Cobbler On (Or Near) The Roof

Okay, so the last two haven't been paint on brick, so let's try to get back too it.  Somehow I missed this one when I snapped the several signs on its neighbor up the block in Dinkytown.  But the grey sky is still a give away to winter, as I swung back through in February during one of my basketball-related trips back to campus.

In case you can't read it, the sign says, "Campus Cobbler."  And in case you were born sometime in the last century and you don't really know what a cobbler is, it also helpfully says, "shoes."  And in case you worried that they might not carry your Jimmy Choos or Manolo Blahniks (or some other brand featured on a tv show sometime in the last decade), you can barely make out that it also says "men's and women's."

Okay, so I'm going on a bit about the words on the sign because I'm not confident that I'm going to find much research about it, and I need to get this up fairly quickly before heading out to a fancy dinner (Bachelor Farmer, if you're a foodie, which is actually in a building that has been featured on this blog before, so I'll have to check on the state of the signs).  

So it turns out I was sort of wrong about whether I could learn anything.  It seems like the Campus Cobbler is related to the nearby Fast Eddie's Show Repair, which is across the alley (and apparently still there).  It seems the current owner/operator of Fast Eddie's, named Jim, became the manager at Campus Cobbler in 1979, only to move over to Fast Eddie's in 1987 where he's remained.  The original Fast Eddie, took up the shoe repair business in 1936 when hard times forced he and his brother into the big city of Crookston, MN. Eddie's brother went off to the war, but Eddie's flat feet kept him out, leaving him to find a shoe repair shop in Minneapolis in need of help on his way home.  The war, not surprisingly, was good for the repair business, and Fast Eddie's was eventually born.

I've got less on the shoe store itself, except a few old ads in the Minnesota Daily in 1966, 1967, and more 1967.  The Hennepin County Library also has as shot of the street in 1974.

He Had A High, Squeaky Voice

Amazingly, this isn't actually a ghost.  Roberts' Shoe Store still exists and still sells shoes.  But those signs are just too good to leave out.  It's right next to the last trio, right at Chicago & Lake.  Roberts' offers "Happy feet for all the family," with helpful musical notes that sure make the sign looks like it's from the Singing In The Rain era of the early 1950s.  I can almost hear Bing Crosby singing the jingle.

The store was founded by Nathan Roberts in 1937, and carries very, very large All Stars.  It's also apparently the place go if you like really, really old shoe fitters, as their's averages 32 year experience.  Old Nathan bought the store after the previous owners went bankrupt in the Depression (the Great one).  And yet everyone in the neighborhood was apparently working at the time.  Hm.

What is now the Midtown Tower, and now houses Midtown Global Market used to be a Sears (if you look closely you can still see "Sears Roebuck" over the doors), is down the street.  Sears closed sometime before 1982 as part of the neighborhood's overall decline before a more recent resurgence.

Check out some old pictures of the building in 1956, 1956 at night and 1951.

Maybe even better than the Roberts' sign is the one to the immediate right of the tree in the middle, which says "Meats."  Maybe I'll go by again to see if I can get something more identifying, but I like it anyway.  There might be another sign just above that too, but I can't read it.  There is definite paint on brick though.

Finally, take a gander at the awnings on the Lake Street side:

UPDATE: Sam's question in the comments got me looking for a recording of the jingle from the first sign,  which took me to an old recording of a radio show from local legend Steve Cannon from 1957.  Around 8 minutes in, there is a singing weather ad from Roberts' followed by copy from Cannon.  Unfortunately, they don't seem to sing "Happy Feet for All the Family."

I remember Cannon as having the afternoon drive time show on WCCO for years and years, but I didn't know that before that he was at WLOL, which was the hip pop music station of my youth (now long gone).  Listening to him in the 1950s is like a recording from another world.  I particularly liked how he broke in to tell the ladies that it was hot enough that they didn't need wear their seamless nylons.  I'd assume that was a joke, but it still says something about the times.

I'll post another update if I find audio of the jingle.

Only Partly Spooky

 I was back on campus twice this week with the return of college basketball season, so let's head back to Dinkytown.  This building has paint-on-brick signs on three sides that are s snapshot of both the past and today.

Let's start with the present.  Annie's Parlour is a burger and malt institution that's been there since I don't know when.  Well, I say institution but I've only been there a few times and the last was at least twelve years ago, but hey, it's still there, so it's got that going for it.  It doesn't seem that to have its own webpage, but it shows up on a variety of user review sites.   This shot from Flickr gives a good perspective of the balcony that overlooks the space where the railroad tracks that may be the source of Dinkytown's name used to be.

 Next up is the partially ghost bit.  Ragstock still exists, but not at this location.  It's a second hand clothing company (started in 1954 to import and export used clothes) that operated at this location from 1979 to 2002 but closed due to declining sales and increasing rent.  I paid fifteen bucks there for a leather trench coat for a Halloween costume in college, but I moved away in 1999 and that clearly was the beginning of the end.  I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to the Dinkytown community.  It's all my fault.  It's the Kitty Kat Klub today.

The last sign, as you can see, is for Art Materials Inc.  I'm running short on time, and it's a pretty generic name, so I'll just leave you with a couple of old adds in the Minnesota Daily from Aug. of 1980 (pdf, pg. 12) and Nov. 1982 (pdf, pg. 13).