In Poughkeepsie they had a restaurant which also had a very large "Soda Fountain" and white marble floors. Across the street was the Nelson House Hotel which was the major hotel in the area and when passing through Poughkeepsie, President Roosevelt would sometimes stop at the front of the hotel and say a few words to the residents. He lived in Hyde Park which was about 5 miles from the Hotel and Smith Brothers Restaurant. Next to Hyde Park was a large catholic school for priests. Today that is now the Cullinary Institute of America with about 2000 students and next door (about 2 miles away) is Marist College. And about 3 miles north of Smith Brothers Restaurant is the famous Vassar College which in the early days was for Women only and Yale Students were bused to Vassar to be dates for the Women. in the late 50's early 60's Vassar was opened up to include men. Unfortunately, with the opening of a large Mall
about 7 miles from Poughkeepsie a number of business's are now closed and the city
has suffered from this change. The large IBM Manufacturing which in the 60-90's employed about 27,000 is now a twinkle of what is was in the hey days of the very large
computers. Just a little history of the Smith Brothers area when they made Cough
Drops.
