Downtown Charleston

A Nostalgic Look At The 50's & 60's

by Sharon Gates

Hi Classmates,

I was fortunate to be able to spend a lot of time downtown as a child. When I was ten and eleven years old, my Mother dropped me off on Saturday mornings at Londeree Music, where I took piano lessons from Mrs. Dottie Aaron.

After the lesson, I would go up from the basement, where it was held, to the store, which had records and
booths for listening. Then, after lingering there awhile, looking over the sheet music, I would walk westward on Quarrier Street to Blossom Dairy, and have one of their hot dogs with the bun I found so interesting. It looked to me like a tiny loaf of white bread which had one partial slit from end to end. They must have prepared them or bought them from an entirely different place than the ones Mother bought at Kroger's down on Smith Street.

After sitting at the counter and having one of their hot dogs with chili, coleslaw and mustard, with a vanilla milk shake I would proceed to Capitol Street and make that left to see Mr. Peanut standing on the sidewalk. The door to the shop was ajar, so that the wonderful aroma of the roaster emanated toward my nostrils, to stimulate more appetite, though I had thought I was full from the hot dog and milk shake. I always went in and got a small bag of them (peanuts) and then walked across the street to the Federal building, which much later, became the library, and sat on the steps a few minutes, munching the peanuts and gazing at the passersby.

Every lady, including me, was wearing a dress or skirt and blouse or sweater. Most of the ladies had on gloves, white cotton short ones with the pearl button at the inside wrist in summer, or, the leather or woolen ones in winter. I was OK eating while sitting on the steps, but I never saw a lady wearing pants or shorts, eating or smoking as she walked. Most were wearing hats, as well, which reminds me of the millinery shops. After all, these ladies and I were "downtown" and that meant something in those days!

When I had stopped my people watching and peanut eating, I then made my way up Capital Street, crossing there at the Ritz Restaurant over to Galperin Music Store, looking into all the windows until I came to Peck's and the little triangle area where the Nativity Scene was set during December, the site of the old capitol building which burned down way before we were born.

There were often men begging or selling pencils right there. My heart was just broken for these men, one of whom was legless, but who scooted himself around on wheels with what looked to me like an iron in each hand for propulsion. I always gave them some change. Mother told me they had been injured or blinded in The War.

Of course, we had those colorful characters Downtown, one of the most memorable being "Lightning." He was the stuff of legends and my Father even remembered him from his own childhood Downtown! If there is anyone who
grew up in Charleston and doesn't know who "Lightning" was, then we will have to have another thread on this message board just for him, and maybe we ought to do so anyhow!

Another character was the woman known as "Crazy Mary." Once, I told Daddy there was a lady who walked very fast past us at RJHS while we were practicing our cheerleading, and she was cussing a blue streak, but not looking at us. I described her and Daddy said, "Oh, that was just Crazy Mary. She says things, but she is harmless." He also knew her from growing up in the East End. Mother knew who she was, too, and told me she didn't think she was crazy at all and that she'd heard her tell off someone on the bus one day and it made perfect sense. I remember Debbi Risk's daddy, Philip, who was a cheerleader at RJHS when he and my dad were there, tell us something similar when Debbi and I were talking about her. Knowing things we do now, I wonder if "Crazy Mary" had Tourette's Syndrome, was schizophrenic, or what.

What a cast of colorful characters, and there must be many more I never encountered.

Back to my Saturdays ...

If my brother was at the YMCA, on the far northwestern corner, I'd wait patiently, to be able to do the criss-cross walk, which meant I wouldn't have to first cross Lee and then cross Capital, but, wonder of wonders, could make the "X" and cross right to the Y! Boy, did I love to do that! The efficiency of this one corner always amazed me!

If Richard wasn't at the "Y" and needed to be collected by his big sister, then I headed east on Lee Street at Peck's. The library, former capital annex, with it's Gothic architecture and charcoal gray color, stood as solidly as
any building I had ever seen or would ever see, and I began to tingle with excitement of running up the stairs, heading to the children's department. I had my piano books and sheet music with me, but still bounded up the steps very quickly and pulled on the very heavy glass doors, into the building.

The smell of all the leather books and the old paper and the dimness of the foyer, gave me a shiver of anticipation, for there was nothing I liked more than going through the stacks, looking for books to take home with me for a week. I loved the books about the Borrowers and there was a series about a girl called Rowena which enchanted me.

