Remembering city's west side history, businesses

LANCASTER – Growing up in the 1950s and '60s on Lancaster's west side, Susan McQuiston didn't have much to worry about.

She rode her bike, and went to the nearby odds and ends shop to buy buttons or anything else her mother needed that day. Everything she needed was close by.

She would go places alone or with friends to get ice cream, go to the park or post office — that was just her way of life as a young girl on the tree-lined west side streets. If she got in trouble, her parents would know about it before she made through the front door of her childhood home, along Garfield Avenue.

McQuiston wouldn't know until high school that she came from "the bad side of town."siders

"As long as you were on the west side and went to (General) Sherman it was fine," she said, reminiscing about her childhood. "Once you got to high school, you found out you lived in the slums. My family was well respected. You would always hear people make jokes about west siders or how bad it was."

The west side's rough reputation always was and continues to be perpetuated. Some believe that the alleged high prominence of drugs and other crime in those neighborhoods is worse now than ever, particularly along the so-called "presidential" streets — those named for former presidents like Harrison, Pierce, Garfield, Washington, and others.

Other residents say that the poor reputation is unwarranted, amounting the criminal activity to the same level as it's always been. It's all about who you talk to.

After a lot of investigating and talking to longtime west siders, the Eagle-Gazette has found an immense amount of pride west-side lifers have for their neighborhood and its blue-collar, hardworking reputation and history, despite the naysayers. It's an upbringing they're proud of.

The divide

Half a century ago, there could have been a line of chalk drawn, splitting Lancaster's east and west sides down the middle. It wouldn't have bothered anyone. Residents on either side often didn't venture over to the other side of the Glass City. There was no need.

"It was like the west side against the world," said 71-year-old Rudy Touvell, a long-time and current Harrison Avenue resident. "Growing up, I wasn't allowed to cross Memorial Drive. It was like two different cities."

West side residents recalling their adolescence, said teenagers didn't date across that invisible line either.

McQuiston said she remembers her sister, who graduated in 1955, had a date cancel on her at the last minute because she lived on the west side.

RELATED STORY: Residents share west side memories

"His mother said he couldn't date anyone from that side of town," she said.

A rivalry between sides always brewed. It was something Touvell and many others learned at an early age. But the teasing and divide between city dwellers, McQuiston suspects, isn't as bad as it used to be.

Touvell said the rivalry isn't as definitive either, which likely changed when students were able to integrate earlier on at Stanbery for ninth grade, instead of being thrown into the mix at the high school.

Touvell admitted that the west side did have its rough characteristics. There was fighting, vandalism and theft, to name a few, but it was nothing compared to Columbus schools, which Touvell found out firsthand when he moved there with his parents for a brief stint growing up.

Touvell moved back because he said the south side school was so dangerous. He was happy to be back in Lancaster and has lived along Harrison Avenue for nearly 50 years.

"I raised all four of my kids here," Touvell said. "They all went to West School. My mother also went to West School."

Touvell himself was born and raised at an upstairs apartment along Garfield Avenue, which is gone now. He also had a lot of family in the area, living along West Fair and Washington avenues.

Then and now

The buildings left over, many of which are empty, created a city within a city for dozens of years with businesses filling each one of them. Some longtime businesses have withstood large companies moving into the city providing services and merchandise at lower cost, but many have not.

In the 1950s and the decades leading up to it, there were businesses bustling everywhere. The West Side Drug Store, 301 Washington Ave., celebrated its 50th year anniversary on April 1, 1954, according to an Eagle-Gazette article. The drug store opened in 1904 when there were only 300 people living on what was known as the west side, the article reports.

Sixty-nine-year-old Donna Azbell, who grew up on Harrison Avenue, can, like many other residents, rattle off what businesses used to be located where, like Carpenter's Grocery, Mowry's Furniture and Grilli's Italian Restaurant (now Old Bill Bailey's) in the 100 block of Harrison Avenue. Her cousin, Archie Azbell, made and sold brooms three blocks down on Harrison Avenue.

One street over on Washington Avenue, there was a furniture store and funeral home, all in one, owned by the Sanders family. There was a branch of the library, beauty shops, and drug stores with counters where the kids would hang out, Azbell recalled.

There used to be Central Ohio Nehi Beverage Co., corner grocery stores, filling stations, bakeries, a shoe repair store and a post office. The list can go on and on.

These businesses are all gone. However, some businesses have survived over the years. Seesholtz Barber Shop, 806 W. Fair Ave., is one of them.

Kevin Seesholtz now runs his father's business, which opened in 1952. He took over for his father in 1982.

