Abstract
This oral history interview with Lottie Pilat and Jeannette Kolis explores the experiences of long-time Tremont residents. The interview delves into their memories of the area, focusing on changes in the community brought on by urban development, including the construction of freeways that displaced many residents. Pilat and Kolis discuss the ethnic diversity of the neighborhood, their family's businesses, the impact of the freeway on local commerce and social life, and their views on the evolving demographic and economic landscape of Tremont. The interview also touches on their personal histories, including their upbringing, community engagement, and reflections on social changes over the decades.
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Interviewee
Pilat, Lottie (interviewee); Kolis, Jeannette (interviewee)
Interviewer
Becerra, Ben (interviewer)
Project
Tremont History Project
Date
10-12-2003
Document Type
Oral History
Recommended Citation
"Lottie Pilat and Jeannette Kolis interview, 12 October 2003" (2003). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 223034.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1302
Transcript
Ben Becerra: This is an interview by Ben Becerra; a student at Cleveland State University. I’m interviewing Ms. Lottie Pilat and her friend Jen Kolis, regarding Tremont.
Ben Becerra: Umm, my first question, in either order, umm, when did you move to Tremont?
Lottie Pilat: Well, I was born on Clark Avenue–
Ben Becerra: Ok
Lottie Pilat: and then um, uh my dad uh, had a store on west sixth street but then they moved from there and uh, they moved to Clark, so what he did was he opened a store on literary until they found a place on fifteenth street where the store and the house was connected and that’s where uh, we been, uh, we’ve lived uh, until the freeway took over.
Ben Becerra: Ok
Lottie Pilat: Yeah
Ben Becerra: Ok so you moved into a house on Clark avenue you said?
Lottie Pilat: No, we, we, [cough] my dad found that place on west fifteenth street; and uh we’ve lived there oh I don’t know, I ss, it must’ve been from about uh, cause I was born in twenty five I don’t know how long before they moved on fifteenth street you know. But uh we lived there until 1964 when the state bought over the property and uh, and kicked us all outta there.
Ben Becerra: Okay, they kicked you out for the Freeways.
Lottie Pilat: That’s right
Ben Becerra: Okay umm, what was it like, when, I mean how many people would you say was it, a lot of people were getting kicked out of their homes so they could–.
Lottie Pilat: Oh, yeah you had a what part of west fourteenth street around branch avenue west fifteenth street, west sixteenth street, seventeen, Sadie, all of those streets all of those people up to umm, I think it was uh whether it was beyond castle no I think it stopped around castle avenue over there because I think castle is still there if I’m not mistaken or part of castle anyhow, I don’t even remember.
Ben Becerra: Umm, What were like the, the general attitudes, were a lot of people upset?
Lottie Pilat: Yes they were because a lot of ‘em were uh already uh retired, there homes were paid up for, they expected to live there ‘til they die, and uh, that’s it just hurt a lot of people. It really did and I noticed that a lot of ‘em that moved they didn’t live long after that. Cause we, we, we, used to try to keep track with some of our neighbors you know and so and so died. This one died and I says well I says that’s what happened they were probably, I know my mom felt bad she says all my memories are there, you know.
Ben Becerra: Mm hmm, did um, when they were moving did a lot of the people say they plan on staying in, in Tremont or–
Lottie Pilat: Well, they couldn’t find anything, yeah they couldn’t find anything, there.
Jeannette Kolis: They didn’t give ‘em much money either.
Lottie Pilat: No they didn’t, they paid for the land not your property.
Ben Becerra: They didn’t, oh, they didn’t give you money for your house or what you had put into the house ( )?
Lottie Pilat: We had a business, they didn’t pay, they says they don’t pay for the business they just pay for the prop, er, the land.
Ben Becerra: Shew, wow, and the business had to shut down?
Lottie Pilat: Yeah.
Ben Becerra: Umm, Miss Kolis–
Jeannette Kolis: Mm hmm
Ben Becerra: When did, when did you move to Tremont?
Jeannette Kolis: Uh, Well, we always lived in Tremont, when my parents immigrated from Poland in 1910 and 1911, they lived on Telton court and then west seventh street and then we moved uh my parents bought a home on Professor avenue between Jefferson and Starkweather and we stayed until 1971 when we moved to uh west 102nd near the airport, west ninety, 192nd near the airport.
