A modern meat market for the 1930s
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, 04-25-15
Two experienced butchers opened a high end meat market at 23 Market Street in bustling downtown Amsterdam on Saturday, February 23, 1929, eight months before the stock market crashed.
According to a promotional newspaper article, Zeiser & Lasher was the city’s model market, “One of the finest and most modern meat markets in New York State and one that will contain every known appliance, electrical and otherwise, for the scientific handling of market produce” The store boasted that it sold quality meats, “If you want the best, we have it.”
Co-owner Carl Hugo Zeiser came to America from Germany when he was three years old and was a 35 year meat market veteran in Gloversville. Zeiser had worked with his father in Gloversville making sausage. Ellery Lasher was an Amsterdam native with 25 years of meat market experience in Amsterdam and Gloversville. He had worked three summers at markets in Alexandria Bay in northern New York.
Emil W. Suda of Amsterdam has a photo from the store’s grand opening. Eight vases filled with flowers are lined up atop the modern white enamel display case, which is trimmed in black. The case, chock full of meat, was made by Frigidaire and installed by John E. Larrabee Company, the hardware store just down the street. The cooling box was protected by four inches of cork.
The new market promised that customer areas would be warm while the meat would be kept in the cooler case or cold storage. The butcher shop had modern machinery for cutting meat and making meat products.
Hansen and Dickson at 35 Main Street installed the shiny Armstrong checkered black and white linoleum. The walls of the establishment were ivory and buff.
The opening day ads touted beef, veal, chicken, pork, lamb, store-made sausage and First Prize hams. There was free delivery citywide and to Fort Johnson. You could call in your order to the store’s three digit phone number, 641. Zeiser & Lasher promised the best ham for Easter in 1931. Ham ends were 15 cents a pound.
Amsterdam native Barbara Case of Cape Coral, Florida, has a picture of a sign made in 1929 promising, “We handle Zeiser & Lasher sausage and bolognas.” The sign hung in a meat market operated by Lang and Shandorf near Mill Point on Route 161 in the town of Glen, adjacent to Schoharie Creek. Shandorf was the uncle of Case’s husband Richard. The sign was painted at Emil Zillgitt’s photo studio on East Main Street in Amsterdam.
Zeiser & Lasher seemed to disappear in 1932. The City Directory that year showed City Cash Market occupying Zeiser & Lasher’s old space at 23 Market Street. Zeiser later operated the Hotel Wells in Wells, N.Y. in Hamilton County. He died in 1948. Lasher apparently relocated to Scotia.
In 1932 City Cash Market’s proprietors were Clara Farina and Vincent Giamio. The Farinas, James and Clara, also operated East End Fish Market at 201 East Main, which was their residential address. And they ran International Meat Market at 203 East Main. Vincent Giamio, who lived at 218 East Main, was part of all three businesses. A 1936 ad for City Cash Market stated they sold meats wholesale and retail. Ham was 24 cents a pound.
City Directories listed over 100 groceries and meat markets in Amsterdam in the 1930s. Some were chains such as A & P and Central Market. Local markets included Shelly’s at 283 East Main, Alexander Zielinski at 13 Hibbard, Beer’s Grocery at 86 Prospect, Albino Barnell at 50 Florida Avenue and Castler & Burns at 113 East Main.
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