1905 map settles debate on park
Amsterdam resident recalls her father’s Orpheum Theater
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, 4-23-05
An early 20th century map of Amsterdam and some research by a local history fan both point to the conclusion that historian Hugh Donlon was right after all about the name of an Amsterdam park.
Donlon, author of “Annals of a Mill Town” in 1980, wrote that an East End park was known as Ross’ Flats. That name didn’t ring true with several longtime residents who remembered calling the area Rossi’s Flats. Convenient to a railroad siding and the New York Central main line, the flatland was a location where circuses pitched their tents and immigrants played sports.
Sam Vomero of Amsterdam has found a map of Amsterdam’s Fourth Ward from 1905 that shows a large parcel of undeveloped East End land adjacent to the railroad called the Ross Estate. Checking city directories from 1903 and 1917, Vomero discovered that farmer George B. Ross and his wife Frances had their home at 362 East Main Street, adjacent to what became a stone quarry, the current site of the Cliffside Restaurant. Perhaps the name Rossi’s Flats came to be because it is difficult to pronounce Ross’ Flats.
The 1905 map has other fascinating details. Mohawk Carpet Mills did not exist. It formed in 1920. Mohawk’s predecessor firm, Shuttleworth Brothers Rug and Manufacturing Company, had a plant between the railroad and the Mohawk River. Other businesses along the railroad included the Elk Pearl Button Company, Amsterdam Silk Mills, W.S. Shuler Spring Company, Kreisel Brothers Coal Yard and Yund, Kennedy and Yund Knitting Mill.
Vrooman Avenue was called Vrooman Street. The Fourth Ward School, built in 1894, was on Vrooman between East Main and the railroad. The school burned in the 1940s. At the intersection of Vrooman and East Main stood the East Main Street Methodist Episcopal Church, currently a St. Mary’s Hospital health facility. Vrooman ended just north of East Main with a dotted line leading through an undeveloped area to the home of D. Mathias.
On Reid Hill, St. Stanislaus’ school was depicted behind the church and not directly on Cornell Street. One familiar name on Reid Street was Albert. Zierak, grocery store proprietor and bonesetter whose descendants later founded Kiddo’s Tavern in that location.
MORE THEATER MEMORIES
Amsterdam’s Margaret Reilly, who is 94, has provided information on a downtown theater that her father operated, the Orpheum. Strictly a movie theater and not a vaudeville house, the Orpheum was on Market Street adjacent to the old Barnes Hotel. Sometimes movie stars made personal appearances. A Masonic lodge was over the theater, she said, and the Regent Theater was across Market Street.
Reilly recalled that before World War I, admission at the Orpheum was ten cents for children and fifteen cents for adults. During the war, the government levied an additional tax of a penny for children and two cents for grownups. She said that the first talking picture, the 1927 “Jazz Singer” starring Al Jolson, played the Orpheum. Her father sold the theater in 1928 to a man named Kronik and Reilly could not remember when the Orpheum closed.
Reilly raised a family in Amsterdam and worked at Montgomery County Trust. She is the widow of popular chemistry teacher Ed Reilly, known as Prof Reilly at Wilbur H. Lynch High School. He died 14 years ago.
Margaret Reilly shared a memory about Jollyland amusement park, which today is Herbert Shuttleworth Park. She recalled that in the old days at Jollyland, the walkways were paved with discarded buttons from Amsterdam’s button mills.
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