"From 1952 up until 1990, the majority (of customers) were west siders. Now it's more diversified," Seesholtz said, attributing diversification to the building of the River Valley Mall and River Valley Highlands.

He remembers visiting the barber shop from the time he was a young child. Back then, it was a lot of Anchor Hocking workers.

"They would come directly from work, straight to the barber shop," he said.

Seesholtz could name a lot of businesses around the shop that have come and gone since his father opened the shops doors.

"It's a good feeling, I guess, to have been here for that long. Everybody deserves a hello when they come in," he said about his business philosophy.

Sharon Slater, who opened Wee Care Pet Service, a grooming business, in 1990 has a similar philosophy when it comes to treating her two- and four-legged customers.

Wee Care Pet Service, 534 Harrison Avenue, is located across from The Foundation Shelters. Slater said she has never had any trouble with neighbors or has witnessed crime in the area. She said she knows there are "bad spots," but she can avoid those.

When she opened, she said she used to give kids candy and change to buy pop. In exchange they would look out for her shop and now that they're older, they still visit her today.

Slater has owned the business for 25 years, a feat that not many businesses along the presidential streets can say.

"They all left," Slater said about the businesses around her. There are some that remain, she said, but not many.

Occasionally, residents will hear or see new businesses coming in and purchasing buildings. Touvell gave several examples, including Old Bill Bailey's, which he said has become a staple and asset to the west side community. There is also a resident fixing up the old Snoke filling station, 200 Washington Avenue, just because — just for the nostalgia.

Touvell said the projects have gone beyond businesses and he has seen homeowners putting money back into fixing up their homes since the recession. He sees more people out painting and working their gardens. There is still a sense of pride, Touvell said, but more work is still needed.

Old digs

If someone lived on the west side of town, chances are they had relatives, possibly both parents, who worked at Anchor Hocking.

Glass factory workers filled local businesses and would sometimes go to the local bar, drug store counter or barber just for the feel of air conditioning after a long, warm day.

"Many of the boys in high school got their diplomas, walked out, took a week off and walked over to Anchor Hocking ... If you married someone at Anchor Hocking, you'd never have to worry about glassware," McQuiston said with a laugh, adding that old Anchor Hocking glassware can often be picked up at west side garage sales.

"I loved the west side, I really did," she said. "I felt safe there."

The west side was always an easy target for other residents to put down, but McQuiston said those people don't realize how rich its history is, and what the neighborhoods for the locals were actually like.

When you ask a longtime west-sider about the old days, going back to the 1950s or '40s, nothing but fond memories pour out. It's only when asked specifically about the presence of drugs and alcohol use and crime in the area that they will talk about it, but it's never brought up naturally.

"Back in the day, as they say, the west side of Lancaster — plus the area called Cedar Heights — got a bum rap as being a bunch of troublemakers and being poor," Azbell said. "But as I remember my childhood in the '40s, '50s and '60s, it was just as safe as anywhere else in the city."

New digs

Rental properties are often the reason cited for the current downhill nature of the city's west side, but the truth is they were always a part of the city's landscape. Some rentals that were in use in the 1950s are still that way today. However, one could argue that there are more and/or not as neatly kept as before.

What often occurs, residents say, is that after long-time west side homeowners, who were likely Anchor Hocking retirees, pass away, they leave an empty house that can be scooped up and turned into a rental.

It gave McQuiston comfort to see that this wouldn't happen to her own childhood home, which still stands on Garfield Avenue, when it sold more than 10 years ago.

McQuiston's parents bought the lot for $50 in the 1930s and her father built the house by hand. At first, it was a one-bedroom home. They added on four more as they had more children.

It remained in McQuiston's family (her maiden name was Bash) until her mother died in 2003. The sale of the home ensured another family would fill up the old house as much as her own family had for decades.

"It makes me really happy because that house was built for family," she said, adding that the new family moved an outdoor play set to the same area where she had her own when she was little.

Everyone pinpoints a different moment in time when the west side started to decline. Azbell said it wasn't until the 1970s that her family started locking their doors. Others claim it was the 1980s when drugs were readily available in the area that the neighborhood became unsafe. Touvell said it was more like the 2000s when the economy crashed and jobs were scarce and little money was left to repair homes and maintain yards.

Perspective is everything.

Whether the area is good bad or somewhere in between, west side lifers are proud to have grown up there, even though it may not have been the "popular" place to live.

Touvell says he wouldn't have wanted to live or grow up anywhere else The west side has treated his family well.

"I'd raise my family here again," he said.

sroush@lancastereaglegazette.com

740-681-4342

Twitter: @SpencerRoushLEG

For mobile users, view a map of Lancaster's west side and businesses that used to operate there: Interactive: Remembering west side businesses