I lingered there in the whispered quietness, taking a book to the window where I could read a few lines. When I gathered up all the books I wanted, I was always amazed at how many I'd accumulated for check out, because time was out of mind, and so were the number of books I had selected.

The librarian was a very sweet lady who spoke in hushed tones and smiled at my eagerness each week, when I pulled out my library card and she went through each book, taking out the card in the pocket in the back, stamping it with the date due, and then placed one atop the other in a stack.

When she finished, I always whispered, as was the rule, and asked her if it was OK to leave them there for a minute, while I went out onto the landing on the second floor, opened the wooden and glass door to the phone booth there, put in my nickel and called Mother to tell her I was ready for her to collect me from the steps out front. I felt oh-so-grown-up, having this time all to myself downtown, my first real taste of autonomy.

I lugged the big stack of books down to the bottom step on Lee Street, watching to the left for our family car. Since it was a one-way street going east, it was pretty easy for her to navigate, although the traffic was always
very heavy.

Once, while I awaited her, a truck driver wrecked into a street light and was injured. I could hear him telling the Charleston Policeman that he had been awake all night and fell asleep at the wheel. That was, of course, in the days when people were allowed to make mistakes like that and the lawyers were not encouraging everyone to sue everyone else. I cried when I saw the blood and read the pain in his tired lined face. He was very old, probably 40, at least! The policeman was sympathetic and friendly.

There was a worse snarl in traffic that day, because of the wreck, but I was captivated by the drama of it all and only Mother was any worse the wear because of sitting in traffic. I was so excited, telling her about everything I had witnessed, but soon realized she was not, only frazzled.

Of course, on the way home, her tense state was only aggravated as we were also caught by the train on Greenbrier Street, heading up to Shadowlawn. That was nearly a daily occurrence for us, and we were never able to predict the schedule of those B & O freight trains in order to avoid them. I can remember them backing up and stopping, then going forward and stopping. The length of time they would block the tracks was also only a matter for speculation.

If there were laws about it, I never heard of them being enforced. Waiting for the train was a lesson in patience I learned very well. As I recall, the plants which employed so many of our daddies and granddaddies, the trains,
the State House, all of the wheels of industry, commerce and government, took precedence over the individual or collective residents.

Thanks for asking about the corner of Capital and Quarrier Streets, Marsha. I have another, much later, standout memory of it, too.

When we were in high school, probably our senior year, it was my custom to leave school each day and walk downtown, since the bus back up Greenbrier Street left about every half hour. My Mother and Father were both at work, and as long as I was home for the 5:30 PM supper, nobody questioned my whereabouts. So, shopping
became my pass-time, but in a wide sense.

Much of my time was spent looking, not buying, and a great deal of the pleasure of it was seeing other people, fellow CHS students, GWHS and SJHS students, going by my Grandma Madeleine Gates's dress shop, Annette's, on Dickinson Street. It was a wonderful social outlet and I always felt, after leaving, that the Town Square concept everyone talks about in small New England towns, etc., was alive and well in our big City of Charleston.

Often I was able to convince another classmate or two to join me. One day Cathy Pantuso, Frieda Forsley and I were doing the stroll around downtown after school and we went into Woolworth's getting some popcorn. We came out onto Capital Street and after only a few seconds, we heard a gun shot!

Of course, none of us had ever heard anything like that in the streets of Charleston in our young lives, and we saw an older boy, "Hobo" Slack fall onto the sidewalk in front of Galperin's, clutching his gut and screaming! We saw a man with a gun standing over him and a Charleston Policeman running up to take the gun away from his attacker. The man was shouting, "He drove me to it, he and his buddies. I own this (newspaper) vending machine and they loiter in front of it and harass me all the time. People cannot even get to the paper for these "Drugstore Cowboys"!" He was handcuffed, the ambulance came and took "Hobo" to the hospital and I collapsed into Cathy and Frieda's arms. Why they were not similarly affected by seeing someone shot and all the blood and emotion of it escapes me, but I do remember Cathy being angry with my reaction and telling me I was overly dramatic! I have a sense of irony that both Catherine and Frieda are involved in the dramatic world of Charleston amateur theater now, and I am just a mortgage brokerage business owner. Could it be I missed my calling to the dramatic?

I don't know the disposition of the newspaper vendor's case, but "Hobo" lived. Even at RJHS, "Hobo" was a wild one, and I remember he was kin to a politician named John Slack. I believe he met his end in not-too-distant future, from some other violent attack. He lives on in my memory.

Last Modified: 02/07/2010