Who Remembers Jerry's?

It was just a little hole in the wall on upper Main Street, but back in its "day," it seemed that almost everyone stopped on their way to work for coffee, smokes, gum or the daily paper.

About halfway up the hill on the north side of Main Street, Jerry’s had everything we needed, from soup to nuts—along with a generous dose of local color and gossip.

It was a family affair; Jerry D’Auria, his wife Alice, and Jerry’s brother John
and sister Lucille (Aunt Lu) ran the store for almost 50 years. Jerry and John manned the early shift, Alice came in for a few hours in the afternoons before the kids came home, and Aunt Lu was the “boss” at night after she finished a day’s work at Manlo Bag on corner of Washington and Jackson Avenues. 

On our way to or from school, we’d stop in with a few pennies we earned from returning bottles, or change from our lunch money, to buy candy. There was a wooden display case along the left side of the store that was filled with penny candy, such as:

Licorice Babies (6 for a penny)              Mike & Ike's (10 for a penny)

Mary Jane's (4 for a penny)                   Wax bottles with liquid (5 for a penny)

Candy Buttons (a strip of a penny)         Zag-Nut Bits (10 for a penny)

BB Bats (2 for a penny)                        Chocolate Cigarettes (3 cents a box)

Chuckles loose (5 for a penny)               Milk Duds

Necco Waffers                                      Sen-Sen

Sky Bars                                              Snow Caps

Teaberry Gum                                      Blackjack Gum

Bit O Honey                                         Mallo Bars

Charleston Chews                                Sugar Daddy

Slo Poke Bars                                      Krackel

Valomint Bars                                     Barley Clear Candy

Walnettos                                           Reed’s Butterscotch

Chocolate Goose Eggs                          Beemans Gum

Candy Necklaces                                 Bon Bon's

Chiclets                                              Root Beer Barrels

Plus Bonamoes Turkish Taffy, and all the Hershey’s bars that could be stuffed in my pockets.

Sometime in the 60s, a larger soda fountain was installed on the right side of the store, along with eight stools. It seemed to me permanent customers were sitting on the same stool whenever you stopped in. The place was full of attorneys, newspaper reporters and guy named “Steamboat.”  They enjoyed coffee, soda and perhaps one of those delicious Crum Buns or Danishes from down the street, or munched on prepackaged “Stewart” sandwiches. (I never ate one of those, but there was a long-ago highway superintendent from Upper Nyack who consumed his fair share.)

The soda fountain, with its shiny black top, is where we ordered Hershey’s Ice Cream to take home in one of those white, round cardboard containers that Aunt Lu would pack so full that the lid never did fit right.  

Milkshakes were a quarter, a glass of Coca Cola a nickel, and Banana Splits cost 50
cents. Hot Fudge or Butterscotch Sundaes were 35 cents, and a delicious Ice Cream Soda, with three scoops of ice cream, was only a quarter—and if you wanted a piece of heaven, you ordered a New York Egg-Cream. 

Folks from all over stopped for the Nyack Evening Journal that cost a nickel. I recall a State Supreme Court Judge and his wife from Upper Nyack who came in every Sunday for papers that were placed along wooden planks at the back of the store that held dozens of “saved-papers.” There were coloring and comic books, and the latest issue of  “Police Gazette.” I could sneak a peak at the magazines if I carefully stood behind the wire racks of  post cards, and greeting cards, but heaven help me if Aunt Lu spotted me… then there was the devil-to-pay!

And does anyone remember when there was a pin ball machine was in the back of the store?

The store’s closing ended an era in our village. Today, we have convenience stores and delis, but they don’t have the same feeling… the feeling set in as you walked through the door to be greeted with a smile and, “Hey ya kid, how’s mom and dad?” Or, as you walked out the door, “Hey kid… take two and hit to right!”   

Generations grew up in and around that candy store; generations that shaped our beloved Nyack into what it is today!