Commerce & Ervay, Looking East
by Paula Bosse
Even then a busy downtown intersection… (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
Above, Commerce Street, looking east from Ervay, with the old Post Office/Federal Building on the northeast corner (replaced by the Mercantile Bank Building in the early 1940s). In the background, at the right side of the photo, the Metropolitan Business College, at Commerce and St. Paul.
See a view of Commerce looking west in 1913 — showing the Metropolitan Business College in the foreground and the new Adolphus Hotel a few blocks away, here.
Another eastward-looking view — from about 1895, when the post office was still pretty new — is here.
And the present-day Google Street View of Commerce and Ervay looks like this.
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I’m not sure of the original source of this photograph, but I found it on Coltera’s Flickr stream (I didn’t save the link and I can’t find it again). If anyone knows of a sharper image of this photo, I’d love to see it!
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Copyright © 2017 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Flashback : Dallas 
Your site is a treasure trove stoking my nostalgia. I’d be interested in anything you have related to…
The Fine Arts Theater in Snider Plaza (where I worked)
The City Temple Presbyterian Church (the downtown location, where my father was minister)
The station KCPA-FM on which I presented (with a very British accent) a two-hour concert program of classical music.
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Thank you, Malcolm. I’ve been meaning to write about the Varsity Theater (which later became the Fine Arts). My father worked at the Fine Arts when he was going to SMU in the ’50s. I’ll add the church and KCPA (which I’ve never heard of) to the ever-growing list! Thanks again!
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Malcolm, is this you: http://www.dfwretroplex.com/KCPA_CONCERT_HALL.mp3
I found the sound clip on a history of KCPA, here: http://www.dfwretroplex.com/kcpa01.html
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Picture an old man in Munich rendered speechless. That is indeed my 20-year-old self speaking first on the ‘KCPA Concert Hall’ promo. Amazing how little my microphone voice has changed… I still do the occasional voiceover recording job.
My gig at KCPA ended abruptly in April 1961 when I crashed my Vespa on the way from the radio studio to the Fine Arts. At the time I’d figured out that ‘cross-promotion’ could be cool… I fed the opener of the radio show into the cinema auditorium just before the 8 o’clock showing of whatever movie was running.
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Do you hear further jaw-dropping echoing from Bavaria? Drawn back to your site I found a post concerning your father and there was a photo of him with a certain Charles Drum. Now Charlie Drum and Grady Royster were my very closest buddies in my SMU days. Since then I’ve had a fetish about triple-barreled names… Charles Sartor Drum… Grady Cayce Royster…
Malcolm James Thomson
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Ha! I mentioned this to Charlie (via Facebook) and he said you must have known my father, Dick Bosse (’55 SMU grad). In 1960 he owned the Plaza Book Store, right next door to the Fine Arts. I mentioned you to my mother, Margaret, and she said I should ask if you remembered when the black-and-white bookstore cat (who was named Sawnie and was very popular with all the Snider Plaza businesses, including the pharmacy, which would treat him to samples of milkshakes) somehow got out of the store one night (possibly through a hole in the wall separating the theater and the bookstore) and ended up wandering around the theater audience, brushing against their legs as they were watching a movie and causing quite a consternation (they probably thought it was a giant rat!). My father, who lived a couple of blocks away, had to be called to come search for the cat in the dark of the theater while the movie continued — he eventually found him in an equipment room or projection room (which my father knew pretty well, having worked at the Fine Arts a couple of years before). My mother said theater staff would always put “weenies” and cream out on the front sidewalk for Sawnie.
Thanks to this conversation with my mother, I also now know about the Wreck of the Hesperus coffee house on the *other* side of the theater. Sounds like Snider Plaza wasn’t nearly as stuffy back then as it is these days!
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(1) From 2010 to 2014 I was on Facebook and had briefly contact with Charlie via the site. But finally I decided that the distracting clutter of the social media platforms was something I didn’t need.
(2) Strangely I have no recall at all of Sawnie, but I love the story of his exploit.
(3) Nor does the Plaza Book Store ring any bells, in spite of its proximity to the Fine Arts. Two reasons for this… firstly my book-buying needs were probably satisfied on campus and secondly my reading stressed the European periodicals I was able to purchase at a downtown newsagent which stocked not only Cahiers du Cinéma but also Elle Magazine!
(4) The Wreck of the Hesperus, however, I remember vividly. The ‘jazz poetry’ efforts were probably sophomoric at best. The very cool black bongo player (whose name escapes me) introduced me to a culture previously unknown to a twenty-year-old Scot. I learned the virtues of marijuana, too… not that this seemed to overly concern the University Park cops who agreed that the coffee served next door was very good.
I have a couple of photos for you which I can send to an email account if you send me an address.
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I’d love to see them. You can send them to flashbackdallas214@gmail.com.
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My sense is that this photo documents some sort of procession or parade. Of the three automobiles seen in this image two have tires that look to have been whitewashed. I myself once mentioned in a comment on this site that car tires in the early days (i.e. pre 1918, give or take) are more like gray or tan than black, but the tires in this image are just plain white.
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