Buffalo in the 60’s: Meet your Simon Pure Man!

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

The William Simon Brewery, makers of Simon Pure beer, was the last Buffalo-owned brewery of the 1960s and 1970s.

When this ad appeared in The News 50 years ago today, September 8, 1965, Iroquois and Simon Pure were the last beers being produced in Buffalo, but Iroquois was owned by out-of-town interests. The Simon family owned the brewery from 1896 until it closed as Buffalo’s last beer producer in 1973.

A young Russ Salvatore promotes his first restaurant, 1965

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Russell Salvatore has been one of Buffalo’s leading restaurateurs, philanthropists and self-promoters for more than half a century.

Before there was Russell’s Chops and Steaks, before there was Salvatore’s Italian Gardens at Transit and Genesee, there was Salvatore’s Restaurant on East Delavan Avenue near Bailey on Buffalo’s East Side.

The original Salvatore’s was opened by Russell Salvatore’s father, but it was being run by Buffalo’s most famous restaurateur 50 years ago this week, as shown in this ad featured in The News a few times during the week of Sept. 5, 1965.

In what was surely among his earliest appearances in The News, Russ’ cartoon body is holding up a tray holding the $2.50 prime rib then being offered everyday in his restaurant.

Selling Chevys in Buffalo in the 1960s

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

You can almost hear the guttural laments of car enthusiasts everywhere.

Few cars are more sought after than early Corvettes, and there likely haven’t been many available at $2,795 since Mernan Chevrolet put this one out on the Bailey Avenue lot back in 1960.

While many among us can see ourselves peeling off the hundreds to buy such a classic at such a rare price, it must be noted that the National Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator says this ‘Vette actually cost about $22,500 in 2015 dollars. Still a great deal, but maybe it doesn’t sting as bad for having missed it?

57 Chevy for $1595

Right around the same time, Mernan also offered more of a working man’s classic.

For decades, the 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air has been a sought-after ride. It’s considered among the most perfect examples of 1950s American design and consumer culture.

During the spring of 1960, it was little more than a three-year old used car that the folks at Mernan Chevy wanted off their Bailey Avenue lot.

A few years later, Mernan was hoping a little mid-’60s sex appeal would help clear out their “dreamy 1965 models” to make room for 1966 Chevys.

Buffalo’s original QB controversy– Kemp vs Lamonica

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

It’s the Buffalo battle that pitted brother against brother, father against son, bartender against guy on the third stool to the left.

In a manner that seems to echo in our own day, longtime friends were becoming estranged over the question, who should be the Bills starting quarterback?

The back and forth over the wise old sage Kemp and the young gunslinger Lamonica was really a win-win — both were talented and capable leaders and all-league passers.

The 1965 Buffalo Bills used both quarterbacks though the season on the way to winning the team’s second-straight American Football League title.

The Bills are the only undefeated team in professional football because of a young Notre Dame quarterback named Daryle Lamonica.

Whether the Bills are great or terrible, nothing seems to excite Western New York football fans more than being able to argue about which of the team’s quarterbacks is better — or at least less terrible. It’s played out over and over, especially when an understudy steps into the starring role.

Think of all of the time spent on gin mill barstools fighting over Ferguson or Marangi, Ferragamo or Mathison, Kelly or Reich, Collins or Van Pelt, Flutie or Johnson, Edwards or Losman, or Fitzpatrick or Edwards through the decades. And then remember Buffalo’s first real quarterback controversy, one that pitted brother against brother over cans of Genesee beer in the stands at the Rockpile.

While many of these arguments seem futile, silly or mismatched in retrospect, the Jack Kemp/Daryle Lamonica discussion of the mid-1960s set two championship level quarterbacks against one another in the hearts of Bills fans.

Kemp was the senior statesman in the Bills backfield long before he held that title in Washington. Having spent 1957-59 as a backup on NFL rosters, he led the AFL Chargers to the championship game in 1960. He was an AFL All-Star for Buffalo in 1962. Kemp was under center as the Bills won AFL Titles in 1964 and 1965. His last season with the Bills was in 1969, when injury limited him to three appearances.

Lamonica was drafted by the Bills in 1963 out of Notre Dame. He was Kemp’s backup, and when he came in to relieve Kemp, he usually made the most of it with dazzling long passes that always ignited the imaginations of Bills fans. Vexing many to this day, Lamonica was traded to the Raiders in 1967 and was named the league MVP that year. He led Oakland to a losing effort in Super Bowl II.

This article, written as the Bills were the only undefeated team in football, does some measure of introducing Lamonica to Bills fans, many of whom are still arguing his case 50 years later.

 

Buffalo in the 70’s: ‘There’s no flowery rhetoric’ in Jimmy Griffin’s campaign

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

“Blunt-talking Griffin,” says the headline, “meets issues head-on along campaign circuit.”

Forty years ago today, September 4, 1975, State Sen. James D. Griffin was seeking the Democratic nomination for Erie County executive against Amherst supervisor, sporting goods store owner and 1946 Buffalo Bisons quarterback Al Dekdebrun.

