Businesses were making adjustments and advances around Oneonta in 1966, and some people behind them were being honored.
One such honoree was Mrs. Beatrice Blanding, and according to The Oneonta Star of April 5, 1966, was the guest of honor for a Jaycees dinner set for April 12. It was the organization’s second annual “Outstanding Recognition Certificate.”
Jaycee President Alex Shields told The Star, “The honor was being bestowed…for ‘her interest in the growth of the Oneonta community by being an active supporter and participant in most of the community activities in Oneonta.'”
Mrs. Blanding was born in Pleasant Brook in 1894, and moved to Oneonta in 1912, when her father, Riley J. Warren, formed the Oneonta Sales Company. The auto dealership was once found at 27 Market St., recently demolished and currently a parking lot.
“Following her graduation from Oneonta High School,” The Star continued, “Mrs. Blanding went to work in her father’s office. She was given 25 per cent control of the business on her twenty-first birthday. In 1932, she married Donald Blanding of Binghamton.
“After her father’s death, Mrs. Blanding and her mother operated the company as partners. In 1948, the Oneonta Sales Company, Inc. was formed with Mrs. Blanding as president and major stockholder,” a position she still held at the time.
Elsewhere in downtown Oneonta, The Star of April 2 reported, “Oneonta will once again become a one theater city.
“Harold deGraw, president of Decar Amusements, Inc. announced Friday the purchase of Schine’s Oneonta Theater on Chestnut Street. Decar Amusements is a corporation owned solely by deGraw and his wife, Alice.
“deGraw has operated the Palace Theater, soon to be demolished for construction of a new wing on Wilber Bank. When demolition of the Palace Theater was revealed by Wilber Bank officials earlier this year, deGraw said he would construct a new theater on his property at 9-15½ Elm St., currently the parcel post annex.” That would some become the Showcase Cinema.
Downtown was set to go through years of an overhaul, and as Star readers of April 21 learned, “Oneonta merchants went on record favoring urban renewal for Oneonta Tuesday.
“In a letter to Mayor Albert S. Nader, the Retail Merchants Division of the Greater Oneonta Chamber of Commerce took the stand, aimed at giving the City’s Common Council a clear view of their position on urban renewal.”
A letter to the mayor read in part, “The Merchants Division feels that a revitalized modern downtown is important to the entire community and should result in increased employment. A healthy and renewed downtown will stop the decline in taxable value in this area and eventually contribute a greater share from the downtown area to the city in taxes, thus resulting in some reduction of the burden now borne by the home owner.”
This was a honeymoon period for urban renewal in Oneonta, as the mood shifted downhill soon after.
Not far from downtown, The Star on April 19 reported, “When the wheels of the DO Line start rolling early this summer it will be no surprise to vacation and holiday-minded people throughout America. They already know.
“Because the ‘Here and There’ column in the May copy of Holiday magazine has already carried a brief story about the inauguration of the new line.
“‘In New York State’s Catskill Mountains,’ the magazine relates, ‘a 2.5 mile steam excursion will be inaugurated this summer in Oneonta, a town that is proud of its historical association with railroading.” The excursion began on Railroad Avenue, where the current Depot Restaurant is found. The former station was a railroad museum at the time.
“‘Oneonta was the home of Collis P. Huntington, who became a multimillionaire for his part in building the first transcontinental railroad.’
“‘Paradoxically, the town was also the birthplace of the Brotherhood of Trainmen, the largest railroad operating union in the United States.'”
Another Oneonta business provided leisure, and as The Star reported on April 26, “A two-day wait plus unseasonable cold weather took its toll on the Oneonta Red Sox Monday night as they lost the season opened to Batavia, 6-2.” Nicer weather came eventually, and so did the fans to Neahwa Park Field, eventually named Damaschke Field.
On Saturday, a look around northern Otsego County in April 1926.