Ohio Jewish Chronicle, 1994-09-08

              i
l!J
I
m
w
IIP.
\u
Ill;
THE
The Ohio Jewish Chronicle
Serving Columbus and the Central Ohio
Jewish Community since, 192<2, ,
VOMJME 72
1MUMBER36
SEPTEMBER 8,1994
3 TISHREI 5755
Todd Appelbaum to receive
Young Leadership Award
page 2
Jewish educators attend
CAJE19 in Bloomington
page 5
Simcha Safari II to be
held on Sunday, Oct. 2
page 6
ABOUT THE COVER
" Herb Topy hotis prints of the portraits he took
of Wendy Thomas when the first Wendy's Old
Fashioned Hamburgers restaurant was bemg
opened at 257 E. Brold St. Phil Sheridan photo.
«/!►
FA
*__fr*-     **.tt k^^^^^^m^^^i^^t41%. **
^^;=^|iiiiiir""r,i:"wir
In observance of Yom Kippur, the OJC office will
be closed on Thursday,. Sept. 15. ______
mmmam In The Chronicle ——■*
At The JCC 14'15
Calendar^. '	
K fi
Community.......... °"
Editor's Mailbox ;'•• ■*
*" 9
Federation ■•■•'; : ' ,
Fifty Years Ago ..' * ••• "8
FrontPage »****• ,;i *2
Mfecycle... • : 1W
13
Marketplace....... * * *.
New.Generation...... • *"
Synagogues......... • ; •• U
Mevirpo%t...... ,.....«..» t3
W*iat.>fisr..» « ••••-! : ; *U
"s    y-'Si "*  s
H**?
§r<o||i!ISllil|
jWednesSay^ep^f:;
;i^I;:|i;|||R|
W§0Mnm
-^0:^sty
Ohio   Hist.Society   Libr
ID02   Velrna   Ave.
' it 1 tiriilui    ,    Ohio
1. i (Hif
sf   •   ft a j
EXTRA • ORDIN^Y PEOPLE
Mtli ffee snap of his camera.
Herb Topy records history of community
By Phil Sheridan
You may know him as Herb
Topy, but his full name is Herbert Lawrence Topolosky. He's
the guy just about everybody
called over a span of some 40
years, when they needed pictures taken of special events
such as ground-breakings,
train and plane arrivals, banquets, press conferences and
theater promotions.
Herb and I spent a couple of
very pleasant hours reminiscing recently. He's retired and
living in Jupiter, Fla., with second wife, Bernice. Lillian, his
first wife and mother of sons,
Joel and Sheldon, passed away
in 1968. Joel and Sheldon how
run the two locations of Topy
Photo Service, 21 % Rich St.,
downtown and 2949 E.s Main
St.
Herb was in town for the
Bat Mitzvah of Sheldon's
daughter, Stacey. We visited
in Joel and Barbara Topo-
losky's Bexley home.
Herb's grandparents came
to the United States from Russia when his father, Mose, was
still an infant. Although they
had been farmers in the old
country, they opened to run a
grocery store when they settled down in Circleville.
Mose worked in the grocery
as a lad but. later moved to
Columbus and became a bartender. He opened a saloon,
Topy's Liquors, at 76 W. Broad
St. where City Hall is now.
Mose married the former
Etta Schneider, a native of
Louisville, Ky., and they rented a house on Fulton Street.
Sons Harry and Herbert were
born there.
In 1919, when Herb was
only a year old, the Volstead
Act, better known as Prohibition, put Mose's saloon out of
business.
In 1926, after trying his
hand at several other kinds of
work, he opened a restaurant,
Topy's Java Lunchroom, at
the same address as his former
saloon. It was a long room
with about 175 seats, most of
which were filled during the
lunch hour by steel workers
and sand hogs working on the
555-foot American Insurance
Union Citadel, commonly
called the A1U Building and
now the LeVeque Tower, just
across Front Street.
Meals at the Java Lunchroom were usually 25'and 35
cents, or you could get a T-
bone steak for half-a-dollar!
Etta got things going every day
at 5 a.m., checking the food
and making sure all was ready
for the breakfast trade.
Etta's father died before she
was born, and her mother had
married Mr. Wise, a baker in
the Flytown section of Columbus. He had an exclusive contract to bake bread for the
Ohio Penitentiary. Etta and
her 10 or 11 siblings all
worked in the bakery, so she
was accustomed to hard work.
The Topolosky family
moved to 976 Franklin Ave.,
about two miles east of downtown. Herb attended Douglas
Elementary, Franklin Junior
High and East High schools.
After classes he rode the
trolley downtosvn. Sometimes
he rollerskated instead, but
brick streets made it a rough
commute.
It wasn't easy for a young
boy to make friends his own
age downtown, but Herb struck
up a friendship with Bob Sa-
brey, son of Neil House Manager Tom Sabrey, The State-
house grounds became their
recreation area. Herb recalls
playing football there. Only
occasionally were they chased
off by guards.
After the AIU Building was
finished, work began on City
Hall. Since it was set far back
from the street, Topy's Java
Lunchroom wasn't torn down
during construction, and worker's continued to eat there.
Herb made the construction
site his playground, but not
without risk. He remembers
stepping on a rusty nail and
going to a doctor in the James
Theatre Building for treatment.
There were many diversions
for a lad downtown in those
days, and Herb apparently
found most of them, including
nearby theaters, the Palace,
James, Broadway, Majestic
and Ohio.
When City Hall was almost
complete, Topy's Java Lunchroom moved south to 32 W.
State St. Its patrons remained
predominantly construction
workers, since the original
State Office Building was under way on S. From Street.
Herb recalls that the city's
original White Castle restau-,
rant at 49 S. Front St„ only
about a year old at the time,
was displaced by the new
see TOPY pg. 4
it'   I
h: