Bound Volumes, Hometown History
August 8, 2024
80 YEARS AGO
August 1934
70 YEARS AGO
War on Sex Morons—Appointment of a temporary parks policeman to rout sex morons from city parks is on the agenda for tonight’s session of the Oneonta City Public Safety Board. The Board will have before it a resolution from the Common Council, authorizing the board to proceed with an appointment, while guaranteeing the necessary funds. This action grew out of a suggestion by Alderman Albert S. Nader, Sixth Ward, that something should be done to curb nightly disorder in the parks and juveniles running at large until early morning hours. Mr. Nader proposed a 10 p.m. curfew on children under 15 years of age. Nader’s proposal brought forth a full discussion by the council with the resulting decision to patrol the parks. Some aldermen believe that adults are more to blame than youngsters, and that the worst offenses have occurred in the daytime.
August 1954
30 YEARS AGO
Construction for the proposed Comfort Suites Hotel in downtown Oneonta will not start this summer, but hopes remain that the project will break ground this year. Plans for a downtown hotel were announced in December 1990. The project has faced delays from the economic recession as well as complications over soil quality, protracted negotiations over agreements and reviews by state agencies including the NYS Historic Preservation office. The proposed seven-story hotel will have 94 rooms, an indoor pool, banquet facilities and meeting rooms. A long-vacant lot behind the Main Street bandstand is the site of the project. Among the changes to meet the requests of the state’s Historic Preservation Office, the architects rotated the location of the conference center so that its windows will face Main Street. The rotation necessitated a loss of 10,000 square feet and a loss of banquet capacity from 400 to 250.
August 1994
20 YEARS AGO
Norma L. Hutman, who was injured earlier in an aviation accident, says she broke her left arm. “I’m doing well, I suppose,” she reported from a room at Mary Imogene Bassett hospital in Cooperstown. “I expect to be home soon.” Hutman, 69, of Oneonta said she had surgery on it shortly after the accident. Hutman is a former Hartwick College professor and is often seen walking area roads. Hutman related that she had been taking off from the Cooperstown -Westville airport in a single-engine plane when it went off the left side of the turf runway. The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating.
August 2004