Ben Becerra: You moved out in seventy one?
Jeannette Kolis: Pardon, yeah, we moved out in seventy one, that’s when the neighborhood really was goin down.
Ben Becerra: What, what did you notice?
Jeannette Kolis: Uh you know the streets needed cleaning the houses were being repaired, and, and uh my sisters had the opportunity to get the money from work, you know they, they worked uh together in one place and uh when they were, they usually get profit sharing, so they were able both to take some money out and we bought a new home out, by the airport.
Ben Becerra: Umm, when, when, the freeways were built, they were built in the early seventies, correct?
Jeannette Kolis: Sixties
Lottie Pilat: Sixties, yes cause we, we uh, cause we left sixty four, so that’s when then they were yeah, so it was in the uh the sixties is they, they were working on it.
Ben Becerra: Okay umm,
Lottie Pilat: Late, It could have been the late sixties by the time they you know start uh.
Ben Becerra: Okay, uh, we’ve heard Ms. Pilat give her views on ( ) , on what the freeway did to the area, Ms. Kolis, do you, do you feel the same way, do you feel the freeways um ?
Jeannette Kolis: Well, we weren’t effected by the freeway.
Ben Becerra: You weren’t?
Jeannette Kolis: No, uh-uh at that, you know, at that time, so we just wanted, you know, something better, and uh we had the opportunities and then we took it.
Ben Becerra: Umm, Miss Pilat, umm, do you remember any uh, shopping areas you enjoyed, umm, in the Tremont area?
Lottie Pilat: Well, everything was pretty good there we had drug stores, we had uh, uh grocery stores, we had these uh family grocery stores, you know in fact there was one on the next block uh um, behind um mentor avenue and um also a you had uh, uh like uh, uh there was like a uh dry good store, uh I remember it was Zukaricks, and uh we had doctors, dentists, funeral directors, churches, you had everything there; and now your churches are suffering because people have moved out and the parishioners kind of dwindled down, you have our Lady of Mercy, Saint John Cantius uh Saint Augustines uh what is that, and there’s that um, I think it’s a Lebanese church that’s right on fourteenth and uh, uh stark weather, a holy spirit church or holy ghost they called it there this is holy spirit here and uh that dwindled down that’s that where my neighbor belonged the one I was uh talking about uh she belonged over there and she said they have a very small uh parish now, you know, and uh, course there was that Ukrainian church right on uh, what is that um, uh college wasn’t it, college and seventh?
Jeannette Kolis: Yeah, yeah, Saint Peter and Paul.
Lottie Pilat: Yeah, Saint Peter and Paul, and uh, you had a lot of churches there, different nationalities, every, Greek church that assumption church right on Fairfeild and then uh Saint Theodocious. The historical with the its now uh, what a, considered uh yeah Saint Theodocious that one over there that you can, and uh, there were a couple other churches too there I believe, there was a polish national.
Jeannette Kolis: Yeah, I was once talking to a girl in work, she was a Jewish girl and I said, “you know Tremont’s got all kind of ethnic churches and all you know other religions,” she said I bet you don’t have a… a [laughter] synogogue.
Ben Becerra: [Laughter]
Jeannette Kolis: It never dawned on me, it never dawned on me, I said that’s true.
Ben Becerra: So there was never a synagogue huh?
Lottie Pilat: No
Jeannette Kolis: But we had uh, you know, all the other uh churches.
Lottie Pilat: We had different uh, we had a hardware stores close by right on fourteenth street you had a hardware store there, you had a delicatessen store you had a dry goods store, and you had uh a drug store which was west fourteen drug, and I think they used to have a fishers there also and that used to be uh a grocery store–
Jeannette Kolis: Hanks
Lottie Pilat: it was, it was right next to uh, uh, the uh, what do you call it uh the Zion evangelical church its right on the corner of branch and uh west 114th, it’s the one with the great tall spire, and um, I happen to see that and I think that it, that, they probably cant afford to even fix that church–
Ben Becerra: Really?
Lottie Pilat: Because they probably lost a lot of their um parishioners to you know.
Ben Becerra: Because of the freeway?
Lottie Pilat: Yeah, a lot of ‘em used to live in the neighborhood you know course, some ’em were our customers cause we had eh, I think it was a, what do you call it, international over there, you know, we had Greek, a Syrian, a Russian, umm Carpathorussian, Polish, Slovak, German, all kinds of nationalites over there.
