Perry St. rejuvenation builds on original charm

On June 7, 1957, my dad and I walked arm-in-arm down the white-carpeted center aisle of Liberty Park Baptist Church at 10th Avenue and Perry Street, where I exchanged vows with my husband-to-be.

On June 9, 2007, our four children staged a ‘50s party to celebrate our half-century of marriage at The Shop, an eclectic, popular place-to-be these days at 10th and Perry, across the street from where the historic church once stood.

When we were married, The Shop was a garage with no promise of ever being anything else. It was the perfect spot to return to the scene of the crime, so to speak.

I lived in the Perry Street neighborhood from the time I was born in the late 1930s to the early ‘60s, when I had babies of my own. Shortly after the end of World War II, my dad built a stucco house of cement blocks on a double lot he and Mom owned on 12th Avenue, between Perry and Ivory streets. During the war, the land served as a victory garden of sorts. My dad grew vegetables for us as well as two of my grown siblings and their families, and shared the land for friends and neighbors to garden.

Perry Street is being rejuvenated these days in a fashion that is to be reminiscent of former times. However, there was never anything like the beautiful light poles and benches that now grace the thoroughfare as it stretches up the hill towards Moran Prairie.

Perry Street was a Plain Jane during my time. The district’s charm came from the merchants and the businesses they operated from Eighth Avenue, where the Alice brothers began their still-operating Liberty Park Florists, to 11th, where The Windmill proffered homemade cookies and pick-up items.

Three grocers vied for business on Perry Street in the 1940s and ‘50s. My mom shopped at Burgan’s on 10th. (Yes, owners of Burgan’s Furniture also owned the grocery store.) While World War II raged, some food supplies were scarce back home, so it was astonishing the day a clerk whispered in my mother’s ear that he had a few bananas in the back, and did she want some.

Three grocers meant three meat markets.

Howard Aust’s was our meat market of choice. When I was a tot, Howard (Mr. Aust, then) would give me a wiener. As a young working woman, I’d watch from inside his shop, not yet open for business, for the bus to arrive on freezing-cold mornings.

Perry Street was its own little “village” with a wide variety of shops: A Five-and-Dime held a treasure of items for the women and a well-stocked hardware for the men. Altamont Pharmacy, where the Perry Street Cafe now serves breakfast and lunch, had a soda fountain with ice-cream sodas or sundaes selling for 15 cents – the exact amount of a week’s allowance. What a dilemma I faced every Saturday. Mrs. Nehammer, however, was the Ice Cream Queen of Perry Street. Her single-scoops of Carnation ice cream would amount to at least a double-scoop today – and cost just a nickel.

A skinny little building held a lunch counter where ice cream was scooped, and hamburgers grilled. One Christmas season, I played holiday records with the music piped outside so all of Perry Street could hear, sing along and catch the season’s jollity. It was a one-platter player, however, so the transition from one record to another was probably not very smooth.

A barbershop in the middle of the block had a traditional red-and-white pole that turned whenever it was open. My mother actually sent me there to get my hair cut – my Dutch-boy period. The barber cranked up the huge chair as high as it would go, my skinny, knobby legs dangling from its black leather seat; an enormous striped cloth tied around my neck covered all of me, except for my head. Wallpaper with green ivy climbing over trellises up toward the ceiling was all I could see as my hair fell to the floor. I hated that wallpaper every bit as much as I hated my hair – bluntly cut at the level of my chin, with bangs that marched straight across my forehead. Not one hair was longer than another.

A more pleasant memory is that of an aroma wafting from the Windmill on the corner of 11th and Perry. It was as enticing as the quaint building itself. A tiny lady with a topknot on her white hair could barely see over the counter as she served her customers.

This was an era of appropriateness in everything from dress to language. Boys wore pants to school, and girls wore dresses. No exception. My single memory of first grade is of a little girl sent home to change from pants into a dress. The boys’ pants hung from their waists, not the middle of their behinds, and no big boys startled younger ears with obscenities.

We played Red-Rover, Red-Rover in the middle of the street or hide-and-seek around trees and bushes without fear of abduction. In the winter, sledding down Ivory Street from 16th to Ninth avenues is a legend, as were other sledding streets in other neighborhoods.

It was safe for everyone, including Eddie, who grew into adulthood with Down syndrome. Eddie always wore his “uniform” of black pants, cowboy boots, a straw cowboy hat perched on top of his head and toy guns holstered around his middle. No one teased Eddie. No one even thought of teasing him.

Perry Street was a small town in a big city.

Not to be overly romantic, but an apt comparison of Perry Street during the ‘40s and ‘50s would be Opie’s Mayberry, USA. Aunt Bea would have been one of the women shopping on Monday morning, after she’d hung up her washing on the backyard clothesline. She would have worn a clean, starched housedress to shop in and would have likely visited most every store, if not to buy something, then to say hello to everyone.

It is my contention that Rosauers was the demise of Perry Street. One-stop shopping was a new concept in late 1950s – at least in Spokane. Just imagine, buying everything a household would need in one store, from cereal to toothpaste, from fresh vegetables to fresh bread, from aspirin to perfume; such innovation; such a time-saver. There would be no need to make half-a-dozen stops to do the shopping. Simply dash in the one store, fill the cart and dash out again. (I remember refusing to buy a certain box of cereal then because it cost more than a dollar.)

The amazing evolution called Rosauers opened at Ninth and Perry in the late ‘50s. Neighbors talked about it constantly: at church, sewing clubs, the PTA. “Have you tried to new store?” they would ask one another. “Isn’t it remarkable?”

Perry Street shop-owners, however, suffered – and one by one, they closed their doors. Years later, Rosauers even closed its doors, selling out to another chain. If it hadn’t been Rosauers, however, it would have been some other Super Market – two words in capital letters. Change was happening. Single-item stores were out; convenience was in. Mom and Pop retired.