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42

There are a few other places downtown that I've missed. For one thing, our favorite corner for waiting for the Oak streetcar, was Warren and East Genesee Streets, where we'd stand outside Stolz's drugstore right at the corner and in the old, five-story, red-brick, Civil-War vintage Bastable Building which also housed the burlesque shows in the Bastable theater. Stolz's was a very modern drugstore for the period and had a big soda fountain up front. On the other side opposite the fountain, was the tobacco and candy departments, the latter handling Aligretti chocolates, on a par with Russell Stover today. The front of the store was bright and cheery from the corner location, but the rear, where the drugs were dispensed, was pretty dark and gloomy. Acrossfrom this corner was the "Flatiron Building" occupying a whole pie-shaped block between East Genesee and Washington. It's most prominent tenant was the Amos Coal Co. offices on the ground floor whose show windows displayed samples of glistening anthracite coal for domestic heating. Most people used coal for their home-heating and it was a big business just as ice was a big operation in the warm weather; in fact, some concerns handled both coal and ice which gave them a year round operation. Next door to Stolz's on Warren, was a big grocery store which overflowed out onto the sidewalk with produce. This place finally closed and was supplanted by a movie theater (obviously a rather low-ceilinged affair), the Standard, which seemed to specialize in wild-west-adventure type films -- so, while you were waiting for the streetcar, you could either slip into Stolz's for a dish of ice cream or gaze upon the lurid posters plastered in front of the Standard theater. Also on or near this corner were Alexander Grants big hardware store and Quinlan's florist shop. Another corner where we waited for the car was Warren and Washington, the nearest such spot to my father's office. At this point, you were in position to observe the passing NYC trains, the window-sitters in the Vanderbilt Hotel, the NYC city ticket office in the University Block across the street, which was a big, high-rent location, Foote's Book Store, and down the street, the big, graystone post office -- and if you looked katty-corner across the intersection, you could observe who might be going into or coming out of the Nann & Kress Café which I have mentioned before. Down in the next block was the Syracuse Journal newspaper building which was arranged so the public could watch the presses in operation from the sidewalk, always a fascinating pastime. The price of the Journal was 1¢ per copy, although I think the other two papers, the Post-Standard and the Herald, were 2¢ -- must have been some sort of a price war going on. Foote's book store was narrow but very high and very deep and it seemed like they must have had a hundred-thousand books in the place, which was a fascinating place to browse just as soon as you had gained any appreciation for books. The one thing missing is a liquor store and I remember there was one across the street from the University block, Dalton's I think, although that may have been a drug store. My father would pay a visit to this store occasionally to replenish the home stock, I presume.