Mary McTamaney

Soon it will be window washing time. It is still too chilly to open each house window wide and lean out into the fresh air while holding and reaching for all my cleaning supplies. Yet, the need to clearly see Spring arrive all around my house will force me to gather the vinegar or ammonia and water bucket and lots of paper towels and make a start. It was always a ritual in my family homes from grandparents through parents and now my husband and me. In respect for neighbors on the street and in pride shown to strangers passing by, Newburghers in my youth washed all their windows every season. Sparkling glass gives a new perspective and inspires other planning.

Through the mid-20th century, spring and fall were the times to switch from storm to screen window covers and back again. When the outside window covers were lifted off, all window panes, inside and out, were washed (usually with vinegar water and crumpled newspaper). The storms or screens for the opposite season were then carried out to the shed or down to the basement and the youngsters in the family often got the job of marching back and forth helping with this transfer. I did this job for years with my father and mother and I remember the numbered tacks that were hammered into each window to be sure that we matched the right storm window to the right frame for a perfect, draft-free fit. We always had to be careful when adding a new coat of paint to a window frame not to paint over the number so it couldn’t be read. As families upgraded to triple-track storm and screen combination windows, the old wooden storm windows with their carriage hinges disappeared and so did the ritual of seasonal window-washing.

Likewise in businesses, there was a rhythm to window maintenance. Local merchants “dressed” their windows every month, changing the displays and featuring new products or marketing products they wanted to move. Many of us can recall seeing merchants or their employees standing in the display windows along Water Street, Colden Street or Broadway or down at the corner grocery taking shelves and racks apart and building new pyramids of goods for sale. This window dressing was always accompanied by window washing too so that everyone passing by would be attracted to what was behind the shiny glass. There was little need back in the day for police officers to urge merchants to keep a view open to the interior of their stores. The store window was the merchant’s best advertisement and everyone passed along news of what was featured in shop windows.

My mother was a young store manager before World War II and told me about the man who washed the windows every week at the Kalamazoo Stove Company. Kalamazoo Stoves was at 246 Broadway on a block with a branch of the Highland Bank and with Schwartz Tires, the Broadway Garage, Roosa Furniture, Harvey Brothers and the City Board of Health. Mom said all those customers paid Mr. Peter Dunske to wash their windows each week. They were among Mr. Dunske’s many Broadway customers in his specialty service business. Mr. Dunske lived at 19 Benkard Avenue and walked over to Broadway each sunny day pushing his rolling cart with bucket, cleaners and squeegees. He used the sink in each store to draw a fresh bucket of water and set to work washing the display windows inside and out. Mom said Broadway shop windows always sparkled and sidewalks were equally clean. Store employees swept every day and many took advantage of the sudsy ammonia water Mr. Dunske had used to wash their plate glass to then spread with a good stiff broom on the sidewalk as he finished up.

Peter Dunske wasn’t alone in this occupation. The 1940 city directory lists three more men who appear to have done the same work so all of Broadway and other business districts were probably well served. John Kuzniak, George Lenko and Michael Piekarz are also listed as independent window cleaners plus a Newburgh Window Cleaning Company is listed at 258 Montgomery Street.

Daylight saving time just began and the setting sun is shining on all our city’s windows as we head home each day. How many shop windows draw us to stop and gaze at products and enter the stores we so desperately need to sustain?