The Origins of Oswego's Music Hall, part two

I’m pleased to offer you my second column on the history of the Ontario Center for Performing Arts, a popular setting for live entertainment in the city of Oswego. My last column covered the very early years of the Oswego Music Hall, as it was originally known, beginning with a coffeehouse called the Lowlife Caffe. Founded by Dick and Sue Reinert, the Caffe was a springboard for what Dick had in mind for Oswego.

“Dick Reinert was the catalyst for the Music Hall,” recalled Paul Maggio, who spent lots of time there, both as part of the audience and as a performance artist. “Dick had seen things like Shakespeare in the Park in New York City and he wanted to bring in culture to Oswego.”

One of Dick’s children, Joe, shared some thoughts about his dad’s desire to establish the Music Hall: “In his soul, my father wanted to be an artist, but he was also aware that he couldn’t make money doing that, so he followed a career in the sciences. Still, he wanted to be close to artists who were creating and I think the Music Hall was a way for him to do that.”

Old City Hall, where the Music Hall began, was located on Water Street, and with its abandoned warehouses it didn’t seem like a welcoming place for performances. But Dick started bringing in quality performers to that questionable space and he wasn’t only interested in folksingers and bands. He also brought in poets and theatre groups, including one created by Donna Inglima, who’d moved to Oswego from New York City, where she had studied acting.

“I worked at a store in Oswego,” Donna said. “One day, Dick came in and asked me what I did beyond that job. I told him I was a theatre person and he said, ‘I run the Music Hall. Why don’t you come and do plays with us?’”

That conversation led to Donna founding the children’s theatre troupe Animal Crackers Unlimited. After brainstorming with other Oswego-based actors, including Fullis Conroy, Seth Cutler, Paul Maggio and Steven Schwartz, Donna started staging plays, which were often based on fairy tales, in Old City Hall. She described the Hall’s setting for the troupe’s performances:

“Originally, it was where they built ships and its wooden structure and big windows made it feel so commanding…but it was also funky and there was a warmth to it. Chairs were in short supply, so we saved them for adults and found carpet squares at a local rug store for children. They would sit on the floor close to the stage.”

Animal Crackers’ plays were scheduled in between Dick’s musical artists and Paul Maggio remembered the preshow work that had to happen before the troupe could perform. “Our shows were often on Saturday morning and we actors would come in to get ready. Part of what we had to do was clean up from the night before—clean tables, pick up bottles and such.”

By the time the Reinerts left Oswego in early 1980s, the Music Hall had established a following, with some of those who’d enjoyed the performances stepping up to keep them going. One of the first new leaders was Allen Belkin, who explained the many responsibilities of a Music Hall manager.

“I identified and contacted performers and scheduled shows. To publicize events, I wrote press releases and public service announcements, recorded radio commercials, and created a monthly flyer and posters to hang up around town. I arranged hospitality for performers and made sure the room was set up for the show. I recruited and coordinated the many volunteers who helped.”

Among those volunteers was Catherine Cerulli—longtime Music Hall attendees may remember her as Cathy Barbano—and, as she explained, “I started out like many Music Hall volunteers did, as an usher: welcoming people at the door, showing them to their tables. From there, I became part of the board of directors, which was a pretty informal organization at first.”

Those informalities included the Music Halls’ finances. “It was operating on a shoestring budget,” Catherine said. “I worried that we wouldn’t make enough money from ticket sales to pay the artists—and that was back when even a well-known singer was only getting $150 or $200. Sometimes I’d bring cash from home in case I had to make up the difference.”

According to Catherine, the original board of directors learned by trial and error. “Everything we did we did as a group. Fliers to advertise our shows were literally cut and pasted before they could be printed. We’d get together at someone’s house—most of us were parents of young children—and we’d fold fliers, tape them closed and handwrite addresses.”

Eventually the Music Hall board developed strategies to supplement performance revenue. “I learned how to write grants,” Catherine explained. “We started a membership program and began reaching out to other coffeehouses and area schools around Upstate New York to see if we could coordinate booking artists.”

