The Main Street story had the Gilmartin family moving to Rosendale from Brooklyn, NY. It was a Jersey accent with maybe a little Irish inflection that was heard at Gilmartin’s on Main Street. Jack and Mae owned a tavern in Union City, New Jersey called the Spot Tavern. Jack and Mae moved to Rosendale from Union City after purchasing the store formerly known as Baxter’s in 1950. For forty plus years Gilmartin’s was an institution on Main Street right next to the Rosendale Movie Theater. Mae was noted for her smile and hard work doing all the short order cooking. Back in those days Andy Elsworth, the widowed Rosendale village policeman, would always find a hot meal prepared by Mae. Gilmartin’s featured a traditional soda fountain counter with stools as well as a few tables and booths, a juke box and pin ball machine in the rear of the store. Jack and Mae and the girls lived in the apartment above the store. Jackie, the youngest of the two girls (diagnosed with Downs Syndrome) loved music, listening to the juke box in the store and accompanying her dad playing spoons. Another favorite was to go and watch her mom bowl at the Chalet. The Chalet was a bowling alley located at the intersection of Route 32 and 213 at the eastern end of Main Street. The current occupants are a car parts store and a pizza shop. Jackie died in 1974 having lived on Main Street above Gilmartin’s for 24 years.

Five years later, in 1979, Jack and Mae retired for good, remaining in the apartment above the shop. Gilmartin’s was first leased to Barb & Denny Creegan and then later to Don and Joe LeFera. The LeFera’s operated the shop, keeping the Gilmartin’s name until it was closed for good in the early 1990s. Jack passed away in 1988 and Mae ten years later. The shop remained empty for a few years until it was leased by Crosspoint Communications as an office. Crosspoint outgrew the first floor shop space and moved to larger quarters in 2000 leaving the first floor store space empty.

There is a certain void on Main Street which has not been filled by any other shop. The days of a family being able to purchase a building, open a shop, live upstairs from the shop, raise a family, may have come to an end. Ice Cream sodas can still be purchased in the village of Rosendale today. But the Stewart’s Shop is a different type of ice cream shop. It too may some day be looked back upon with fond memories. The newest addition in Rosendale for an ice cream is located just south of the Rondout Bridge on Route 32. At that location Meinardo Hernandez has opened an eatery called the “Rosendale Diner and Restaurant”. Here instead of a New Jersey Irish accent you may hear Mexican music softly playing in the background and a Spanish accent.