Energy pulsed through downtown Pottsville

There were 3 movie palaces, 549 hotel rooms, 3 department stores - the list goes on and on

Editor's Note: This is the fifth of special correspondent Ione Geier's eight favorite pieces published over the past quarter century. It originally appeared in the Weekend Edition of June 26-27, 1993.

When Norma Cresswell was growing up in Frackville, shopping trips to downtown Pottsville with her mother were exciting, eagerly anticipated events.

``On Saturdays, there was so much going on there that it was like being in a big city,'' recalls the Lake Wynonah woman, who was Norma Frew then. ``The sidewalks were crowded with people and so were the stores. That was in the late 1930s and early 1940s.''

From the mid-1930s until the late 1950s, Pottsville's downtown -- Centre Street from Nichols to Mauch Chunk streets and adjoining blocks -- qualified as one of the liveliest, most bustling business districts in the nation.

The number and variety of stores for a city of some 24,000 boggles the mind. In 1948, there were four furriers, five department stores, seven jewelry shops, nine shoe stores, 11 furniture stores and 37 clothing shops -- 20 that sold women's apparel; 13, menswear, and four, children's attire.

Also located downtown were a toy shop, leather store, milliners, confectioners, retail bakeries, music dealers, camera shops, sporting goods stores, fabric shops, appliance stores, pharmacies (they were called ``drugstores'' then), 17 barber shops and 22 beauty salons.

The pneumatic tubes in several of the larger stores made a lasting impression on Mrs. Cresswell.

``They were something like the chutes drive-in banks use now,'' she says.

``Clerks put the customers' money in them to be sent to an office where change was made.''

The wooden floors in Pomeroy's, a department store, also stand out in her memory. So do the chairs in the shoe department. Mrs. Cresswell remembers they had seats that folded back like the ones in theaters.

Steam melted snow

One Christmas Eve, she and her sisters rushed back and forth between two Centre Street jewelry stores -- Clawson's and Green's -- looking for the perfect gift for their mother.

``I've never forgotten that evening,'' Mrs. Cresswell says. ``There was a sense of vitality all around us. The streets were alive with last-minute shoppers and a gentle snow was falling.''

Snow was rarely a problem in downtown Pottsville. Buildings there, as well as in several other sections of the city, were heated by steam from a central plant. The warmth of the underground pipes that supplied the steam kept streets clear of snow and ice in all but the worst of winter storms.

No matter what the weather, Pottsville radiated prosperity.

Downtown, there were not only solid ranks of shops, but also a YMCA, YWCA, public library, bus station, taxi stand, passenger and freight train depots, underground public restrooms (called ``comfort stations''), financial institutions, professional offices, two daily newspapers, four bowling alleys, 15 barrooms and 20 lunchrooms and restaurants.

Movie-goers had their choice of three theaters until 1950, when the Hippodrome closed. Of the two that remained, the Capitol was the larger, with a seating capacity of 2,700. The Hollywood, long and narrow, had 993 seats.

There was also an abundance of accommodations for travelers. Nine hotels offered transients a total of 549 rooms.

The grand Necho Allen

The grandest hotel was the Necho Allen on the southwest corner of Centre and Mahantongo streets. Its subterranean Coal Mine Tap Room with walls and ceilings of anthracite and supports of mining timber attracted visitors from all over the United States. A latter-day, ground-level version of the taproom never quite captured the authenticity of the original.

Ray Gamber, 73 (in 1993), Cressona, the manager of the Necho Allen when it closed in 1981, started working there as a bellhop in 1946.

``It was the center of everything in Pottsville then,'' he asserts.

``Rooms were so hard to come by there were always people standing around the lobby, hoping for a cancellation.''

Celebrities who performed at nearby summer theaters and dance halls often stayed at the hotel. Gamber says the one who remains vivid in his mind is Xavier Cugat, because of the bandleader's fiery personality.

In those days, when anthracite was still Schuylkill County's major industry, there were always coal brokers staying at the hotel.

``Pagnotti Enterprises, the big coal corporation in Luzerne County, kept a suite of rooms on the seventh floor to entertain the coal brokers and other businessmen,'' Gamber says. ``Taking up sandwiches and drinks to the men who played cards there was a good deal for the bellhops. Sometimes we ended up with tips of $5 or even $10 -- more money than a lot of people earned for a whole day's work.''

Saturday nights hopped

Across from the Necho Allen, on the southwest corner of Centre and Mahantongo streets, stood Pomeroy's, the largest department store in the county. In 1983, it moved to the Schuylkill Mall and is now part of the Bon-Ton chain.

Anne Brennan, Pottsville, who started to clerk at Pomeroy's in the early 1950s, is still with the store now that it's the Bon-Ton. She says many of her older customers tell her how much they enjoyed shopping in Pottsville, especially on Saturdays, during downtown's heyday.

``Stores were open on Saturday nights then,'' she says. ``People came from all over -- Shenandoah, Mahanoy City, Ashland, Mount Carmel. There was always a lot of activity.''

During the holiday season, the crowds in front of Pomeroy's windows were four and five-deep, according to Lois Gray, Saint Clair, another Bon-Ton employee who has been with the store since its Pottsville days. ``The big attraction was the animated Christmas displays,'' she explains.

