Whether it was making alterations, building new or protecting them, buildings were making local news in June 1949.
A downtown Oneonta shoppers’ favorite, Bresee’s Department Store, happened to be celebrating its 50th anniversary that year, and was announcing plans to upgrade the store.
In an article seen in The Oneonta Star of June 16, the rhetorical question was asked, “What will Bresee’s Department Store be like when it celebrates its 100th anniversary?”
Unfortunately that milestone was never reached, as Bresee’s closed as a department store in 1994, but reopened as a kitchen and bath store for a few more years.
The Star continued, “As the department store grew and expanded, taking in neighborhood buildings once occupied by other firms, it became necessary to remodel the store front. This was both because keeping the old, separate entrances were inconvenient and confusing, and because with the passing of time the old front grew to have an ‘old-fashioned’ look.
“One thing that the store does not intend to be is ‘old-fashioned.’ Its present store front is comparatively modern, but already the Bresees are anticipating the day when it will be out of date. Dream plans have already been drawn for the new front, to modernize the building.” Within a few years, the aluminum façade with red letters was put in place, removed in November 2009.
“Another dream of the Bresees is to make it easier for the customers to get from one level to another inside the store. So someday, no one knows when, the department store may bring to the city the first escalator installation.” That day arrived in late November 1952, just in time for the holiday shopping season.
In Milford, The Star of June 26 reported, “Near completion of a $100,000 Dairymen’s League construction project…has brought League construction in the area to nearly a half million dollars in the past two or three years.
“The construction in Milford is a new milk receiving and shipping plant, at the site of the cheese factory there. The cheese factory will continue to operate on a stand-by basis, Field Representative C.E. Lowery declared, to handle surplus milk when necessary. The new receiving plant will be equipped to handle 1,000 cans daily from the approximately 90 dairymen now shipping to Milford.
“Included in the building is a milk tank-truck room, so that shipment may be made either by rail or by tank-truck. Manager of the plant will be W. Kenneth Haight of Milford.
“The cheese plant, purchased by the Dairymen’s League from the Haight family, is now making both pineapple and cheddar cheese, although less than 35,000 pounds of milk are being assigned there daily for cheese manufacturing.” The 1949 plant still stands, home today to the Cooperstown Brewing Company.
While this building served a practical purpose, another one in Oneonta was more experimental.
As The Star of June 16 reported, “A newly constructed ‘play shed’ at Chestnut Street school looks as if it might be a boon to hapless parents.
“The building, put up here on an experimental basis is constructed to withstand the wear and tear of many little hands and feet. Here the children are allowed to do many things they cannot do at their own home.
“It’s all theirs. They climb on it, beat on it, run in and out, slam the door, do finger painting and almost anything else that their busy little minds can think of.
“The play shed and storage place was designed by Mrs. Norma Eckert, kindergarten teacher.
“This type of school activity is still relatively new, but local school authorities have introduced enough new features so that the State Department of Education has asked for the design, for use in planning similar projects at other schools in the state.”
At the same time these young children were allowed to be a little rough and tumble on the shed, some older kids were taking their “enthusiasm” beyond creative and fun, as Star readers of June 26 found out, “Hoodlumism in Oneonta’s public parks has broken out to such a degree that the Parks Commission may be forced, as an emergency measure, to close the parks immediately after dusk and employ a plain clothes man to patrol each park.
“Sherman L. Decker, Parks Commission chairman, made the statement yesterday after a new outbreak of destruction and ribald behavior in Wilber and Neahwa Parks.
On Wednesday, preparing for the Fourth of July and more in the region in 1959.