Over the years, Music Hall audiences have enjoyed quality performers because those who booked the shows have always looked for more than talent; performers have to connect with the audience, too. Artists noticed how playing at the Music Hall was a unique experience. Folksinger Mark Rust explained why:

“What I remember about playing [there] was that it was like playing a small concert. Most of the other venues I played in were smaller coffeehouses, kind of like oversized living rooms, with not always the best sound systems. What also stood out for me was the strong community support for the Music Hall. Many places I play are organized by one person or maybe two or three. But the Music Hall has this strong group of volunteers who are there to make sure the audience gets the best performance and that I had everything I needed to give that performance.”

Eventually the Music Hall moved from Water Street to the New Covenant Church on Oswego’s east side, and then, in 1987, to its present location at the McCrobie Building overlooking Lake Ontario. And no matter where it’s provided performances, those on stage, in the audience or on the volunteer staff keep talking about the sense of community inherent in the Music Hall.

Here’s how Michael Moss, who is the current volunteer coordinator, explained a key element to that sense of community. “Without the volunteers,” Michael said, “there would be no Music Hall.” Linda Knowles, who also organized volunteers for many years, agreed. "Volunteers are the heart of the Music Hall. Help from every member of a family, no matter how young or old, is valued. I remember children filling popcorn baskets while their parents set up tables and chairs before a show. At the end of the night, members of the audience would spontaneously rise to help break down the stage and all that had been set up. Though everything was folded and put away, an air of gratitude, of a job well done, remained."

Maybe all these references to volunteerism and community-building wouldn’t have seemed so unusual 50 or 60 years ago, but today, with our fragmented and divisive world, knowing the Music Hall still functions as a community feels like a vital breath of fresh air. More than forty-five years after Dick Reinert created a space where people come together for music and performance, it’s the coming together that people most remember.

Singer and musician Mark Rust is one of the many performers who’ve shared their talents in the forty-five years since the Oswego Music Hall was founded.

The Origin of Oswego's Music Hall, Part One: The Lowlife Caffe

If you’re from the Oswego area and enjoy live music, especially when played by folk singers and traditional musicians, you’re probably familiar with the Ontario Center for Performing Arts, currently housed at the city’s McCrobie Civic Center. Annually, about 40 local and national acts share their music at the Center, which is renowned for its superb staging and sound system. But the Center wasn’t always so well-organized, back when it began in the late 1970s.

The Oswego Music Hall, as it was first known, was the dream of Dick Reinert, and as I talked with those who were there at the beginning, people referred to Dick as an impresario, a visionary. That sounds pretty impressive, but those who knew him well—his family and close friends—described the Music Hall’s beginnings much humbler. In fact, before there was a Music Hall, there was a coffeehouse called The Lowlife Caffe. The whole Reinert family—Dick, his then wife Sue, and their children Steve, Joe and Alex—worked to bring that café to life.

“We’d moved back east from California because we felt it was our home,” Sue said. [Dick grew up in the Buffalo area and Sue was from New York City.] “It was a familiar place and we thought it was time for Dick to start his career since he’d just earned his PhD in Oceanography.”

The Reinerts stopped in Oswego to visit friends and Dick was hired by a foundation connected to SUNY Oswego. They found an apartment, a cold-water flat in the downtown area owned by the Mitchell family. The Mitchells also had several properties on Water Street, a rundown area along the Oswego River. “Mitchell was a maverick in Oswego,” Sue said. “His reputation was that he didn’t care what the establishment said, he just did what he wanted.”

Sue and Dick had an idea for one of those buildings known as Old City Hall. “Back when we lived in New York City, we’d gone to coffeehouses and liked them,” Sue explained. “So we decided to open a café. When we rented that space on Water Street from Mitchell, he didn’t care who came as long as we paid the rent.”

The Reinerts had their work cut out for themselves to make the space into a comfortable setting for coffee and conversation. “The building was dilapidated,” Sue said, “so we had to bring in utilities and bring it up to code. Dick’s brother knew about construction and he helped.”

The Reinert boys also have memories of how it all started. “As kids, we’d come home from school and bounce between our apartment and the space at Old City Hall,” Steve recalled. Steve’s brother Alex remembered “when we first went into the space that would become the café there was an old candy vending machine. We raided it for whatever was still in it.”

