Vic De Rose interview

Interview with Vic De Rose - Part II

For 47 years Vic De Rose has operated a barber shop at 864 N. High Street. In this installment of an interview with Andy Klein, he describes the building where his father operated a barber shop from 1934.

Vic: The guy who built this building and my dad were real good friends and he had a bar across the alley. His name was Morris Froehlich. They were German-Jewish. Across the alley he had a bar, 2 or 3 rooms, where Roche Bobois Furniture is now. First he had an ice cream parlor, and when prohibition went out, he started selling booze to make more money. He named it King's Palace. That was also the name of the bar right next door which he built [current site of Havana].

Andy: So he had operated the place across the alley before this building was constructed?

Vic: And where this building sits today at that time was three individual pieces of property. And as the people that owned them passed on, their kin didn't even live in the state of Ohio, so he purchased them. He purchased the last parcel in early 1952, and built this building. He tore down the three buildings that were here, one floor frame buildings. At the rear near Pearl Alley there was an old house that set back there, a black family lived in it, they had about 15 kids. I can still see their father, his one leg was about that much shorter than the other, and he was the porter for the King's Palace. And I can still see him walking down the street like this (illustrates limp.) He was their porter.

Andy: What happened to their house?

V: It got torn down. I don't know if they owned it or what.

A: What was located in the High Street buildings that got torn down in 1952?

V: You know the sheet metal shop at Kerr & Prescott, Blackwood Sheet Metal? They got their start in the third building. On the corner was Mrs. Graham, and she owned Blackboard Realty Company. The front door of the barber shop was in the same location as my door today, and it was just a one room frame building. When Mr. Froehlich acquired all three of these properties, he came over one day and said to my dad, "I'm your new landlord. I'm going to have me a bar,"and my dad said theway he explained it that day was exactly what that bar looks like. And he turned, and said, "I'm going to build you a barber shop." And this is it.

A: When you started work here in '54, was the neighborhood still on the upswing?

V: Oh yeah, it was a nice neighborhood. It stayed that way for about 20 years, then it started going down. It wasn't mixed race. They call this Italian Village, but I don't think many Italians lived here. There was a Catholic church, St. John's. It was a working class neighborhood. They worked hard for 5 days and then liked to play on the sixth day.

A: What was the main drawing cards for the neighborhood?

V: Car lots and bars.