Ben Becerra: Hmm, Umm, you said your father owned a shop?
Lottie Pilat: Grocery store
Ben Becerra: Grocery store, okay, it was a grocery store, I was just making sure it was just not like uh, now umm, you said you had a lot of ethnicities?
Lottie Pilat: Oh yes
Ben Becerra: In the grocery store that would come through all the time.
Lottie Pilat: Oh yeah mm hmm
Ben Becerra: Okay, umm, could you umm, describe the ethnicities at the time, like when you lived there before the freeways were put in and you umm, and then, what it, what they are now in Tremont, do you know?
Lottie Pilat: Well like I was saying you know, we had uh different nationalities like Russian, Polish, Slovak a German, Greek, one of my girlfriends was Greek and then a um Syrian, umm uh Carpathorussian, or Ruthenian, what they call ’em, I don’t know, it was something like that, and uh Ukranian, and um, everybody seemed to get along, and now, I don’t think you have that there.
Ben Becerra: No?
Jeannette Kolis: The Korean church there now.
Lottie Pilat: Well the Korean took over the Polish National church
Ben Becerra: Mm hmm
Lottie Pilat: On West fourteenth street
Jeannette Kolis: What’s across the street from Corpus?
Lottie Pilat: But that’s a Catholic church now. Huh?
Jeannette Kolis: What’s across the street from Corpus?
Lottie Pilat: Corpus?
Jeannette Kolis: Yeah the Korean church, isn’t there, there’s a Korean church across the street.
Lottie Pilat: Ohh, that’s over here though, yeah.
Jeannette Kolis: Oh, yeah
Lottie Pilat: But uh, the, the, one uh, the Polish national church, I think it, they sold it to a Korean, uh to Koreans and it’s a Korean Catholic church over there, because they moved out, and umm, so, a, like I say, everybody seemed to get along and you know whatever and, and uh, now, I don’t know what’s there, tell the truth, I, I, I don’t know, really, you know, cause there, so many people that were thrown out of there property, even that West fifteenth street alley, we had that, wha’d we have, we had Auburn bakery there, it was one of our umm bakers that came around, and um, I used to like it ‘cause we could always smell the bakery over there [laughing] and that we used to call the west fifteen alley, ‘cause it was a, you know a narrower street you know, that’s gone, and umm, uh ‘course that was behind like Saint Augustins, I don’t know part, maybe part of it is there yet or not, Im not sure, I never went there to see, but, I know some of that was taken away as far as Branch avenue, uh, uh rather Auburn avenue, Auburn avenue. And uhh, but umm, lot of those people, I’m, so many houses that went, oh gee, it was–
Jeannette Kolis: They’re talk, they’re talking now about extending I-71 you know to West fourteenth that’ll get rid of a lot of people too now and you know the neighborhood is sort of up in an uproar about that.
Ben Becerra: Mmm hmm
Lottie Pilat: You know then, then they wonder why people, they say people are running away to the suburbs, well where you gonna go?
Ben Becerra: Right
Lottie Pilat: I mean, they threw us outta there.
Ben Becerra: Right
Lottie Pilat: We probably would’ve been still livin’ up there, even if we wouldn’t of had the business, we would’ve closed the business down, and maybe ff, refurbished the place or something and, and stayed there, because that was a nice neighborhood.
Ben Becerra: Right
Lottie Pilat: People kept up their property nicely and everything and, and uh, I don’t know, its just, its just sad. Its really said.
Ben Becerra: It’s terrible
Lottie Pilat: And umm, Just like they’re building a lot of these you know like town houses and everything else. Did you see, did you see those in the paper too? They look like a bunch of boxes.
Jeannette Kolis: Did you see those in the front where their painting blue red and they look like boxes right next to it, it was a set, yesterdays paper.
Lottie Pilat: Yeah it was in yesterdays plain dealer, right on the front page. Yea, Those other town houses look nice, but the other ones, you know, the other ones are, I don’t know, I don’t think Id like to live in on of em.
Jeannette Kolis: You know the neighborhood’s changed now, because they have all these famous restaurants like Lola’s, and– Lottie Pilat: Yeah, Yeah
Jeannette Kolis: all of those you know all the yuppies can afford them the people that live there, cause my girlfriend still lives there uh couple of em still live there she says they cant afford to go to these restaurants because they have uh you know they’re so expensive and uh you know oh gee, so she says that it just and they got so much of that art stuff there now, well they have a, ah, art work uhh walk today in, in Lincoln Park.
