Abstract
Jim Shipman reflects on his experiences going downtown in the 1960s and 1970s. He discusses taking the rapid, attending baseball games at Municipal Stadium, shopping in department stores, exploring Cleveland Union Terminal, the Arcade, and Gene’s Fun House, and, later, going to see big-name music acts at the World Series of Rock. He sheds light on how cheap it was to enjoy a day in downtown in his youth, including buying cheap slices of pizza, patronizing stores that sold seconds of fashion-brand clothes at deep discounts, and hanging out in others just to play with the merchandise without parental or storeowner oversight.
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Interviewee
Shipman, Jim (interviewee)
Project
Cuyahoga County Fair
Date
2006
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
16 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Jim Shipman interview, 2006" (2006). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 914001.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/901
Transcript
Jim Shipman [00:00:03] Jim Shipman, my name and you have my permission to use this.
Unknown Interviewer [00:00:09] So how long have you lived in Cleveland, all your life?
Jim Shipman [00:00:10] Yeah, I’m 54 years old and outside of the time that I was in the Army, I’ve been here the rest of the time. Never lived anywhere else.
Unknown Interviewer [00:00:24] In the downtown area of Cleveland, what are some of your earlier memories of that and maybe you’ve kind of seen through the pictures here and brought up?
Jim Shipman [00:00:33] Well, I was a regular at the stadium for many years as a kid, you know. It was a cheap place to go, nice afternoon to spend. We used to go shopping for shoes in the ’60s at Regal’s and John Hardy’s and all those kind of shoe shops down on, I think it was Euclid as a matter of fact. God, I wish I could remember some of those 5 and 10 cent stores we’d go to down there. But we’d go down there on the Rapid Transit, my brothers and I, and stop off at the little pavilion for a piece of pizza, you know, and just in those days you could actually walk around and shop and everything was cool, you know, you didn’t have to worry about getting mugged or anything. Everybody was pretty friendly. All the major department stores were still in business at the time.
Unknown Interviewer [00:01:27] So in a way your earlier memories are kind of like as a teenage years going to Cleveland as if it were a mall today.
Jim Shipman [00:01:34] Right, right.
Unknown Interviewer [00:01:37] So it was your entertainment kind of.
Jim Shipman [00:01:40] Entertainment, practical usage, going down there shopping for things. We’d go down there at Christmas time. I can’t remember the name of the big department store, but they had a Christmas tree that went up like three levels. My mom would take us down there when we were real young. Can’t remember the name of it. It’s like Higbee’s or no, Sterling Lindner was the name of it actually. But the Rapid Transit was cheap, the food was cheap when you got off in the Terminal Tower, you know. So, you know, we go down there and we’d eat and goof around down there and it was pretty interesting, you know, compared to what downtown is now, you know, which is an overpriced place to be, you know. I mean, you can’t really go down there as regularly as we could back in the day because it’s just, it’s pricey, you know, and I guess that would account for not many people going down there anymore.
Unknown Interviewer [00:02:44] What about you talk about the baseball stadium and going down there. Municipal Stadium, I’m assuming is that stadium. How often? Because I’ve heard other stories where people would go often, a couple times a week.
Jim Shipman [00:02:57] I can’t really remember exactly what the admission was at the time, but it was cheap enough for 14, 15 and 16 year olds to go in there a couple times a week. It might have been as cheap as maybe $2 to get in or maybe even cheaper than that, you know, and you could sit anywhere because it was always vacant unless there was a promotion going on. But you know, we, we liked baseball, so we’d go down there and no matter how bad the Indians were, you know, we were there to watch them be bad. And it was, it was, it was fun, it was interesting. The hot dogs were good. They used to sell Lion brand hot dogs actually at the stadium. And they’re defunct for many years I think now. And, and my brother and I, you know, we’ve been on a lifelong mission to find something as good as that. And no soap.
Unknown Interviewer [00:03:47] So. Was it even cheap enough to eat down there?
Jim Shipman [00:03:49] Oh, yeah, yeah.
Unknown Interviewer [00:03:50] Hot dogs are like 3.50 now.
Jim Shipman [00:03:52] Yeah, yeah, it was really cheap. I don’t know, half a buck maybe, or possibly even cheaper than that. But, you know, as we got a little bit older, you know, and I got married and everything, we’d go downtown, my wife and I, to the old rib burn-offs on Mall C. And those were great. They’d have a couple of those a year. And the World Series of Rock at the old stadium went to just about every one of those. Actually there was quite a bit to do downtown in those days. It came to a screeching halt, I guess not too long ago.
