I was born at the end of the season of lilacs, on the doorstep of that tumultuous summer when cities across America burned. In Prague the students still basked in the warmth of a false spring, and half a world away soldiers weathered the Tet Offensive, but to Batavia these events were just grainy images on the television like a rumble of far off thunder.
The nation lost Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy, and somewhere deep within our hearts a seed of doubt took root, and began to grow, watered by the tears like rain. The skies above Batavia had already begun to darken. One by one the buildings of the old city began to fall as the wrecking balls cleared away the past for the great urban renewal. Piles of bricks lined Main Street , wooden beams poking out of them like crosses. In the parking lot of Star Market the women felt the first drops, reached into their purses, and took out their little plastic rain bonnets.
At Trojan Industries, the presses still thumped, and the weld sparks still scattered across the floor like diamonds. Business was strong in the factories that remained. At night the crowds at Dwyer Stadium, still cheered their ballplayers knowing that the game is never over until the final out. New plazas went up at both ends of the town, their asphalt lots sparkling with Detroit steel.
On July 4th the marching bands marched from City Hall down the length of Main Street to the burned out shell of old St. Joseph’s Church, whose charred rafters stuck out like the ribs on a rotting animal. Next door a windowless rectangular bunker arose to protect us from an enemy that we couldn’t see. Elm trees fell all over town, as the city worked to keep up with Dutch Elm disease. New trees were planted, and staked, the cracked bluestone sidewalks replaced with white cement. After the work crews left, kids scratched their names into them like stars on Hollywood Boulevard.
Year by year the empty lots and vacant buildings multiplied. In their place rose an image of the concrete future that only made the rain feel colder. In the weedy lots on Washington Avenue, the outlines of sidewalks, and basements remained like footprints left behind by a city that had moved on. Yet we stayed behind, the great bulk of the new Mall whispering promises of better things to come, promises that we are still waiting to be fulfilled.
This was why I clung to the past, and refused to surrender anything as I grew. Even at that young age I knew that something was slipping away from us, never to return. What else can explain the melancholy that haunts me still, and leads me to sift through the dust of memory like an archaeologist? Surely there is something left behind that we have forgotten, something that will show us the way back.
Do you think Main Street has remained in some places? I like to imagine it has, but it’s not anywhere around here.
I like to think that there are places that were left behind, and escaped the late 60’s, and 70’s urge to “renew” them, and have somehow been missed by the McDonalds-izing, and Walmart-ization of America. If they do, they are rare and well hidden.
Lovely. Just lovely. 🙂 There’s a poignancy in your writing that I like very much.
Pearl
Thank you Pearl. Hope you survived Snowmagaedon.
i know what’s missing — it’s little plastic rain bonnets. we need to bring them back. and i think lady gaga could do it.
for those who are too young to remember them. This fashion statement has Gaga written all over it.
I remember when they razed the old Woolworths building on the SW corner of Main and Jackson, it must have been around the same time that they got rid of the North side of Main St. On Sundays my parents would go to the newsstand there on Jackson-what was it called? Mom would go to the newsstand and get a Buffalo News, maybe even a Courier Express, and Dad would walk me over to look in the “big hole”. What a mess they made of downtown…
I know the news stand, but the name of it is escaping me. Sigh… fading middle age memory strikes again.
Marshalls News Stand. You could buy cigars there as well.
THANK YOU! Marshall’s was the place.
Bravo Tom, well written, hit the nail on the head, I Am right there with you. You know how this topic gets me fired up…
Jeff
Jeff, can you remember the name of the News store on Jackson, that La mentioned? The name is escaping me. We used to stop there every Sunday after mass to pick up the Sunday paper. It was also the best place in town for buying comic books.
Yes I believe it was “Marshall’s” new stand on Jackson, behind it was Batavia Periodicals, the former Batavia Daily News paper building on Center. I think now it’s the “Smoke House” I don’t remember what became of the location of Marshall’s or even if that was the original name, I remember it was called that when we were in grade school and high school. The diner on corner of that row of buildings was great as well, The name escapes me.
That little strip of Batavia always had a great town feel to it, many good business lived there, Ebling Electric I think, and Salways, The Candle light Restaurant. Who was the old Italian Fellow who ran the lawn mower and tool business on that street?
Jeff
I think it was Mortelaro’s. I believe it’s still there, just around the corner next to O’Lacy’s.
That block is about the only one downtown to have escaped the wrecking ball. It makes me cry to imagine what a lovely place it could have been if the rest of downtown had survived.
Mr. Mortellaro. Is that where O’Lacy’s is now or is that next door?
Next door. It’s still there according to the most recent Google Map Street View of School Street. Kind of amazing.
Love this post. While my hometown hasn’t changed much, the small town where my mother grew up and where we visited my grandparents so many times has gone much the way you described.
When I took these aerial photographs, I could not believe what must have happen to Batavia’s downtown. I came to this site looking for answers. Such destruction is hard to believe.
http://www.landslides.com/Upload/Batavia
Alex,
Thanks for sharing those photos. Yes, the destruction was very hard to believe. I hope the post has helped explain what happened, even if we can’t understand “why”.
and here… https://20prospect.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/the-passenger/
Here’s a more thorough explanation of the Urban Renewal
https://20prospect.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/hollowing-out-batavia/
And here… https://20prospect.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/the-power-of-positive-thinking-or-%E2%80%9Cwhy-we-shouldn%E2%80%99t-build-the-monorail%E2%80%9D/