure when or what exactly ultimately ended the life of this airfield. There were reports of young boys using the “old field” for radio-controlled planes in 1955. Industrial expansion eventually took over the airfield land, forever covering any evi­dence of it ever having existed. Now, three-quarters of a century has all but eliminated hearing personal stories of the Ridgeway Air Park.

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Greece Demanded Decency- No Topless Bathing!

by William Sauers

“Your Bathing Suit Must be Right Kind in Greece or You’ll Visit the Judge“

This was a headline in an August 1934 issue of the Greece Press newspaper. Of course, it was about modesty, but you may not have guessed it was directed towards men.

It seems in the early 1930s, men were beginning to follow the new fashion trend of sunning themselves without the benefit of a shirt top. Greece authorities were determined to officially end this custom and return dignity to public bathing by enforcing a bathing ordinance that had been enacted a year earlier.

Man with proper bathing suit in 1935 (Sauers family album)

The ordnance stated,

”No person over the age of 12 shall loiter on the shore, swim or bath in open water exposed to the public within or bounding at any place in the Town of Greece without covering above the waist”

Section 141-C sub-section 2 from Greece Town Law in 1933

Public beaches adjacent to Greece were being patrolled regularly. Enacted primarily to end instances where the public was sub­jected to shocking scenes of topless men, people were learning that Town government demanded dignity and decency in the gentle art of public bathing.

Greece was not the only local municipality concerned about decency. Earlier in June 1934, the Democrat & Chronicle reported that the City of Rochester Public Safety Commissioner, Walter Cox, stated “the topless bathing suits for men that arein vogue on the West Coast, will not be permitted on Rochester public beaches.”

Milton Carter
Milton Carter

One wonders how long this ordinance stayed on the books. In 1937, the Greece Press reported that Chief Carter was still stressing the enforcement of the bathing ordinance, but after 1937 no mention is ever seen again.

Apparently, the topless fashion took hold and today the only reference to bathing in the Town Code refers to the restriction of bathing in certain areas.

1933 Greece Town Law

Section 141-C

Section 2. No person over twelve years of age shall loiter on the shore, swim or bathe in open water exposed to the pub­lic, within or bounding at any place the Town of Greece, with­ out covering above the waist.

Section 3. No person shall swim or bathe in open water, exposed to the public, within or bounding at any place in the Town of Greece, between the hours of 12 P. M. and 5 A. M.

Section 4. Violation of this· ordinance is hereby declared to be a misdemeanor and shall be punishable by a fine or penalty of $10.00 for the first violation and $20.00 or imprisonment for not exceeding thirty days, or both, for each subsequence violation.
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Leaving a Message for the Future

by William Sauers
John J. Walsh
Greece Press
1939

It is quite common here at the Greece Historical Society to receive a phone call or email asking a local history or family-related question, which we are always happy to help with. We also get calls about donating some precious antiques, family heirlooms, or other objects. With storage space at a premium and keep­ ing in mind the cost of caring for these items, we insist that any object or document we acquire will help to tell the story of Greece.

Then there is that odd call that just does not fit into any category. Last summer someone called who was remodeling their home in Greece and wanted to know if we were interested in what they found inside one of its walls. My curiosity got to me and off I went to see what they had. It was a small handwrit­ten note and some old deteriorated 1938 newspapers. Old newspapers are fun to look at, but of no real value, as they are nearly all available online, or on microfilm, but the handwritten note sent me on a quest to find out who it was that hid these items in the wall.

The note read:

“These papers were put in this wall by John J. Walsh who built this house and this year 1938 I am 47 years old and am employed as a printer and run a linotype on the Times-Union, and the Democrat & Chronicle are printed in the same building. Not knowing when these papers will be taken out of this wall, I wish the papers be shown at the Times to members of the Typographical Union men.”

John J. Walsh

With my connections in town, I did find one man who remembered John at the paper, but he was a very young Times-Union employee at the time and John was on his way to retirement, so he was no help.

Then I was off to search the website, NYS Historic Newspapers, with its treasure trove of old local papers. I found that John J. Walsh grew up in the City and moved to Greece in 1937 with his wife Julia and two daughters. He was a member of the Inter­ national Typographical Union No. 15 and as his note said, he was employed at the Times-Union.