Dekdebrun won the primary, but he lost to Republican incumbent Ned Regan in the general election.

Two years later, in 1977, Griffin again lost a Democratic primary for mayor but was elected to his first of four terms in City Hall from third-party lines.

Buffalo in the 70’s: “Squeaky clean hair is ridiculous,” Shampoo is marketing not hygiene

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Calling America’s daily shampoo regimen “more a matter of marketing than hygiene,” a longtime Hotel Statler beautician said that most people just need hot water and a towel for their daily hair rinse.

The 67-year-old Albert Shelby told The News 40 years ago this week that his wife hadn’t shampooed her hair in 20 years.

Sept. 3, 1975. Buffalo Evening News. (Buffalo Stories archives)

Buffalo in the 70’s: The early days of disco in WNY

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Far from the cultural touchstone it is today, 40 years ago in the News’ entertainment section, disco was only mentioned twice — but those mentions were big ones.

In 1975, New York City’s Studio 54 was still two years away, but Buffalo’s Club 747 was touting itself as “America’s only superjet disco.” WKBW Radio disc jockey “Super Shannon” was “in the cockpit” playing records and bringing plenty of energy to the microphone and atmosphere.

Hertel Avenue’s hotspot of the 1970s was Mulligan’s. Ads from this week in 1975 offer exquisite detail about one of the city’s hottest clubs, which was only weeks away from opening.

The coming of the disco era saw an overall landmark shift in the increasing popularity of dancing to recorded music in nightclubs.  Live bands were more and more often giving way to record-playing personalities in DJ booths.

Big Bertha’s opened this week in 1975, and while promising live bands like Talas, Weekend and the Road seven nights a week, it’s clear they were also seeing the growing influence of disco, encouraging potential patrons to “Experience (their) electric dance floor!”

Other clubs Buffalonians visited for a good time this week 40 years ago include He & She’s, Gran Zepplin and Steak & Brew.

Buffalo in the 70’s: Bruins purchase should end whispers about Sportservice

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

On this date 40 years ago, September 2, 1970, The News’ editorial board lauded the NHL’s approval of Jeremy Jacobs’ purchase of the Boston Bruins. In their editorial, they said the league’s blessing should serve as an end to attempts by journalists and the Justice Department to tie Jacobs and the company now known as Delaware North to organized crime.

The Buffalo company was built by Louis Jacobs and then his son Jeremy by loaning money to sports franchises in exchange for long-term concessions rights. Late Buffalo News Sports Editor Larry Felser, among others, credited the Jacobs family with keeping Major League Baseball afloat during the Depression. Among hundreds of loans, cash lent to Detroit mafia kingpins and interest in a Las Vegas casino raised suspicion.

The News editorialized that congressional findings of no wrongdoing and the swift NHL approval should both spell a clean record for the company.

Fire takes the Little Harlem Hotel

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

As he stood on the curb watching the 70-year history of the Little Harlem Hotel being swallowed in bright orange flames, former City Court Judge Wilbur Trammell reflected  that the place was the only landmark the black residents of Buffalo had.

Catherine and Clyde Collins head into 1920s Night at the Little Harlem Hotel in 1984. (Buffalo News Archives)

Trammell recalled being one of 10 African-American students at UB in the 1940s, and how they all met at Little Harlem for 10-cent Buffalo-brewed Manru draft beers. Trammell purchased the building a few years before a February 1993 cooking accident rendered the place a total loss and left the burned-out, salmon-colored shell of one of Buffalo’s foremost entertainment landmarks on the emergency demolition list.

Hundreds of the earliest purveyors of jazz played and sang at Little Harlem, especially in light of the fact that they might not have been welcome at other clubs around the city. The Little Harlem’s owner, Ann Montgomery, described in a 1934 article as a “middle-aged negro of motherly appearance,” was welcoming not only to those of her own race in a heavily segregated society, but also to anyone of any group who couldn’t find a place to fit in.

1934. Buffalo Stories Archives

One night, as she ordered a round of drinks for everyone at the bar, she looked to the lone white woman there and told the bartender, “Give that lesbian a drink, too.”

As Prohibition agents raided “The Little Harlem Resort” in 1930, it was described as a place “where the color line faded under the stimulus of silk drapes and glittering pianos.”

Buffalo Stories Archives

Those were the days they were trying to relive in June 1984, when Catherine and Clyde Collins came in full costume for 1920s night at the landmark. Today, that site is a parking lot at the corner of Michigan and William.

More:

Feb 13, 1993: Fire destroys landmark club for black stars: Little Harlem Hotel lost

HAROLD McNEIL – News Staff Reporter

The Little Harlem Hotel, a historic Buffalo entertainment landmark, went up in flames Friday.

The curious joined former patrons who looked on in shock but who recalled all the great black entertainers who performed there over a 70-year history.

