I don't know about you, but this giant top-hatted bunny gives me the creeps. There's something oddly sinister about him. Maybe it's his razor-sharp incisors, and the way he seems to be hungrily eyeing the little boy. (The bunny is dressed for dinner, after all.) Or it could be his height, which would give the 6-foot tall Harvey a run for his money.
Anyway, Pic-Way Shoes first showed up in the Lorain City Directory at 3105 Grove in the 1959 edition. It continued to appear in the book all the way until the 1980 edition, when the address went vacant.
The address was later home to Frederick Heating and Air Conditioning in the late 1980s. Recent tenants include Ice Cream Heaven and Our Place Restaurant.
I'm sure most of the Lorainites who read this blog paid a visit to Pic-Way at some point of another. We did, although with all of the options available to us at O'Neil's and at Midway Mall (such as Nobil Shoes, Faflik Shoes, Thom McAn, etc., I'm not sure how often we went to Pic-Way as part of our regular shopping trips to South Lorain.
Here's what the 3105 Grove location looks like today (below).
7 comments:
Our family shopped there for many years!
I'd wondered whatever happened to the chain, it says online that Payless Shoes bought Pic Way back in 1994. So it's no wonder that Payless reminds me of Pic Way.
We generally went either to McKee's downtown, or Nobil Shoes at Westgate; I do think we went to Pic Way at least once.
Who remembers the $1.98 sneakers from W.T. Grant?
I remember there was something we had to go to Pic Way for specifically-- maybe our white Marching Band bucks? I just cain't remember.
I asked my mother about going to Pic Way, she remembered twisting her ankle there on the stairs on the way out--the day before we left to go to Expo 67.
I do remember getting our Converse All-Stars at Big Town for like 8 or 9 bucks.
The original purpose for that building was as a theater. I believe since the early 1930's it was known as The Grove Theater.
Then there was Cole's shoes, downtown Cleveland . . . When Pic Way first arrived on the scene, we all re-named it, "Pic-A-Way" because the shoes seemed to disintegrate within a month.
Pic-Way eventually was bought by Payless. They were one of those places people wouldn't be caught dead being seen. My impression from the poor souls who shopped there was that the shoes used a cheap grade of leather and a lot of cardboard. The chain was based in Toledoand owned by the Kobacker family who had owned low end department stores in Buffalo, Columbus & Toledo.
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