'Mom-and-pop' memories Gotham Street Market served families for decades

Coins — mostly dimes, nickels and pennies — hundreds of them. There they were in the old ductwork of the Gotham Street Market, an exciting treasure find for any child. Many of them dated to the late 1800s. A good number were of Indian head vintage.

A new heating system was being installed in what was believed to be the oldest existing mom-and-pop grocery store in Watertown. As the work crew tore out the old ductwork in the basement in 1965, the stash was found. Change lined the pipes near the furnace.

Why, the workers wondered, would change have collected here?

With a little investigation, the explanation became obvious.

Up on the main floor at 636 Gotham St., where grocers had been serving their neighbors from at least as far back as 1897, there was a large floor register. It was positioned in front of a display rack, one that had probably sat there undisturbed for 50 years.

Youngsters had surely gathered here, drawn by the magnetism of the candies stacked on the shelves. The gravitational force that lay beneath the floor register had over the years swallowed up those hard-earned coins as the youthful would-be buyers, yearning for their favorite sweets, fumbled as they dug deep into their pockets.

Before there was A&P or P&C, before there were other grocery chains such as Grand Union, Loblaws or Acme, the corner store was the place to go to get that prime cut of steak, the fish filet, veggies and whatever else was planned for the dinner table.

As we open the 1907 Watertown City Directory, we find 89 grocery stores in business. Should we be surprised that the busiest street was Arsenal, with its dozen markets? Main Street had 10; there were nine on Factory Street and eight on Mill Street.

Public Square and two of its main feeder streets, State and Washington, each had just one food shop.

Gotham Street for several years had just one grocery shop, the store that eventually adopted its street name. A couple of groceries on Flower Avenue East offered the nearest competition.

Shopkeepers in the early years were generally immigrants, people who had come from Italy, Ireland, Scotland, Canada and Palestine. But that's not the story on Gotham Street.

Before addresses changed in Watertown in 1910, the house number was 16 for the shop operated on Gotham Street by James W. McManus. He was born in Charleston, S.C., in 1847 and was just 6 months old when his parents moved to Watertown.

City directories show him running the store in 1897, but most likely it was a sideline for Mr. McManus, since he was nearing the conclusion of 30 years of employment with Knowlton Brothers. We can only guess that his wife, Katherine Holland McManus, was the main storekeeper until 1905, when he left the paper company.

"Uncle Jimmy," as the kids in the neighborhood called him, sold the store in 1910 and began a two-decade stint with Hungerford-Holbrook Co. He died in May 1930, and "Aunt Kit" died four years later.

Succeeding Mr. McManus in the store's "genealogy" was George L. Maxon.

Born in the town of Watertown, he started young in food marketing, being given charge of a store's oyster department. He went to work at the E.H. Thompson Grocery at Franklin and Goodale streets, clerking there for 20 years until the Gotham Street shop became his for a 41-year tenure.

The "mom and pop" here, like their predecessors, had no children.

Competition moved in, just two doors away, when around 1918 a butcher, Frank W. Lewis, opened a grocery store at 624 Gotham St. The two stores would vie for the neighbors' dollars for the next 43 years.

Mr. Maxon took a hiatus of a few years from his store following the 1925 death of his wife Grace. Leo J. Valin, 49 at the time, who made a career at New York Air Brake, and his wife, Bessie, were behind the counter in 1927.

The following year, a 65-year-old veteran grocer, Edward Lovegrove, moved to Watertown to take charge of the store. He remained in business there until 1929, when he opened a store at 710 Holcomb St.

Mr. Maxon married Ivora Hunt LaMont and resumed operating the store. Illness forced him to sell in August 1951, to William S. Kissel. Mr. Maxon died two years later at the age of 83; Ivora Maxon was also 83 when she died in 1966.

Mr. Kissel apparently had no intention of running the store. His wife died a month after the property transaction, and he had just retired at 59 from operating a liquor store because he had a heart condition. His son, Theodore K. Kissel, was given charge of the store and eventually became the owner.