The two-story nightclub and hotel at 496 Michigan Ave., near William Street, was gutted in a two-alarm blaze that was apparently caused by a grease fire that began in a second-floor rear apartment at 4:15 p.m.

Damage was estimated at $150,000 to the building and $60,000 to the contents. Fire officials were expected to request emergency demolition for the building, owned by former City Judge Wilbur Trammell.

Trammell said he was in the building when the fire began. He said the fire was accidental, triggered when a Little Harlem employee and building tenant began heating oil to cook chicken wings.

“I was there. The waiter was there. He went upstairs to cook himself some wings and a grease fire took off. Just three minutes he was downstairs,” Trammell said.

The tenant, who identified himself as James Gordon, stood outside and watched the building burn. He said he left the apartment briefly to use the downstairs bathroom.

“When I came back the whole place was on fire,” Gordon said. “I couldn’t believe it.”

Trammell and several others watching the fire recalled snippets of the landmark’s history. “Any number of outstanding black entertainers (have been here). I met Sarah Vaughn here and Lena Horne, ” Trammell reminisced. “It’s all gone just like that.”

Many African-American entertainers — especially those considered jazz royalty — who appeared in Buffalo in the 1930s through the 1950s either performed or stayed in the Little Harlem Hotel in the days when blacks were restricted from other downtown hotels.

Trammell, a longtime patron of Little Harlem, bought the establishment four years ago.

“I bought this for one reason: I thought it belonged to the center-city community. I just thought it was the only landmark blacks had, quite frankly,” Trammell said. “I just thought we ought to keep it and I tried my best to keep it.”

“Ohh,” he groaned, as bright orange flames shot through the roof and a huge chunk of the building’s salmon-colored facade crumbled to the ground. “It hurts to see it. Oh,look at that!”

Back in the late 1940s, Trammell recalled, he and other black students attending the University of Buffalo used to meet every Friday night at the Little Harlem.

“There were only 10 blacks at the University of Buffalo at that time and we all came by here. We

used to drink 10-cent Manru beer. It was made here in Buffalo,” he said.

Tommy Fugate of Buffalo said some of his earliest memories are associated with the nightclub.

“When I was just a little boy I can remember Joe Louis being there . . . Billie Holiday, Billy Eckstein — all of them used to come right there,” he said, pointing to the burning building. “It’s a sense of loss because, face it, black people don’t have that many places to go to now anyway. And this was one of the main spots.”

Conde Peoples, a Buffalo firefighter who was born and raised in the neighborhood around the Little Harlem, said it’s been a part of his life, too.

“My mother and father, I can remember them going out. It was a big night out for them to come to the Little Harlem,” Peoples said. “I grew up and couldn’t wait until I got to the drinking age where I could come to the Little Harlem.”

“I really get choked up when I start talking about it,” he said. “It’s like a part of my life is dying right here. Over 20, 30 years of my life, I’ve spent some good times at the Little Harlem.”

Longtime patron Carl Johnson noted that it was long a favorite watering hole for many of the movers and shakers in the black community.

“A lot of political decisions that affected the city,

particularly the black community, were all discussed here,” Johnson said.

Buffalo firefighters received the first alarm at 4:21 p.m., and the second six minutes later. They brought the fire under control at 6:30 p.m. Fire officials said the fire was difficult to fight because the flames had penetrated a loft inside the building.

At about 9 p.m., one of the walls of the building caved in, leaving debris in the streets, which fire officials sought to have removed.

Brent Trammell, 30, who ran the business for his father, said the property is insured but it was too soon to say if the business will be rebuilt.

“It’s a shame that so much history is gone and especially when things were looking up business-wise,” the younger Trammell said. “We were doing some renovation in the back and, you know, this was my thing. It’s killing me to see this.”

Meanwhile, Pam Kehoe, a neighborhood resident, snapped photos of the fire — for posterity.

“The people in the neighborhood care for the businesses that are surrounding us and supporting (us),” Miss Kehoe said. “I’m taking pictures to compare the old building to what the new building will be like because I know Little Harlem will be open again.”

Buffalo in the 70’s: Sports heroes and their gin mills…

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Buffalo is a city that loves its sports and loves to drink. It makes combining the two a natural, and many professional athletes have tried their hands at becoming professional tavern owners as well.

In the 80’s and 90’s, Sabres tough guy Rob Ray had Rayzor’s on Elmwood Avenue at Bidwell. Bills great Jim Kelly famously had a string of nightclubs.

But in the 60’s and 70’s, Sestak and Maguire’s Lounge — owned by Bills all-time defensive lineman Tom Sestak and Bills all-time punter Paul Maguire — was one of Buffalo’s popular dining spots.

Forty years ago this week, Sestak and Maguire’s was advertised in The News right next to Schony’s. Jim Schoenfeld is remembered in Buffalo for his toughness on the blue line, his singing ability and record albums, his selling of mattresses, even his broadcasting and coaching.

Many fewer, however, remember Jim Schoenfeld, your host at Schony’s in the Evans Town Plaza.