One of the Reinerts’ friends, Mary Loe, tried to recall how they furnished the space. “I’m not sure where they got their tables, chairs, dishes and silverware for the café. We donated a pew that we’d gotten when a local church closed. I don't know where they found their glass case for baked goods, but it was just the right touch for the café.”

One more piece of equipment was needed before the café could open. “We wanted a coffee machine like we’d seen in Greenwich Village coffeehouses,” Sue said. “We found a used Gaggia in Toronto. It could do espresso and steam milk. We drove there in our Saab and the thing weighed a ton. We put it in the back of the car and drove home.”

“They named that coffee machine Lena,” Mary remembered, “after a coffeehouse in Saratoga Springs.”

The Reinerts came up with a fitting name for the café, considering its questionable setting on Water Street, which was mostly known for its bars. “Dick was talking to his mother,” Sue said, “and she was very negative about our idea. ‘All this riffraff would come,’ she said. I think she mentioned various people she considered bad. That’s when I said, ‘Ah, we’re gonna call this the Lowlife Caffe.’”

Finally, opening night came. “Mom made baked goods,” Alex said, “and we boys were the waiters.” Everything was free that first night. Word spread and people came, sometimes in groups. College professors held classes there. “The students would order pots of tea and the café windows would get all steamed up,” Sue said.

The Reinert boys waited tables for a while, then two college students began helping out. “Wayne Hochberg and Paul Hannon took over serving customers,” Sue said. “Wayne had been a New York City waiter and he played guitar. Paul was an artist and he designed our sign, with that unique spelling caffe. The name stuck.”

One thing was for sure: people felt welcomed there, and Mary Loe suggested why. “There were lots of young faculty coming to teach at Oswego in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, and they lived in the community. Young people were looking for something like the café.”

With Lowlife’s popularity one might think that it was a big money maker. Not so, said Sue. “We had no idea how to run a business. We did manage to pay the rent, but I have no idea whether we made money.”

“The Caffe was never going to make money,” Steve explained. “That wasn’t what my parents were looking to do. In a way, they were hippies and they were activists, so they wanted a space for people to share their music, their poetry, their political views. Meetings to plan rallies were held at the Caffe.”

The Lowlife only lasted a few years, but Dick’s love of music and appreciation for performance artists got him thinking about an abandoned space next door to the café. “He started booking performers and they played in that space,” Mary remembered. “In the beginning, there were some very tiny audiences. One time, my family of five was 90 percent of the audience.”

But as everyone associated with Dick Reinert will tell you, it wasn’t about big crowds or traditional success. “I think my father always preferred to fail trying to do something spectacular rather than succeed at something modest,” Joe said.

Lots of folks back in the ‘60s and ‘70s seemed to appreciate that, as Joe explained. “My parents somehow got people to help them create the Caffe and Music Hall. Many put in a lot of sweat equity there. I remember meeting this guy later in life and we got talking and found out we both had lived in Oswego for a time. He told me that he knew my parents and had helped them start the Lowlife. ‘I looked up to your parents,’ he told me. ‘They were doing things out of principle.’”

Forty-five years later, the Oswego Music Hall is still focused on those principles and it’s still entirely volunteer-driven. In next month’s column, we’ll hear from some of those volunteers who carried Dick Reinert’s dream forward.

A photograph from the early years of the Lowlife Caffe. Left to right: waiter and guitarist Paul Hannon, owners Dick and Sue Reinert, waiter and artist Wayne Hochberg.

Joe Leo's Classroom

In my last two columns I wrote about neighborhood schools and the rich memories of those who were lucky enough to attend one. People had great stories about our schools and how they made their neighborhoods seem special. They also offered stories about teachers, and one in particular kept coming up: Joe Leo. Joe started teaching in Fulton in 1967, leading fifth and sixth graders at Phillips Street School. To fully understand Joe’s unique style of teaching, I talked with a few of his former students and co-teachers.

John Mercer, who was a student teacher under Joe, told me what it was like to be in his classroom. “Joe taught the whole student, not just curriculum. He incorporated art, music, cooking and sports into lessons…and character development was a daily component of his classroom. [There were activities like] taking pride in how you looked and how to shake someone's hand and look them in the eye with confidence. It was amazing to watch, and you could see how much his students loved and respected him.”