Lottie Pilat: ( ) it’s in Tremont Yeah. Yeah, they’re havin’ that
Ben Becerra: So you think its like, would you say its becoming a more upper class area, now?
Jeannette Kolis: Like where my girlfriend lives, they uh, they fixed up a few houses, she lives on Tremont Avenue, and she says that it seems like they come to work here, by the weekend their you know goin wherever their wa, used to, uhh you know like, maybe their from out of town because alotta licenses plates were from outta town, and uh, uh, uh the house on the other side of her was refurbished and you know rents have gone up to like 800 dollars a month, th you know the people that are still livin there, they’re getting pushed out little by little and now they sold that union gospel press building on west seventh street, that big complex, and their talking about building condos in their or apartments and, and taking and the one lady said to this fella “well your going to need parking” I exposed my house, these houses on uhh, uh west sixth street? Or somewhere around that border–
Lottie Pilat: Something ( )
Jeannette Kolis: They, they’ll have to take those for parking, there’s no parking for any of these restaurants when uh Cantius this, uh, Saint John Cantius had their festival, they were parked all over, you know, the festival people were parked all over and wh, uh, the uh uh restaraunts opened up, there was no really place to park but on the streets.
Ben Becerra: Saint John Cantius, is that like a yearly festival?
Jeannette Kolis: Yeah
Lottie Pilat: Yes,( )theyhaveathreeday…
Jeannette Kolis: A three day right before, uh, uh, labor day.
Ben Becerra: Umm, now do prior residents of Tremont usually attend that festival, people that moved out?
Lottie Pilat: Oh, Yeah, I do, I go there.
Jeannette Kolis: O yeah
Lottie Pilat: See I don’t belong there anymore, I belong over here.
Jeannette Kolis: We were there, all three days we went for the ethnic food.
Lottie Pilat: We, we always go, every, every year we go there, meet the old timers and everything else you know.
Jeannette Kolis: Well the old timers don’t seem to be going because, you know it was just a new crowd this year, I didn’t see any of our friends because they’re passing away.
Ben Becerra: Sorry to hear that.
Lottie Pilat: Yeah, they always have a lot of bakeries there, like Jefferson bakery and Diddo bakery and uh, which was a bakery, that bakery on K Kenilworth.
Jeannette Kolis: It was always designated, you goin to the Polish bank or the Ukranian bank? [laughter]; And you know like there was like two of everything, like, when we lived on Professor there was one on uh literary and Professor, uh drug store and docs at our, our place, which was real nice and we had groce, mom and pop grocery stores and and just about everything.
Lottie Pilat: Well, you had photographers there, remember we used to have this uh–
Jeannette Kolis: I mean it was just like a city, well at one time they said, when they took the via-dock down, that there was no way of getting into Tremont.
Lottie Pilat: Well they could’ve built another one.
Jeannette Kolis: Well they built that I490 or whatever it is now.
Lottie Pilat: That’s well that’s–
Jeannette Kolis: And they built that uh I71
Lottie Pilat: But uh that bridge well that was, it, it was good for us because we were able to walk over the bridge and be downtown you didn’t even have to take any uh, kind of uh, you know cause we didn’t have cars in those days you know?
Ben Becerra: Right
Lottie Pilat: And uh, we just walked that wooden bridge we called it and we went du we went downtown, and I think that’s when uh, uh, wasn’t it a uh, uh, streetcar, when that, when the bridge uh, uh, caved in?
Jeannette Kolis: The Detroit Superior bridge?
Lottie Pilat: No, no, no the West fourteen bridge?
Jeannette Kolis: Oh I don’t, that I don’t remember.
Lottie Pilat: Yea I heard uh, that’s what I heard you know that uh, that uh went down, and, why couldn’t they just build another bridge? and that would’ve been great. See cause uh, it would’ve been even closer for me to go downtown instead of taking Scranton road when I was working in uh in the rose building at Western Union. And umm, I umm, had to take the wes, uh, the Scranton bus, and go down Scranton road and through that umm lift bridge over there that was sometimes up when the ship was going through and you had to wait and you were late…
Ben Becerra: [Laughter]
Lottie Pilat: But uh, it was close to town, and people went shopping, a lot of em walked, the same thing with west 25, they used to go to the market, they’d walk on abbey bridge, you know, no problem.
