Re: Hoffing's dept. store/Roscoe Village pix?
Posted by:
Diogenes9561
()
Date: March 17, 2015 11:07PM
I don't have any pictures but wish I did, too. My family lived in a 3 flat at Roscoe and Oakley from 1955 to 1963 and I recall it was a neighborhood that had about everything.
There was an old, weathered, and battered looking clapboard lounge that had been closed for years on the SE corner of Roscoe and Western when we first moved there, it was named Hellzapoppin as I recall and was replaced by a Mobil gas station about 1960. Just east of Western, there was Northern Golf Ball, and just a bit W of Oakley, there was Jim & Ella's little store where I bought penny candy, cold Kayos, comic books, and hand dipped ice cream cones. At Oakley, there was a Certified grocery on the SW corner and a laundromat just a door or 2 W of it. On the NE corner, there was a real estate office that's still there IIRC and on the SE corner, there was a bakery that closed up and the building torn down probably about 1960.
About a block E of Oakley was Bauer's Hardware store on the S side of the street and a bit further E was a dry cleaner and Tom's Barber Shop, maybe the last place I ever saw a Police Gazette magazine. Across the street was a package goods liquor store and a bit W of that was a drug store the name of which escapes me now. To the E was Hoffing's as you have mentioned and across the street was the Roscoe theater (which, when it closed, later became the HQ for the Schleswig-Holsteiner Sangerbund) and Heck's Bakery where my Mom bought fabulous chocolate eclairs for my sister and me. At Damen, there was another hardware store and the Roscoe Sweet Shop where a grumpy little man we called Smiley had delicious chocolate shakes at the soda fountain and handmade candies.
If I think harder, I can probably recall more places but it was a great little community and I miss the times gone by. I hope that you remember some of these places, too, and hope that some pics of the area can be found.