Gone But Not Forgotten

By Alan Finnecy

Military­-style barracks housed some students at Penn State as recently as the 1980s. A bar featuring topless dancers flourished on College Avenue—right across the street from Old Main. Further down College Avenue, an old Pennsylvania Railroad caboose stood in front of a beloved restaurant, The Train Station, its bustling bar, The Whistle Stop, and its late night hangout for subs, The Cattle Car. Bowling was so popular that Rec Hall had not one but two sets of lanes and undergrads were required to pass a swimming test. What follows is a random sample of landmarks and traditions that now exist only in old photos and the memories of longtime local residents and Penn Staters who experienced them.

The Train Station

Looking at the Mezzanine, a former popular downtown nightclub, it’s hard to picture it as the wildly popular Train Station restaurant that served countless portions of chicken divan, lasagna, and French onion soup to patrons in the 1970s and 1980s. Originally opened as Herlocher’s Restaurant in 1967, owner Charlie Herlocher started filling the restaurant with railroad memorabilia and renamed it The Train Station in 1972, giving State College its first themed restaurant. He added the multi-level building next door and parked the caboose out front in 1977. Known for their signature cocktail, the “Release Valve,” the Christmas tree that towered over the lounge each December, and reasonable prices, The Train Station proved popular with students and locals alike. Those looking for an even cheaper meal lined up at the adjacent “Cattle Car” where subs were made to order. People were shocked when Herlocher announced he would close the popular restaurant. “I wasn’t spending as much time in State College and didn’t feel like I could ensure the quality people expected,” he explained. One staple from the Train Station remains: Herlocher’s Dipping Mustard, which complimented the free pretzels in The Whistle Stop Lounge, is still sold in 7,000 locations, mostly east of the Mississippi.

Nittany Barracks

They were cold in winter and hot in the summer. The bathrooms were more like latrines. The dining hall was across the street. The chicken coops were fragrantly close. Still, students flocked to the Nittany Barracks, current site of the Nittany Apartments, down the hill from the Natatorium and the outdoor pool. Built in the late 1940s as temporary housing for the returning G.I.s pouring onto campus, the barracks survived for 40 years. Students were attracted to the single rooms and more relaxed atmosphere. As one resident recalled, “I think the housing office was more lenient about what students did to their rooms in the barracks because they viewed the buildings as temporary.” Once the exclusive province of men, in the early 1970s female students successfully petitioned to live in the barracks. In the spring of 1983, Penn State announced plans to demolish the barracks and replace them with apartment-style housing. By the late 1980s, the last of the barracks had fallen.

Required Swimming Test Sinks Under Scrutiny

There was a time when all Penn State students took what they thought was a required swimming test. Those who failed had to take and pass a swimming course as one of their Phys. Ed. Credits. But when one student, Darryl Daisey, questioned the policy, he learned something shocking: the swimming test wasn’t in fact required. “The irony is that I could swim,” Daisey said, “so I had no problem with swimming two laps around the pool.” But he didn’t pass the second part of the test: staying afloat for 10 minutes. He became one of the 20 per cent who failed the test each year. When he asked to see the policy requiring him to take a swimming class in order to graduate, he discovered that even though everyone—students and faculty alike—believed there was such a requirement, no such policy actually existed. Once word got out that the swimming test wasn’t required, few students opted to take it voluntarily and by the fall of 1983 (just a few months after Daisey had graduated), it was quietly dropped.    

My-Oh-My

Jack Sapia, proprietor of State College’s most infamous though largely forgotten bar, the My-Oh-My, is fond of saying, “No one got hurt and so much of it has been blown out of proportion over the years.” The My-Oh-My, located downstairs in space later housing the Surf Club and The Darkhorse Tavern, was actually two bars: the one in the back featured topless go-go girls and the smaller bar in the front was State College’s first gay bar. The “talent” was typically imported from Philadelphia and Baltimore and, Sapia recalled, “Dee Dee” was a regular and crowd favorite. One famous stunt that, to this day, Sapia denies any involvement with was when a bikini-clad woman, variously referred to as the Naval Academy’s “mascot” or “Miss Bikini” ran onto the field during the coin toss before the 1970 Penn State game versus Navy at Beaver Stadium. Ironically, letters spelling out “My-Oh-My” were sewn onto her bikini top and crocheted on the seat of her bikini bottom.   

Bowling Lanes Once Bustled

A typical date for Penn State college students in the 1960s or 1970s often started with a cheeseburger and Coke at the HUB followed by bowling at the “New Lanes” in Rec Hall or at Armenara Lanes downtown. While the HUB still serves food, today’s students won’t find any bowling lanes within walking distance. Penn State had a long history of bowling. Before 1960, bowlers in Rec Hall’s original lanes—deep in the bowels of the building—set their own pins. The addition of automatic pin setters was followed a few years later by 14 new bowling lanes, thereafter called the “New Lanes” or “South Lanes” in the sprawling addition on the south side of Rec Hall. By day, students learned the fine points of bowling in Phys. Ed. classes but, by night, the lanes were open to students and the public for recreational bowling. By 1993, the University announced the number of bowling classes had been reduced from 72 to 22 and that recreational bowling would no longer be offered. Changing tastes and increasingly scarce parking contributed to the reduced demand. It’s not clear when the lanes saw their last ball roll down the oiled hardwoods but it was most likely in the mid 1990s. Since 1997, what was once the entrance to the South Lanes has led to Penn State’s Center for Locomotion Studies and the Biomechanics Lab. By then, Armenara Lanes was long gone from its downtown location off Sowers Street, now occupied by the Downtown Athletic Club II.

Alan Finnecy is a longtime Happy Valley resident and freelance writer.