Ben Becerra: My grandmother used to live, actually my, my mother’s family was raised on west fifty second and my grandmother was uh, like a pillar at uh Saint Stephens church…
Lottie Pilat: Oh
Ben Becerra: She was Polish so, she loved her church, she passed last summer unfortunately, great person. Umm, do you recall any uh major retail chains, coming into Tremont like a Wal Mart, or an Uncle Bills?
Jeannette Kolis: Yeah, but they could use it now
Lottie Pilat: Nooo, but they could use, they could use a supermarket there or something.
Jeannette Kolis: They don’t even have a gas station, my girlfriend has to go all the way up on Clark…
Lottie Pilat: Clark avenue.
Jeannette Kolis: Clark avenue to go to a gas station. They don’t have a dry-cleaners, that too is uhh, one of the worst, she goes to Auburn cleaners wherever they’re at on Pearl road, or wherever.
Lottie Pilat: They’re over here, c, they’re called Camelon now.
Jeannette Kolis: Yeah they had everything.
Lottie Pilat: And they their used to be a cleaners over there every, like I said, we had everything there. Before because you know it was uh family owned, you know a lot of these families they owned these stores you know and that’s where, where it was. You had, you had everything there. And uh–
Jeannette Kolis: The good thing that’s uh happening now, is they have this little uh, what’s that bus line called?
Lottie Pilat: Oh, that communicator.
Jeannette Kolis: That, yeah, they could catch that anywhere you know and she could at least go, uh, you know like up Clark if she has to go to a drug store, she has to go all the way up on twenty fifth and up br uh Memphis there.
Lottie Pilat: Now see, they used to have a drug store there–
Jeannette Kolis: To go to get her prescriptions for her sister and her self.
Ben Becerra: She has to go all the way up there huh?
Lottie Pilat: Yeah, and they used to have a drug store right on Literary and Professor. They had one on
west fourteen street, now there’s nothing, nothing there, it just, it just seems like you know everything just um disappeared.
Ben Becerra: You say that there’s…
Jeannette Kolis: And they, Oh excuse me, and my girlfriend they go to these meetings, you know they have periodic meetings asking the residents what they need there and they tell’em all this: “we want stores, we want uh little shopping centers somewhere,” they could get rid of those projects that have– they refurbished those and they’re, they’re, they’re in such bad shape they’re their going to build them up again. Now, they don’t need that there. They could, uh they could have a nice little shopping center for them with you know the needs that they need but she said they don’t listen, they just don’t listen to them.
Ben Becerra: There’s, there’s, th, housing projects you were saying?
Jeannette Kolis: Yeah, Valley view housing projects.
Lottie Pilat: I think that’s what brought the properties down too over there.
Jeannette Kolis: They used to be nice back when it was like in 1940, uh what was it about forty, in the forties they built those, they were so nice and clean and that’s when you know, so I said we moved out of there because they were just a mess, and they refurbished them, they become, they’re a mess again, now they’re talking about taking them down and building uh condos or some such, or some public housing and some private housing.
Ben Becerra: Ok, now um, you said there’s still, people still living in the projects?
Jeannette Kolis: I don’t know–
Lottie Pilat: That I don’t know.
Jeannette Kolis: If its totaled, I don’t know, because we haven’t been down there.
Lottie Pilat: But there, they don’t look too good either over there either, last time I saw yeah.
Ben Becerra: Umm, and you said, they were built in the forties?
Jeannette Kolis: Uhh, pretty sure they were built in the forties, I don’t think any of these books talk about that.
Ben Becerra: Ms. Kolis has a series of uh books…
Lottie Pilat: She saved a lot of that stuff there you know.
Jeannette Kolis: East Tremont–
Ben Becerra: Newspaper Clippings–
Jeannette Kolis: Yeah, I got the Church all the churches they’ve got there, and uh all about union gospel press because I worked there after school.
Lottie Pilat: Yeah, she used to work there.
Ben Becerra: Cindy’s bar–
Jeannette Kolis: Yeah, that was uh, that uh that’s friends of ours, Cindellas is uh is the real name but they called it Cindy’s bar.