John was highly active in the Greece Democratic Party, including serving as its chairman for a number of years. He even ran against Gordon Howe for Supervisor in 1939 and for Justice of the Peace in 1943. According to newspaper accounts, he spent quite a bit of time vociferously attacking the Republican majority in Town but still cooperated with them in promoting the sale of war bonds.

In 1944 he was recognized for his contributions to a military club that was operating a service center. He was active in St. John the Evangelist Church and on the committee to raise funds for their new school in 1946, while also serving on the Rochester OPA (Office of Price Administration) Control Board. John died of a heart attack on August 23, 1952, and was buried at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery.

Unfortunately, I was not able to share his old newspapers with the guys at the Times-Union. I am sure John would never have imagined that the Times-Union would stop publishing in 1997 and the profession of linotype operator would vanish with the advent of computers. l was, however, able to find stories about his life here in Greece because of the advent of computers. Af­ter finding out who John J. Walsh was, I visited his grave; l felt the need to let him know that someone did eventually find his note and those old newspapers some 82 years after he hid them in that wall.

Today there is truly little in newspapers that record the stories of local events or people. This is one reason why the NYS Education Department at the NYS Library has organized the COVID-19 Personal History Initiative to record and preserve the unprece­ dented historical events currently unfolding around us. They encourage all New Yorkers to keep a journal documenting what their daily lives are like during this pandemic: the challenges they face; the obstacles they have to overcome; and the creative ways they found to connect with family, friends, and community.

Consider documenting your story and donating it to the Greece Historical Society or any other historical society or municipal historian where it will be archived locally with copies sent to the State Library, which will preserve all the journals and stories from New York State for future generations to study and learn from.

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A Community That Saved a School

by William Sauers

During the 1920s and ’30s Greece experienced an increase in population, especially in the Dewey-Stone area. Among that increase were very many Catholic families; so in 1926 St. Charles Borromeo School on Dewey Avenue opened with a planned enrollment of 250 students. By 1938, with some modifications, the school had eight rooms and an enrollment of 450 students.

Barnard Fire Department

On Holy Thursday 1938, the school children were sent home early to start their Easter break. Later that after­ noon, a fire alarm was turned in at 5:33 p.m. Barnard Fire Dept. was the first on the scene, soon joined by North Greece Fire Company along with Braddock’s Heights and the City of Rochester Hose Company 24. By midnight, the flames were out. All that remained of the 12-year-old school were the walls and portions of the roof. The adja­ cent church, however, was saved.

The damage was estimated to be $22,000 and although insurance would cover most of the loss of the building, where would the money come from to pay for the books, supplies, and furniture the children would need? Soon donations began to arrive.

Among the first to pledge a donation to aid the school was Simon Stein, who offered $1,000. Soon a fund-raising or­ganizational dinner was held. The chief speaker was Rabbi Philip Bernstein of Temple B’rith Kodesh who spoke about “dissolving denominational distinctions.” William Sweigle was selected campaign chairman of the group that called them­ selves “The Greece Good Will Civic Committee” and “Give the Kiddies BackTheir School” became their slogan. A campaign headquarters was set up in the Barnard School and over 250 volunteer workers started the task of raising the needed money for the school. Within 10 days $9,138 (more the $165,000 in today’s money) was raised with the expectation of more in weeks to come. According to the Greece Press, “the campaign was the first of its kind ever conducted in the Town of Greece and caused widespread com­ment throughout Western New York.”

The school was rebuilt and opened in time for the next school year with a formal dedication on Sunday, September 11th, 1938 with Bishop James Kearney officiating and Sheriff Albert Skinner cutting the ribbon.

In the years to come, the school would grow to over 1,000 students, and St. Charles Borromeo Parish for a time would become the largest in the Rochester Diocese and eventually the oldest continuously run school building in the Town of Greece. The school closed in 2008.

We should all be proud of those citizens who helped save that school. As one newspaper reported, “they were Catholics, Jews, Protestants, Republicans, and Democrats.” They were true citizens of their community. Their story may have been forgotten over the years, yet the legacy of their generosity still stands today in our community.

Now, we are left to wonder what will happen to that empty school building in the years to come.

For a complete history of the St. Charles Borromeo Parish visit https://www.stcharlesgreece.org/history

NOTE This is an edited version of a story that originally appeared in the Greece Post on Feb 21, 2008.

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