The unique sign outside of Simonelli’s Shoe Repair. Photo from Wayne County: The Aesthetic Heritage of a Rural Area (Page 17) by Stephen W. Jacobs
The following information was pieced together from numerous Sodus Record newspaper articles from 1913 to 1971….
For a generation Simonelli’s Shoe Shop with its iconic black sign was a mainstay in the village of Sodus. Anthony Simonelli came to Sodus from Rochester in 1913. He built a house on Newark Street and opened a shoe and boot repair shop in the C J Obine building on Maple Avenue.
In 1915, as business boomed he moved his shop to a shop on Gaylord Street that formerly had belonged to Michael Tuschong but had become available after the the death of Mr. Tuschong.
Anthony Simonelli was well respected for being a hard working and civic minded businessman. The August 6th, 1915 Sodus Record described him this way: “He will always be found at the board of trade meetings, at school meetings or other gatherings where the men who are deeply interested in the development of the community are found.”
In June 1940, he moved his shoe repair shop from Gaylord street into his own building on Mill Street. The last ad for his business found in the Sodus Record was on December 17, 1942. The same ad also featured Clark’s Shoe Store which may have been a competitor.
Sandi Hamilton remembers the shoe repair shop on the east side of Mill Street lasting into the 1950s.
Photo courtesy Sandi Hamilton
In the photo above, you can see the Simonelli sign. At one point the shop to the left was a beauty shop run by Kay O’bine Connelly and later Carolyn Buys. I believe the shop to the right of Simonelli’s was Ausin grocery at one point, but I’m not certain. The big red building is the old Sodus Fire Hall. All of that area is now the Sodus Municipal Building. This was all on the east side of Mill Street. This is from
one of our family slides from the late fifties.
Memories:
Shirley Patchett I remember taking shoes there to be resoled. He always had opera music playing in the background….always. He was a nice gentleman.
At some point, Anthony Simonelli would move to Penn Yan. He died on December 17, 1971:
