Summer 1992 Table of Contents
A Weedy Empire
by Marge Thielman Hastreiter
I couldn't believe my eyes the other day as I scanned the newspaper. I spotted a picture titled "A Fading Empire" and ~ it was of a building at 100 Seneca Street. It showed workmen taking down an EMPIRE OF AMERICA sign. The words on the canopy read EMPIRE PLAZA. The accompanying item read that new signs will be erected for the EMPIRE OF AMERICA REALTY CREDIT CORP.
The shape of this building, the curved arches of the windows across the top and the four larger spaces with encased windows below all struck a familiar cord.
I ran to my bookshelves for an old catalog which I had acquired from my Dad's belongings when he passed away. I opened the front cover and, sure enough, there was a picture of the same building, only the address had been 95 E. Swan Street.
A nameplate over the four bottom curved windows read WEED & COMPANY, established 1818. This building, standing in the shadow of Pilot Field and the City Campus of Erie Community College, was the home of this once-famous hardware company.
The first floor of the building contained a sales floor where jobbers and small contractors could come in and place their orders. Behind this was a large area for the storing of bar steel and angle iron.
A beautiful wooden staircase, at least 10 feet across, led to the second floor. At the top of the staircase was a display of the rifles that Weed & Co. offered for sale. This whole floor was dedicated to the office staff with an army of secretaries and salesmen manning the telephones, Dictaphones and typewriters.
The third floor was the warehouse where the stock was on hand to supply every hardware store in the area.
My father worked for Weed & Co. for almost 50 years. My mom was a secretary there and that's where they met. Dad was a salesman and was on the road most of the time. His accounts were mostly local, the furthest distance he traveled being Niagara Falls. Sometimes he would take one of us kids on his calls in that area and that was a special day with a stop for lunch and a peek at the falls.
Dad's "bible" was his catalog. It had a front and back cover and was loose leaf style. Upon the changing of prices and new products, pages had to be added and taken out, and I remember our dining room table being filled with these pages from time to time. He would keep the completed catalog on the back seat of his car for when he called on his customer.
The book I have is Catalog 40 and the red cover with black and white print states "Weed & Co., Mill-RailroadContractors-Supplies-Hardware-Iron and Steel, Buffalo & Rochester."
The 516 pages are filled with pictures of hatchets, shovels, sanders, paint brushes, pipe cutters, wrenches, clamps and many other items.
In further hunting down my Weed & Co. memorabilia, I located some letters that Dad's friends had written to him on the company stationary when he was at boot camp, the logo being that of teepees, Indians and a small cabin with the diamond shaped "Established 1818" in the center.
The contents of the letters are the usual office gossip, when the new Dictaphones were installed and how there would be a new catalog waiting for him when he got home.
I also have a Weed & Co. hang tag that we found on a coal shovel at an auction in the Southern Tier.
Besides the building on Swan Street Weed's also had a retail outlet on lower Main Street and one in the Genesee Building (now the Hyatt Hotel). The beautiful decorative doorway inside the Hyatt which was preserved was once the entrance to Weed's.
When we would enter this store we were given preferential treatment because we were "Tony's girls." When a purchase was made, the bill and the money were placed in a pneumatic tube and sent to the office somewhere in the building and the change was sent back by the same system.
Weed's was a pleasant, family-type place to work. The business was passed down through the generations until it was inherited by nieces and nephews who were not interested in hardware sales.
After almost 50 years as a faithful employee, my father walked into work one day and got the news from a secretary that the company was liquidated. In a heartbeat, his catalog was obsolete, and he and many other employees were left to find other employment.
He was able to retrieve his pension and, being the salesman that he was, procured another job eventually and worked to the age of 75.
1, for one, was happy to see that this historic building survived with all the construction that has taken place in the last few years in that area, what with the Thruway exit running along side and the completion of Pilot Field.
Next time I pass, I'll take a look inside and see if there is any trace of that 10 foot wide staircase or if any ghosts from the old Weed & Co. at 95 E. Swan Street are still manning the Dictaphones.