For Dolores Dean McKenna, Pottsville, the former Pomeroy's corner is a reminder of holiday Saturday nights in the late 1940s.

``A lot of high school girls -- I was one of them -- earned extra money working part-time at Pomeroy's during the Christmas season,'' she says.

``On Saturday nights, our dates lined up outside the store, waiting to take us to the movies. When we came out, all of us ran up Centre Street to catch the last show at the Capitol. Sometimes there was a line of ticket-buyers so long it stretched to the other end of the block and around the corner.''

The Capitol was Pottsville's premier theater; Imschweiler's, its most popular family ice cream parlor. A trip downtown wasn't complete without stopping at Imschweiler's for homemade ice cream served by aproned waitresses, mostly older women, who made change from leather pocketbooks slung around their waists.

Those wire-back chairs

Mrs. McKenna remembers in detail Imschweiler's interior. ``As you entered, the soda fountain was on one side; the candy counter on the other. There were murals on the wall and in the back were tables with marble tops and little wire-backed chairs. It was an interesting place, and so was the whole downtown.''

Mary Louise Bicht Heller, Pottsville, remembers, ``You met everybody you knew when you went downtown.''

``Saturday afternoons, the pavements were even more crowded than usual because of kids coming in or going out of the Hippodrome, where they featured vaudeville acts along with cowboy movies and serials.''

One of the shops she recalls with affection is Raring's, where she bought her saddle shoes when she was a teen-ager in the mid-1940s. ``They had a big, boxy X-ray machine to check out the bone alignment of your feet,'' she says. ``So did another shoe store, Puddu's.''

Mrs. Heller has mementos of long-gone downtown businesses. One is a black velour hat -- a Stetson -- that her father bought some 50 years ago at Moyer's, a men's store. Another is a slinky brown satin evening gown from Skelly's, one of several exclusive dress shops in Pottsville (two others were the Grace Shop and Caster's).

Richard F. Higgins, Pottsville Realtor and former county commissioner, has memories of downtown Pottsville that range from YMCA dances to Coney Island hot dogs, from Rose's cigar store to the Reading Company train station.

``When I was a kid in the 1930s, walking downtown on your own to get a hot dog was a big deal,'' he says. ``If you didn't have enough money to buy one at the Coney Island, you walked across the street to the Federal Restaurant, where they were a little cheaper.''

Playing pool at the Y

``The YMCA at Second and Market streets got heavy use when I was growing up. We went there to play pool, swim and exercise. Guys who couldn't make a sports team in school were assured of playing in one of the Y leagues.

``In high school, I went to the Y dances. When fights broke out between guys from different towns -- which happened all the time -- the band played the national anthem. It gave everybody a chance to cool off.

``Across the street from the Y was Rose's, a poolroom and cigar store. High school kids hung out there and so did business and professional men. Rose's corner was where all kinds of guys got together.''

Higgins' father, a follower of various sporting events, often sent him downtown to get the late edition of the Philadelphia Bulletin, a newspaper that carried up-to-the-minute race results.

``It came in on a train that arrived in Pottsville around 10 at night,'' Higgins says. ``There would be so many people at the station -- either getting off the train or meeting passengers -- that they overflowed onto Norwegian Street.''

The 100 block of East Norwegian Street provided Pottsville with much of its night life. After Higgins returned from serving in World War II, he and his friends started to patronize the bars there.

``It was strictly guy stuff,'' he says. ``We assembled at the U Bar because it had draft beer, which was the cheapest kind. The Circle Bar and the Bartenders and Waitresses Club, both of which had strippers, sold bottled beer and were late-night places where you went to blow your last buck.''

Downtown declined

Whether it's money for beer or a business district's economic health, nothing lasts forever. Eventually, downtown proved just as vulnerable to change as all other aspects of life.

The decline of downtown went hand in hand with the decline of anthracite. By the 1960s, coal, once king in Schuylkill County, had yielded its preeminence to other fuels. More and more miners left the region to seek work elsewhere and the resulting drop in population had its impact on the central business district.

The automobile also played a part in downtown's decline. More cars meant clogged streets and fewer parking spaces, and at the same time made it easy for shoppers to get to the malls that were springing up everywhere.

Downtown reached its lowest point in the 1980s. In the middle of that decade, there were more than 40 vacant storefronts on Centre Street, 17 of them in the four blocks between Arch Street and Howard Avenue.

Today, the downtown area is recovering some of its soundness and vitality. Its past glory can be seen during summer sidewalk sale days when the streets are once again crowded with shoppers.

And, of course, there are the memories from the glory days:

Memories of Christmas ``toylands'' in the five-and-dimes and several of the department stores.

Memories of the four-sided illuminated clock that ticked off the time in front of Clawson's jewelry shop.

Memories of the listening booths in Malarkey's, where customers were able to play records before buying them.

Memories of the Necho Allen Hotel's elegant, lobby-level dining room with its ornate chandeliers and heavy white table linens.

Memories of the huge sign above Jay's Square Deal Jewelers that portrayed the owner standing on his head.

Memories of the life-size wooden horse that stood for years in the window of Knapp's Leather Goods.

Memories of the many women shoppers who -- winter or summer -- never appeared downtown without a hat and gloves.

Gone now. All gone. But the memories linger on.

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