John introduced me to several of those students, including Todd Terpening, who became a Fulton teacher as well. “Mr. Leo’s classroom wasn't traditional, with rows of desks and chairs,” Todd explained, “but rather a bunch of tables where teams of students sat, and his teaching style matched his unique classroom. He taught us many life lessons: the school store, which was run by students; checkbooks and banking systems; and Thursday dress up days. Boys had to wear a tie and if they didn't have one, Mr. Leo had many that he allowed us to borrow. He also exposed us to different types of music through what he called Album of the Week. On a certain day he would play a record of a popular singer or band.”

Because pop music has been a real passion in my life, I wanted to know more about how Joe incorporated it into his classroom. Another of his students, Ann Beaupre Clark, shared her distinct memories of the music project. “We would sit in a group in the back corner of the classroom and Mr. Leo would tell us about the artists and play one of their songs. Then, as a group, we would discuss the song. We were allowed to share our thoughts about it, what the lyrics meant to us, along with what the artist was trying to relay. To this day, when I hear those songs, it brings me back to Mr. Leo’s class. He made a positive impact on me and many others in our tiny fifth grade classroom.”

Hearing Ann’s and Todd’s memories made me wish I could have had Joe Leo as my teacher. I was curious why he chose the music activity for his classes, and after tracking him down in Utica, where he now lives, I asked him. “The idea of using music came about almost by mistake,” Joe explained. “I started teaching when I was 22, only a little older than the kids, and I was into music myself. One year, I had a class that really wasn’t very enthusiastic, so I thought that I would try something different. I started with singers and groups who were popular back then: America, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder.

“The kids would select one of the songs they liked and then illustrate it on colored paper. They had to write one sentence about what they were doing and then draw something. There was a song on an album by America called ‘Another Try.’ It had lyrics like:

Hey, Daddy just lost his pay
What did he do it for
It never made it through our door
He drank the whole week away
and what can a family say

“That song was about a father who blew away his money and one of my students made a beautiful picture. Then, he didn’t just write one sentence, but a whole paragraph and it was about his family. It really got me thinking about what those songs were doing, so we started talking about them.”

Once Joe saw the value of playing songs for his class, he added more, like Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.” “That song was about the turbulent time in our country during the Vietnam War,” Joe said. “There was a lot going on and I had the students find vocabulary words based on that song.” Joe also used Stevie Wonder’s “Living For the City.” “We talked about ghettos and riots and poverty; a lot of the kids ended up doing research about those things. It got to the point where Album of the Week was all students wanted to do and I had to make sure that they completed their other work, too.”

Joe left Fulton in 1987 to begin teaching at an inner-city school in Utica. But the impact he had on his students remains. Another lucky kid in a Mr. Leo classroom was Scott Bolster, who remembered this:

“My parents were older when I was born and most of my friends’ parents were a lot younger than mine and that made me feel different. Mr. Leo was a male role model for me and I learned a lot from him. The fact that he used music I was listening to as a kid really made me enjoy his class and I tried my best to make him proud of me.”

One singer that Scott remembered Joe using was Jim Croce and his song “Time in a Bottle,” with lyrics like:

If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I'd save every day like a treasure and then
I would spend them with you…

Scott was so moved by Croce’s music that he drew a portrait of him while in Joe’s class. “I wasn’t anyone who really excelled in drawing, but it was somehow a way to feel what Croce was saying in his songs. No matter how important those lyrics were to me as a sixth grader, they’re even more important now. In my truck are three Jim Croce CDs and I listen to them driving to and from work. I remember the way Mr. Leo worked his magic to get us to be the best learners that he could and I reflect on how those things he did through music changed who I was. They continue to change me today.”

Is there a teacher from your past whose influence has stayed with you? If there is, consider yourself lucky. And, should you get a chance, let that teacher know.

A 1986 school photo of Joe Leo’s classroom. Back row, far left: John Mercer, who student taught under Leo. Next to John is Joe Leo. Back row, third child from the left: Todd Terpening.