Chautauqua Avenue, Looking South

Chautauqua Avenue, Looking South. . , Intersection, Summit and Chautauqua Avenues, Looking South. The Chautauqua Avenue buildings on the right between Summit Street and Third Street were built in the 1890's. Their characteristic flat roofs can still be recognized today although porches and balconies have been removed. Each of the large structures called "blocks" housed a wide variety of commercial operations to supply local residents' needs in the age of limited transportation. The building on the southwest corner of Summit and Chautauqua was a rooming house with a saloon in the basement. Later it was Miles Grocery and the familiar P and A Grocery as recently as the late 1970s. The village fire bell was and can be seen on the top of the tallest building. That bell is now in front of the fire station on Chautauqua Avenue. Similar small shops and services extended along the left side of Chautauqua Avenue also. The original steep southward slope of Chautauqua Avenue, seen here, was graded in 1891 to a moderate grade. The trolley tracks in the foreground are those of the Jamestown Street Railway Company which made Lakewood its western terminus after it was electrified in 1891. , Chautauqua Avenue-Summit Street Intersection. This 1934 winter view looks toward the main intersection of the village. The low building in the center of the picture replaced the larger, earlier structure which had housed a number of facilities including a Chautauqua Traction station. The new building, a grocery store, later became the Post Office and is now a prvate enterprise. The building on the left, another grocery, remains, minus its second floor.