Unknown Interviewer [00:04:30] But look at that World Series of Rock because I think we have an interview possibly with another guy who takes pictures of rock bands. And that World Series of Rock was really popular for years and years and years. So when did that start? And if you remember some of the bands and some of the experiences, maybe.
Jim Shipman [00:04:48] We saw all the major bands down there in the late ’60s and ’70s, of the ’60s and ’70s. Santana, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. God, I’m not prepared. [laughs] But there were plenty of them. I think on the venue there was usually a good ten bands, maybe a few warm-up bands and then headliners and good long afternoon of rock. And that was relatively cheap too to go to.
Unknown Interviewer [00:05:35] The whole stadium would be packed?
Jim Shipman [00:05:36] Packed.
Unknown Interviewer [00:05:37] And the stage was on the-
Jim Shipman [00:05:42] I think it was at one end of the stadium, the open end of the stadium possibly. And you know, in addition to all the seating being taken up, you know, the whole floor of the stadium was just wall-to-wall people. And it was actually pretty peaceful, you know. There was a few fights here and there, but, you know, nothing like that you would expect to see today with a group that large. But that was, like I say, another affordable thing to do. I’m not even sure what concert tickets go for today, but they were much cheaper then and you could see a wide range of the most popular entertainment in one place.
Unknown Interviewer [00:06:33] Any other experiences you could think of, like in the downtown area, like Terminal Tower? You’re talking about the food in Terminal Tower being really cheap. They have a lot of vendors opened?
Jim Shipman [00:06:41] They had one in particular. I think it was the Fred Harvey pavilion. It was just a little kiosk-type thing, and they sold hot dogs and pizza. And we’d always go in there for a slice of pizza when we were down there because it was just delicious and cheap. There was other interesting things going on around there, too. There must have been other little shops in the actual train station. But we would like to get off the beaten track and go back to where they used to pull in and out at that time. I think they stored the old Euclid, or not Euclid, but Shaker Heights Rapids back in the back. And we’d just kind of go back there and explore around, you know, and nobody’s back there. And it was old and dark. But it was interesting, you know, especially for a bunch of kids that didn’t have anything to do except, you know, explore around. But it was pretty interesting. And then, you know, once we’d get to downtown, you know, out the doors of the Terminal Tower, it was just crazy, you know, a million people.
Unknown Interviewer [00:07:42] Did a lot of people live downtown during that time period?
Jim Shipman [00:07:44] I don’t think so. I don’t know that there was the kind of housing that they’re offering now. You know, they’re trying to bring all those people downtown, you know, and giving them condos and stuff. But I don’t know that there was a lot of people living down there. You know, I saw it as a shopping, a place, you know, for shopping mostly. You know, all the big department stores. There were no malls or anything in our neighborhoods, in suburbia or anything.
Unknown Interviewer [00:08:10] Where were you coming from? I mean, where was your hometown?
Jim Shipman [00:08:13] Cleveland. West Side.
Unknown Interviewer [00:08:14] Of Cleveland?
Jim Shipman [00:08:15] Yeah, West 159th Street, specifically, off Lorain. But- [inaudible interjection] Right, right. We’d go down there, school, you know, like I say, all the big stores were down there. We’d go down there for school clothes or Christmas, you know, Christmas shopping and that. I never really liked that too much because I was with my mom, but. [laughs]
Unknown Interviewer [00:08:39] Do you remember any specific stores? I mean, you remember the one Sterling’s.
Jim Shipman [00:08:47] The May Company was down there, Higbee’s was down there. There was probably other major ones down there that I can’t think of right now. But we were in and out of the clothes stores and, you know, when we would just go down there, my brothers and I, and that’s where all the fashionable stuff was. And you could pick it up cheap, like secondhand stores. Second quality stores, I should say, not secondhand stores.
Unknown Interviewer [00:09:19] What’s the distinction there?
Jim Shipman [00:09:21] You know, like you’d pick out a pair of pants, you know, and it’d be like a popular look, but it’d have like a pulled thread in it or something. So it would be seconds, and you’d get it for like, you know, less than half price. So, you know, we’d haunt those places a lot down there. And the Arcade, the old Arcade, we would go in there, if for nothing else, just to run around the place because it was, you know, levels of shops, you know, and just all kinds of runway, you know, and just run through a bunch of people and generally annoy them, I guess. But that’s another place that we’d go. Top of the Terminal Tower or close to the top. A couple of times we went to, I think before they charged you, or maybe it was after, I don’t know. But we spend quite a bit of time in downtown Cleveland. Is that what you’re looking for? Mostly downtown Cleveland?
Unknown Interviewer [00:10:33] Mostly downtown. The focus is kind of the Euclid Corridor, where they’re tearing it up and they’re putting in a new bus transit system.
