WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES NOVEMBER 23, 2017 25
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
Holiday memories from long ago in Ridgewood
BY THE OLD TIMER
EDITORIAL@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
@RIDGEWOODTIMES
Only a few holidays on this
year's calendar remain to be
celebrated. Since two of them,
Thanksgiving and Christmas, are usually
spent with family members, those
holidays tend to be special among the
childhood memories of many readers.
This week, we have a holiday-related
letter from reader Barbara Schmitt Py
of Sewell, N.J., a former resident of our
neighborhood. She writes:
Living in a Mathews fl at (apartment
house) in Ridgewood, New York, during
the 1940s at Christmastime left us
with a couple of problems. There was
no chimney, so how was Santa going
to get into our apartment? There were
two front doors and you either needed
a key to get in or someone had to buzz
you in. But if everyone including Mom
and Dad were sleeping, that wasn't
possible. Okay, so Santa would use his
Christmas magic to get in. That problem
was solved. We believed anything
Dad told us in those days. Why would
he lie to us?
Now where to hang the stocking? We
had no fi replace to hang them by. Now
what do we do? Since we did not own
the apartment, we sure couldn't tack
them up on a wall or window sill. Landlords
didn't like lots of holes in their
walls. So, Dad being smarter than us,
he told my two younger brothers and
me that if we put them side by side on
a chair near the tree, Santa would see
them and he would be sure to fi ll them
with all his goodies.
The goodies were nothing like the
goodies that kids get now. Some of the
things we got were an apple, orange, an
assortment of mixed nuts (in shells), a
hankie, toothbrush, comb and maybe
a brush, a pair of socks, and tucked
way down in the toe a dime or if you
were lucky, a quarter. As a girl, I also
got hair ribbons. We thought this was
the greatest thing and always went to
the stocking fi rst.
The picture is one of my (late) brother
George and me with the bearded one
at Christmastime. He was 5 and I was
8. It was taken in a W.T. Grant's 5 & 10
store on Myrtle Avenue in Ridgewood
(Queens), New York in 1949. Santa's
suit was corduroy and his igloo was
Styrofoam. Aft er telling him what we
wanted for Christmas and having the
picture taken, we got a candy cane and
a gift from him. I got a book of paper
dolls and my brother got a coloring
book. My brother was a bit nervous
with Santa and for the picture, I was
told to hold him on his shoulder. Thus
it looks like I am forcing him to stand
still and not move, which, in a way, I
was. Our younger brother Roger, who
was only 13 months old at the time, was
terrifi ed of Santa and cried from the
minute he saw him till we left and went
back up the stairs to leave the store.
One other fond memory of Christmases
gone by is that since my birthday
was Dec. 21, the year that I was
born (1941) my Dad brought a pair of
Christmas booties for me and every
year it became a tradition to put the
booties on the tree as the first decoration.
When my husband Bob and
I married in 1963, for Thanksgiving
that year my parents gave us my
booties.
Over the years, many things pertaining
to Christmas have changed, including
the family always being together. No
one lived very far from each other. We
also had Christmas shows at church
and sometimes school and the entire
family would gather together to see us
perform. Oh, what I wouldn't do to just
go back to that time once more. But the
memories will be with me to my end. I
will never forget all those wonderful
Christmases of long ago.
We wonder how many of our readers
have childhood memories of their
own that involve a pre-Christmas visit
with a department store Santa Claus.
We will leave it to our readers to decide
how convincing the Santa looks
in the picture taken with Mrs. Py and
her brother George at the W.T. Grant's
store on Myrtle Avenue.
While we do not have an advertisement
for W.T. Grant's in our fi les,
we dug out a Christmas-themed ad
for another Myrtle Avenue business
— Menninger's, the fondly remembered
Ridgewood bakery — from the same
year (1949) as Mrs. Py's visit with Santa.
In 1903, Florian Menninger opened
a bake shop at 538 Knickerbocker Ave.
in the western (Brooklyn) section of
Ridgewood.
About 1915, Mr. Menninger purchased
a new brick building on the
northeast corner of Myrtle and Cypress
Avenue, at 1701 Myrtle Ave. in
Ridgewood. He bought the building
as an investment. He leased out the
ground floor for a saloon and the
upper fl oors as offi ce space.
In 1915, the eastern part of Ridgewood
(Queens County) was growing
rapidly, and some of the merchants
in the western part of Ridgewood (in
Brooklyn) moved to Myrtle Avenue
in Queens County. One of those who
moved was Florian Menninger, who
moved his bake shop to 1748 Myrtle
Ave. in Ridgewood. This was on the
south side of the street, not far from
Seneca Avenue.
Alex Wohlfart, who was related
to Menninger by marriage, had fi rst
opened a bake shop at this address,
later renumbered to 56-50 Myrtle
Ave. aft er the Philadelphia System
of numbering was installed. Seeing
the construction of several hundred
apartments on the north side of Myrtle
Avenue at Schley Street (now known
as 65th Place) in Glendale, Wohlfart
decided to operate a bake shop further
east at 65-32 Myrtle Ave. and gave up
the Ridgewood location to Menninger,
who, along with family members, operated
his bakery for many years, until
it closed in the early 1960s.
Reprinted from the Oct. 2, 2008, issue
of the Ridgewood Times.
If you have memories to share with us,
send an email to editorial@ridgewoodtimes.
com (subject: Our Neighborhood:
The Way it Was) or write to The Old
Timer, ℅ Ridgewood Times, 38-15 Bell
Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361. Any mailed
pictures will be carefully returned to
you upon request.
Many regarded Menninger's as
Ridgewood's fi nest bake shop. The
above advertisement appeared
in the Dec. 22, 1949 issue of the
Ridgewood Times.
Reader Barbara Py (nee Schmitt) recalled when she and her late brother
George had a visit with Santa at the W.T. Grant's store on Myrtle Avenue
in Ridgewood in 1949.