Lottie Pilat: Yeah they used even have that uh dry cleaner right on Literary, what was the name again?
Jeannette Kolis: Oh, Kertz.
Lottie Pilat: Kertz, yeah Kertz.
Ben Becerra: Is, Is Cindy’s bar still there?
Jeannette Kolis: Uh, no, there, I think one of those fancy restaurants are there. I don’t know which one, cause they keep closing and opening new ones and you just cant like Miracles, I don’t even know that they’re still there.
Ben Becerra: Cindy’s bar was at uh?
Jeannette Kolis: West eleventh and uh Fairfield.
Lottie Pilat: No, Mira, Miracles used to be right on uh, what is it west tenth?
Jeannette Kolis: Yeah, west tenth and uh–
Lottie Pilat: Well they’re not there anymore.
Jeannette Kolis: I thought they were.
Lottie Pilat: I think its somebody else, I think its somebody else.
Jeannette Kolis: Yeah, I, I saved all of those things.
Lottie Pilat: Well, I remember Savages uh pharmacy. You know right on the corner of Kelinworth and uh ()
Jeannette Kolis: That’s when they were tryin to redevelop Tremont, they issued that book.
Ben Becerra: Who lived in the uh, in the projects, I mean were, were there a series of ethnic groups or ( )?
Jeannette Kolis: Well, my uh, My cousin when she got married, she uh lived there, and they were very, very nice. And uh, but then after a while, different set people.
Lottie Pilat: ()
Ben Becerra: Would say recently, more recently, there was African Americans living there?
Jeannette Kolis: Ah huh.
Ben Becerra: Ok, and, is that when things started going…
Jeannette Kolis: Up there.
Ben Becerra: They started going bad there?
Jeannette Kolis: Down there, mm hmm.
Ben Becerra: Umm, do, now, what, what did you notice about the projects, since umm, the arrival of Afr, or, the arrival of African Americans living there, uh, just the upkeep? Or was it–
Jeannette Kolis: Well, they–
Lottie Pilat: I think it’s the upkeep
Jeannette Kolis: The upkeep. Ben Becerra: Upkeep?
Jeannette Kolis: Ah huh, and I , I think they had their own, uh, like, uh, well not a government but uh, they tried to govern themselves or something, but I don’t know.
Ben Becerra: Ok, they were acting, I mean?
Jeannette Kolis: Yeah they, well they, I guess they tried to run the place
Ben Becerra: Oh, ok.
Jeannette Kolis: Which I don’t know how they how that happened.
Ben Becerra: Umm, did you notice anything since African Americans lived there, umm in the streets, did the streets, were they dirty, were their cars in the streets?
Jeannette Kolis: They were just starting you know when we moved away, and we just hardly ever went back,
you know to visit. But, ahh, some of my girlfriends used to say you know how bad it is down there.
Lottie Pilat: See, she lived closer to the projects than I did.
Ben Becerra: Oh, ok.
Lottie Pilat: See I was on west fifteenth street. We didn’t have any you know, cars were mostly European.
Jeannette Kolis: They were down ss, uh, ss, what seventh and Starkweather, there and we were between Jefferson and Starkweather.
Ben Becerra: Oh, Ok, umm, did crime go up, did you notice?
Jeannette Kolis: I think so, yeah, I think there was a murder or something down there.
Lottie Pilat: I heard yeah, I heard, once in the pa, I saw it in the paper once.
Becerra: Umm, now I know that Stokes was elected in uhh, was it 63, I believe, he was the first black mayor of Cleveland did anything umm, happen you know in that area when, when stokes was elected in the projects, do you recall?
Jeannette Kolis: I don’t know anything about that.
Ben Becerra: No?
Jeannette Kolis: Mm, mm
Ben Becerra: Were there…
Jeannette Kolis: But they deserve, you know new housing down there, and, and stores and things like that they those people deserve all of that.
Ben Becerra: Really?
Jeannette Kolis: Mm, mm
Lottie Pilat: Its really surprising that they don’t have any like grocery stores and they used to have, right on Professor, they used to have a–
Jeannette Kolis: Oh yeah, we had stores all over the place
Lottie Pilat: And now they have nothing, we had hardware stores over there, I remember on Professor street you had also dry good stores, you had beer joints of course you always had that, you restaurants, you had ah, ah, what do you call it ah drug stores, you had two of ‘em I think–
Jeannette Kolis: Yeah, we had two of ‘em on our street.
