The Observation Deck

http://www.cleveland.com/community/plai ... xml&coll=2

I am at an early meeting when a member pointed out more good Lakewood press in the Plain Dealer. sure enough open up their copy of the paper and Helen Pohoernece who also stages the Community Festival is on the cover!

Thanks PD.


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Slightly Askew has more Birdtown info on their website:
http://slightlyaskew.org/workshops/ny-c ... y/birdtown

Jim,
I'm typing this for my mother who is dictating:
"Yoi, I knew Helen's mother. Can you believe I was born on a kitchen table on Robin, close to Plover, upstairs. We only had 2 rooms, it was a 4 family. Ma and Pa were some of the first people to live there. It's too bad all the small shops are closed. You could get good kielbasi and bread right there. All the shops are long gone, good shops.On the corner of Dowd and Plover, there was gambling. After it was closed down, we kids used to go dig in the yard for pennies from when the gamblers got drunk and threw the money out of the windows. It wasn't big money because no one had big money but a few pennies bought us candy.

There was a woman who had 4 children and told the beer-joint owner on the corner of Quail and Athens, to not serve her husband, because he would drink the bread money away, a nickle. The bar owner gave him a beer anyway, so she got mad, and we all saw her heading back there pushing a baby buggy but it was full of bricks, lo and behold, she threw every brick through his window at the bar. The rest of the neighbors all clapped because they all knew he was spending the bread money. Everyone clapped and laughed, but she was mad as hell.

Cheskowski had a drug store, and he would make whatever remedy that was needed, on the corner of Robin and Madison. If you had a sore throat, he would give you a hard candy that looked like ice cubes and in a day, or so, the sore throat was gone. If you had a headache, he'd mix you a powder.

On Lark near Madison was Dudzinki's Meat Market. The best bread was Lakewood Bakery. We bought our cheese, milk and butter from Slavick's.
It was all white tile and spotless. She had 7 kids and they all worked.

If you had an education you were referred to by last name, if you didn't you were just a first name.

I wonder if anyone remembers Kuba and Stefka, and I was Ginka. Yoi, I remember them all there.

Wally Knurick took accordian lessons, and we all lived in the same house.
Years later by coincidence, he knew your father, because your father played drums and they all played in the same band. Who would know, all those years later I would meet and marry your father. They played all the church halls around Birdtown back then, then later your father started his own band and they became the local bigshots as far as bands go back then, playing on 25th and all the popular clubs then. The Satellites."

Mark Allan Crnolatas, but this post is typed for " Ginka Hudzinki "

Mark,
Would you Mother be willing to be interviewed for the Lakewood Historical Society's Oral History Project or for any future project that Mrs. Bluemel's students have in the future?

Rhonda Loje

Rhonda,
She would be happy to.

Mark Allan Crnolatas

Rhonda loje wrote:Mark,
Would you Mother be willing to be interviewed for the Lakewood Historical Society's Oral History Project or for any future project that Mrs. Bluemel's students have in the future?

Rhonda Loje

Can you please tell me a little more about this project?

Here is a link to Ms. Bluemel's homepage:

http://www.lkwdpl.org/schools/elempath/ ... index.html

You can view the completed Birdtown documentary. I know they are planning to do more with this, but I am not sure what all that entails. I do know that the students spent a great deal of time interviewing and researching and in the end their knowledge about Birtown is incredible.

Dl,
Here is the article that was published in the Observer about Ms. Bluemel's Discovery Class..... http://lakewoodobserver.com/read/news/n ... ighborhood

It is a great documentary...the best I have ever seen! It should be seen by everyone in Lakewood. It is wonderful. Ms Bluemel and her class did a great job! With great help from "the Birdtown Ladies" and their wonderful recollections.

I know they will be working on another documentary next year. But I don't know what that will be yet.

As for the Oral History Project..one of the goals of the Lakewood Historical Society is to develop and implement an Oral History of the City of Lakewood.

The Board of Trustees will be developing a plan over the summer and have hopes of implementing it in the fall. We don't want to loose the rich history we have that is easily told by the people who have lived in this wonderful community.

As soon as we have our act together...you guys will be the first to know...and thank you for asking!


Rhonda Loje
President
Lakewood Historical Society

Mark and Ginka,
Thanks for the post. Brilliant information. I am a sucker for these types of real life reflections. It reminded me of storycorps from NPR. I heard on NPR that Storycorps is coming to Cleveland August 2-25 parked outside the Rock-n-Roll hall of fame. www.storycorps.net. Storycorps allows you to interview someone about things like this and they enter it into their archives and give you a copy of the recording I believe. Might be fun. Thanks again.