The Kissels held onto the business for two years. In November 1953, Kissel's Market, as it was then called, passed to the guardianship of the Puccia family, proprietors for the next 26 years.

Angelo Puccia named it Angelo's Market. Not yet 40, he brought to Gotham Street his experience of being co-owner of the Franklin Fruit Market for about a decade, managing the Arcade Market for eight years and operating a store on Arsenal Street.

After two years, he was ready to move on, and he sold out to his younger brother, Joseph J. Puccia.

"They were going back to their roots," said Gary M. Puccia, one of the three sons of Joseph and Mary Puccia.

"Dad used to drive tractor-trailer long hauls over the road, and while they were raising a young family, it was difficult for Mom.

"On both sides of the family, my grandparents, the Puccias and the Palumbos, had come from Italy, and landing in Watertown they became vegetable retailers. So I would say that the retail blood goes back to my grandparents."

In fact, grandfather Anthony Puccia operated a grocery store in Rochester before coming to Watertown, said Gary's brother Joseph Jr. .

The store, open seven days a week, became a "family affair," Gary Puccia said, with the three boys assigned responsibilities corresponding to their ages.

"Joe Jr. was cashier. Anthony was responsible for stocking the shelves and keeping the coolers full of beverages. In later years, he learned how to butcher. I was the youngest and was delegated to sorting the thousands of returnable beer and soda bottles in the cellar, and stocking shelves."

It was during the Joseph Puccia years that the business became the Gotham Street Market. And as the building had for previous owners, it also provided a home for the Puccias.

Just like any of the corner stores, Gotham Street Market offered local produce. J.D. MacDonald delivered fresh milk every day from area farms, which, of course, kept the supply of eggs coming; Italian bread came to the store fresh from the ovens of the local Spaziani and Romeo bakeries; Arlington Bakery supplied pastries, and soft drinks poured in from bottling companies in Watertown.

Although a large distributor, Tobin's, delivered "western beef," as Mr. Puccia calls it, a farm on outer Washington Street provided beef for hamburger.

Mrs. Puccia offered the home touch with her lasagna, meatballs and pizza, and the hoagie sandwich (we call them subs now) became popular. Another favorite was Italian sausage, made right there in the store.

And the store went on wheels, with its white Jeepster bearing the store logo being driven on home deliveries.

Credit — that was no problem, according to Gary Puccia. Pages on a clipboard recorded running totals for trusted customers, and "in all the years this practice went on, the store never sent out any statements or lost any account, and all charges were always paid, without interest," he said.

Many of Watertown's prominent names were counted among the market's regular customers: Ebbels, Finnerty, Fitzgerald, Grace, Taylor, Sturtz and Pflugheber. And Lafferty, Swan and Habib.

There was the mayor, Ted Rand. The crew from Channel 7 shopped here too — Danny Burgess, Tony Malara, Bob Tompkins, Glen Gough, Joe Rich and Jim Higgins. City Judge James Y. LaRue, accompanied by his trusty dog, was a daily visitor. When the judge couldn't make it, his dog ran the errand for him.

Since his family shopped at the Gotham Street Market, a future congressman, John McHugh, probably spent some time checking out the candy rack.

The Puccias were able to eliminate some competition in May 1961, when they bought out Wesley and Frances Jenkins's store at 624 Gotham St., the market that Frank Lewis had started.

They stayed in business until June 1979, when they sold the operation to Peter and Brenda Cavallario. By this time, the mom-and-pop shop was fading into history, yielding to the supermarkets with their larger floor space, more varied stock, lower prices and ample parking for a growing motoring populace.

The Cavallarios, the ninth "generation" in the stewardship of Gotham Street Market, closed shop about 1982.

Joseph J. Puccia Sr. retired to Port Orange, Fla., where he died Dec. 17, 1996, at age 80. Mary Puccia was 83 when she died Nov. 13, 2001, at Samaritan-Keep Home.

Our thanks go to Times librarian Lisa Carr and city historian and clerk Donna Dutton for assistance with research, and to Gary Puccia for his contributions in this story.