Lottie Pilat: There were two of em on Professor, and uh, then you had hardware store, remember ah…
Jeannette Kolis: Chefreinsky’s
Lottie Pilat: Chefreinsky’s, yeah you had photographers, C, Colletta, and uh, Ublinsky and uh, then there was a Sarnesky’s grocery store, right on the corner what, what is there now?
Jeannette Kolis: Oh, that tree, uh, mmm, where that murder was, the cop, you know, killed somebody there, there where, I don’t know, they came to rob it.
Lottie Pilat: It’s right on the corner of Literary and Professor. Across from our, from the church there.
Jeannette Kolis: And you wonder how they got a permit to be right across the church. Cause the, our pa, didn’t uh, Father Ralph try to buy the property, behind it, you know when they, they took down a whole bunch of houses, and he wanted it for extra parking, I don’t know whether he put a bid in it or what but somebody you know, I think that uh, whatever that what kind of name, kind of a tree it is, the name of the place, and uh, but they use it now for the parking lots.
Ben Becerra: Mm, um, of all these areas, all these shops, umm, Ill ask Ms. Pilat first and then Ms. Kolis, did you have a favorite, favorite like your family was there a set place you, you and your family would go to eat on Sundays or?
Lottie Pilat: No, we ate at home [laughter]. We didn’t go to restaurants.
Ben Becerra: Really? Was there a fav, a favorite family umm event, anything you guys would do that you could, you could think of, any traditions?
Lottie Pilat: Well like our, our, Easter traditions and Christmas you know, those were are usually, stick, stick with the family you know.
Ben Becerra: Right.
Lottie Pilat: And uh, either between relatives or whatever you know, like that, cause our relatives were always close you know, now, lord knows [laughter], they’re so far away, your goin over to auntie Sofas she’s on twelfth street, okay, your goin to uncle John, he over there on Clark avenue. So they were all close you know.
Ben Becerra: Yeah
Lottie Pilat: And umm, but now, well the cousins are way out.
Ben Becerra: They’re all gone.
Lottie Pilat: Yeah so, no we didn’t go to restaurants, uh, our, our restaurant was home [laughter].
Ben Becerra: That’s good, that’s good, its not like that anymore.
Lottie Pilat: The only, the only thing is, you know, like when I was goin to school well during the winter time, you know it was kind of bad goin home to eat. You know, cause I had quite a distance to go anyhow, I used to cut through Lincoln Park, and umm, but then my mother says “well, you take either a lunch” so sometimes she fixed me a lunch, and we had that, and we just got our milk at school and then uh or else there was uh restaurant I think it was close to umm Fairfield there. There was one restaurant and then there was one I think it was across the street from the school, so sometimes I would go to one or the other you know, just, that’s for sch, just during sch, lunch hour. You know, cause I was goin to the uh Saint John Cantius uh elementary.
Ben Becerra: Mm hmm,
Lottie Pilat: Yeah, so, but like I say, I feel bad because umm, you know I been in Europe three times already, and I see what they do to old homes, they try to refurbish them and keep them up, here you had mansions on west fourteenth street, the Rippage mansion, that where Tolmein funeral home used to be, that was a mansion that went down, there was uh, a mansion uh, like uh, on west fourteenth street also, cause that, that used to be uh millionaires row, my brother used to call it…
Ben Becerra: Right.
Lottie Pilat: Yeah, uh that’s what they uh, I think there was another name, it was Jennings, Jennings, I think that’s what they called it, yeah and uh, but there were nothing but mansions around there, and it was one big one and I remember when they were tearing it down. I felt so bad, I said, it was such a beautiful mansion, it had uh the roundest windows like, you know, and those walls were really thick and I saw that ball bouncing, because we had a back porch so we sit there sometimes and I just shook my head I says, “They don’t do those things in Europe” [Laughter].
Ben Becerra: Where was that at?
Lottie Pilat: West fourteenth.
Ben Becerra: West fourteenth, they don’t do that over there.
Lottie Pilat: And then they had uh, across the street, they had uh, I don’t know what they would call that, is that a, like a penthouse?, Or something you know it was uh, umm more than one family, or something that went down to–
Ben Becerra: Mm hmm
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