For generations following World War II, Oneonta youth have almost always had a place they could congregate to dance, play games or socialize. This place has gone by different names and has been found at several locations.
Oneonta's Teen Center, found today in the former Oneonta armory building, the Asa C. Allison Municipal Building, has roots going back 65 years. The name has generally been the Oneonta Youth Center.
The Oneonta Youth Council had been active in the summer of 1945, organizing "Juke Box Jamboree" events every week at the pavilion of Wilber Park.
The Youth Council was part of a very small city Recreation Commission at the time.
The chairman of the Council was James Catella, and during these summer dances, the efforts to start a youth recreation center had begun.
"Not only young people but also older folks have found these dances enjoyable," Catella told The Daily Star in July. In addition, he pointed out that parents could now have some assurance that their children would be "out of harm's way."
The Council was about four months old in July 1945. Funds for running a center began by some benefit baseball games that summer, as well as the sale of refreshments at the Juke Box Jamborees.
The idea for the youth recreation center, Catella said, "came about as the result of three State Teachers College students making a survey of the city recreational facilities."
The aim was to have a center running by the fall, and they succeeded. They called it the Night Club in the beginning, opening on Saturday, Oct. 20 in a newly decorated room of the Oneonta YMCA, formerly located on Broad Street, near today's Clarion Hotel.
The center was popular, and by 1950 had expanded to the entire third floor of the YMCA. A grand opening of the remodeled Youth Center was held Feb. 28, 1950, with a dance from 8 to 11 p.m.
The large dance floor, 44 by 55 feet, was crowded as youngsters moved to the rhythms of Linus Houck's orchestra. In addition to Oneonta teens, students from Hartwick College and the State Teachers College were among the crowd of about 250.
The center opened Tuesday, Friday and Saturday nights.
By the late 1950s, students were hoping to get the center off of Broad Street. It was home to several bars for railroad workers and college students. Roger Fritts was a representative of the Oneonta High School Student Council in 1958 and spoke before the Common Council on April 15: "Many parents don't wish their children to go down that street, and you can't blame them. It's no pretty sight to see drunks staggering out of the bars."
The Youth Center was forced to move once the new YMCA was built on Ford Avenue and opened in 1965. The new Y would not accommodate the Youth Center.
From here, the Oneonta Youth Center relocated many times. The first move was across from what was then Bresee's Department Store, in quarters recently vacated by New York State Electric & Gas. The center opened around Sept. 1, 1965.
By April 1970, a center had opened in a second-floor apartment complex over what was then Laskaris' Restaurant, today's Corfu Diner, at the corner of Main and Chestnut streets. Teens organized and operated this center, with little adult supervision. That didn't last long, as another center opened on the third floor at 142 Main St.
That too was short lived, as a targeted urban renewal building became the third site that year, 38 Broad St.
This center, which had no connection with the city, was run by members of Mayor James Lettis' defunct task force on youth. It opened Oct. 10.
Other centers were around in the late 1960s and '70s, including Ichthus, in the basement of St. James Church, and the Young Adult Ministry or YAM Coffeehouse at 77 Main St. They were fairly short-lived.
In the 1980s, youth centers were found in the basement of today's Oneonta City Hall, 258 Main St., from 1981-82, and then at the former Community Arts Center at 130 East St., near the junior and senior high school. In the late '80s the old city Water Department building near that center was renovated for more youth center programs.
Ichthus re-opened in 1995 and operated a few more years.
Finally, the Oneonta Community Alliance for Youth (OCAY) formed in 1997.
They began using the armory for activities in late 2004, and Common Council gave its approval for OCAY to open a teen center in August 2005.
If a youth or teen center wasn't a young person's desire, they had some great alternatives in the Oneonta Boys and Girls Club, YMCA, or youth sports groups.
This weekend, a busy Oneonta intersection went from a residence, to gas station, and then a park.
City Historian Mark Simonson's column appears twice weekly. On Saturdays, his column focuses on the area during the Depression and before. His Monday columns address local history after the Depression. If you have feedback or ideas about the column, write to him at The Daily Star, or e-mail him at simmark@stny.rr.com. His website is www.oneontahistorian.com. His columns can be found at www.thedailystar.com/marksimonson.
