A few local residents living around former Kodak Park are recalling the days of old when the film giant was Rochester's top employer.
Merrill is a quiet long street neighboring what’s now Eastman Kodak's Business Park between Lake and Dewey Avenues. Traveling along its spacious road, over random speed bumps, small billows of smoke could be seen coming from the company’s stacks behind the homes. The parking entrance to Kodak’s Rubik's Cube Research Lab Office Building is on this street.
"There was a time when I couldn't even get out of this driveway because of the Kodak traffic,” Kathy Kahler, a 28-year Merrill Street resident. She says her father worked in Kodak’s fire department for just as many years. Kahler says this Maplewood Neighborhood has gone down since the decline of the company - equaling no traffic.
"You see the businesses, something like the Princess Restaurant that used to be [here], a Burger King, Mc Donald’s, they're all gone now,” Kahler add. “And it's because Kodak's gone."
Kahler says she’s not surprised by Thursday’s news of the company filing for Chapter 11. However, this Kodaker’s daughter does have some fond memories of the film giant.
“My dad used to have all the old cameras and stuff like that,” Kahler says while standing in the doorway to her front porch. “And my daughter who was in 3rd grade she made with him out of a coffee can, a similar thing of the Brownie [camera], a similar picture and she presented it at school. So they did it together. It was kind of cute."
Kahler isn’t the only neighbor on the block who found some color in Kodak’s negatives. Lillie Gladden is sitting on Kodak’s “golden egg” - their 1991 buyout.
"We were party animals,” Gladden says while kicking back laughing. “I'm going to be honest. We took all the good stuff. We were party animals. If there was party we were there. If there was a new place, we were there. Those were the fond memories. Anybody you talk with that was in that period with me, they'll tell you about the good times we had."
Yes, let the good times roll. That included movie perks at Eastman’s Theater on the Ridge, great co-worker relationships and, most notably, the lavish bonuses all on the yellow box’s account.
"[whistling] Bonuses...off the roof.”
Gladden says she bought the home she's living in with that money. Meanwhile, Eshetu Setegen says he started his Kodak career in the chemical lab at Kodak Park 31 years ago.
"It was the greatest place to work,” Setegen says. “I mean your kids in the summer had jobs if they were going to college. You know, you had your bonuses. ...If you wanted to learn how to ride a motorcycle, Kodak had lesson classes for you; movies every day at Building 28, bowling. I mean just everything."
Setegen says he enjoyed his job so much he hardly took sick time or vacations, for that matter, because the company was that good to him.
"You know the Cheers song...yea, that's how I feel, 'You want to go where everybody knows your name,' Setegen says while beaming from ear to ear. “It was a great place. The people there ...all they care about is do[ing] their job, get their paycheck and go[ing] back to their wives and children. That’s the kind of people that worked there."
Setegen says he saw trouble signs coming many years ago. That’s why he left the good days behind in 2005. As for 38-year Kodak veteran, Ed Verdouw, seeing the slow decline of the film giant -with a workforce peaking in 1982 of more than 60,000 to about 6,000 - is as disappointing as the implosion of Kodak Buildings 9 and 23 in 2007.
"I got to see one, I didn’t want to see anymore,” Setegen says. “The green grass and trees where the building stood, I’d rathr see the buildings because that was employment for the people that worked there."
Verdouw retired from the Research Labs on Lake Avenue. But as Kodak is working its way out of the darkroom, Verdouw says he remains optimistic.
"I hope there's still a future there. And I hope they’re able to come out of this Chapter 11 in a positive way."