Jim Shipman [00:10:48] We’ve been to the Agora a few times, haven’t we, Di? Back in the old days. I can’t remember who we saw. Maybe possibly Todd Rundgren down there.
Unknown Interviewer [00:10:59] Do you remember your experiences in the Agora, what you thought about the place?
Jim Shipman [00:11:02] It was great. You know, we were young, a lot of people, our kind of music, big crowds, smoking pot. It was fun.
Unknown Interviewer [00:11:13] Are there other kind of nightspots that you’d go to when you’re like a little bit older?
Jim Shipman [00:11:19] There’s actually a place on the West Side, and I can’t remember the name of that either. Actually, there was a place right at the top of my street, right along Lorain Street, called the Hullabaloo Scene. I don’t know if you’ve heard that.
Unknown Interviewer [00:11:33] No, it’s a great name.
Jim Shipman [00:11:34] Okay. It was an old Fisher Foods place. And this was like right at the top of my street, no more than a three-minute walk. And they had a couple area bands playing in there every Friday and Saturday night. And it was like all psychedelic and everything. You know, they had the lights going and the fog machines going and I think they were open until like midnight, you know. And it was, it was pretty wild, you know, get together with your friends and it was wall to wall people. It was, it was cheap again, you know, affordable. I keep coming back to that, you know, but today, you know, if you want to do things like that, you know, you actually have to save up, you know, a week’s wages, you know, just to… But yeah, that was right in my neighborhood.
Unknown Interviewer [00:12:18] So that would be like one of your big hot spots, obviously, because it’s so close.
Jim Shipman [00:12:24] 15, 16 year old. I think it was in business for maybe two, three years possibly.
Unknown Interviewer [00:12:32] When you got a car, would you still take the rapid down or would you take the car into the city at all?
Jim Shipman [00:12:39] I didn’t really drive too much into the city. My brother was like the designated driver. He’d like- We’d go downtown, he would buy these cars from Airport Auto Wrecking on Brook Park Road. You’d go into Airport Auto Wrecking and get running cars like old Studebakers and stuff that people just had no use for anymore. For like 25 bucks they’d do the title for you and everything else. And you drive them till they blew up, you know, and then either abandon them or haul them back in there and get another one for 25 bucks. And we would take those cars down to, um, there was this place down on, God, I can’t remember what street it was. It was Gene’s Fun House. And it was like a novelty place, you know, magic novelties and stuff. And we’d go in there and hang around down there, park one of his cars down there. And we’d do that for entertainment too. And I never stopped and realized how many roads lead to downtown when I was a kid. [laughs]
Unknown Interviewer [00:13:35] Road lead to-
Jim Shipman [00:13:36] Right.
Unknown Interviewer [00:13:39] So at Gene’s Fun House, can you describe what that place was like?
Jim Shipman [00:13:42] It was like it had a big, like a carnival facade in the front of it. And they sold magic tricks, anything that would appeal to a kid, you know, like I’d say top hats, you know, just joy buzzers, you know, any kind of cheapy little thing that you could go in and get in one of these stores and it was like the Yellow Barrel of Magic. Have you heard of that place that’s down on Lorain and you know, card tricks and stuff that you would find in the back of an old comic book, that type of thing to the hundredth power in there. And we go down there and it was a blast. I mean, we’re kids and you could touch everything and nobody cared.
Unknown Speaker [00:14:31] Tell him about the record shop.
Jim Shipman [00:14:33] On 25th Street? Yeah, we were just down on 25th Street not too long ago, and there was a record shop down there just to the north of the West Side Market that had been there since I was a kid. We went there. You could find any record. The guy had a million records, and now it’s gone. And I just noted to my wife, you know, hey, look, you know, that place is gone. And it must have been there for like 40 years. And interestingly, too, my wife just mentioned out here as we’re looking at the construction of the Terminal Tower building. These days, you know, buildings that old, you know, are pretty worthless to the modern developers. You know, they’ll take them out, they’ll blow them up, and they’ll get rid of them. But she just mentioned. She said, look at that. It’s still there as old as it is. You know, like in Lakewood, they’re taking down school buildings, you know, and getting rid of the whole things. But they’re saving, you know, the front part of the old school building so it’ll look like it did when it was old, but it’s new.
Unknown Interviewer [00:15:42] Well, do you want to add anything else that you can think of right now?
Jim Shipman [00:15:47] Do you have enough? Okay, well, no, I’m done.
Unknown Interviewer [00:15:51] All right.
Jim Shipman [00:15:51] I’m done.
Unknown Interviewer [00:15:52] Thank you very much.
Jim Shipman [00:15:53] Okay.
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