MARTY LABB has lived on the 900 block of South Second Street, between Christian and Carpenter Streets, all his life. He served in the Navy during the Korean War, and went to Temple University on the GI Bill. He became a teacher in the public schools of Philadelphia, where he met his wife, Ellen. Marty is a published poet.  Read some of his fascinating stories of our neighborhood.

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“I was born on Second Street, in the house where my entire family lived until they moved away. They didn’t have the sense that I have to stay.”

Neighborhood Life

The neighborhood used to be very neighborly. You got to know your neighbors. You took care of your property and, if you didn’t, you neighbor would say, “What are you gonna do?” You swept your sidewalk, you looked after your neighbor, and that was a good thing.

People would sit out on a night. The house would be very sticky inside because there was no air conditioning. They would sit out on the steps or they’d have chairs. Some people still do that.

It was one of those things where they’d sit around and talk— about somebody who wasn’t there, let’s face it. In the summertime, the parents or somebody would be out on the step until eleven or eleven thirty, or else you might have slept in the hallway going outside.

The television ruined a lot of that, because people went inside. You’ll see it now—a flicker of light when you pass someone’s house and there’s nobody outside. They’re inside watching some show. That was the big thing, watching television shows. I think that’s what ruined a lot of the interaction with people. Instead of sitting on the step and telling lies about the people next door, whoever wasn’t there, they’re in watching some show.

Bingo was very big. The ladies would have bingo parties with maybe 10 or 15 friends. Over at St. Philip Neri Church, at the Second and Christian school hall, they had bingo every Sunday night. Beside that, they would have bingo parties at the house. My mother was a big bingo player, and I was a number caller. Big deal—I was the only one could count to ten.

The ladies would come to the house on a Saturday night and have a bingo party. You’d have tables set up and the bingo numbers and everything, and toward the end of the evening there’d be coffee and cake served, cinnamon buns. I love cinnamon buns and I love coffee, so I’d be a number caller.

What would happen, we’d be playing a game, two cards, you’d pay two cents, and half the proceeds of the game would go to the house and the other to the person who won. So at the end of the night, everybody was happy. They had a social event, they told you lies about the neighbors and stuff like that, and it was quite a thing.

When did things change in the neighborhood? It seemed like a gradual evolution. I don’t know what happened, really. It was a subtle thing for people to come moving in. The demographics were such that it was better than other sections of the city, I would imagine. Also, I think people in this neighborhood are very friendly.

I-95 almost destroyed the neighborhood because it took an awful lot of homes away. There were a lot of homes on the east side of Front Street, between Washington Avenue and Christian and Queen Street, and they went down because of the highway. In the early fifties they had a picture in the Evening Bulletin or the Inquirer where they had a line drawn down South Second Street, all the way from the east side of Second Street to Front, they were gonna take that for I-95.

Someone called me up. They said, “They’re taking your house. They’re gonna rip it down because they’re putting a highway in there.” That went by the wayside, but that was one of the original plans, to have the highway run down Second Street. But they moved it further east to where it is now.

This was a working-class area. Two square blocks could comprise a village within the neighborhood, and the people—the young men in that village—wouldn’t venture too far. It’s the truth. People didn’t travel to Jersey even.

 

Home Life

It was a constant workday for my mother. We had seven children, and we all tried to help. But she did the majority of the work.

During the day, it was always three meals a day for the family. We went home for lunch from school. And my father came home from the grocery store, also.

Washing machines, forget it. The scrubbing board was it, washing machines only to a certain extent. Don’t get me wrong. Not everybody was low on the totem pole. There were various economic levels.

I remember this granite tub, you know, the old-fashioned tub. I remember being in there and washing, and even my younger brothers and sisters. We had a bathtub upstairs, but my father was making gin and we couldn’t us it. I’m joking.

In my house, we had an icebox. One of the things we kids had to do was empty the water at the bottom of the icebox. If you didn’t empty the pan underneath the icebox, you caught all kind of heck because it’s all over the floor, you had to clean the floor, and the whole bit. So you had to be sure you emptied out the basin.

We had a coal stove and I remember we also had a little burner with the coils in it. That would heat up the water tank and give us hot water for the day or the week or whatever it was.

Not too many houses in this area have a coal bin anymore. The house I live in now used to have a coal bin, but it was recently converted to gas. The coalmen would come, the chute would be put down in front of your house, you’d open it up, and they’d fill the basement.

Taking out the ashes, another chore. You had a wooden bushel basket, and sometimes the coal wouldn’t be out. So you’re basket would be on fire out in front of the house.

We used to have slop buckets, too. Twice a week they’d pick up the slop. You’d have food left over, you’d put it in can, and then you’d put it out front.

At one time in Jersey, in Westville, there were a lot of pig farms. The fellas would come over and pick up the garbage cans and take them over to Westville. There’s not too many of them over there now, I guess because the sanitation laws came in and a lot stuff went over by the wayside.

Everybody didn’t have indoor plumbing. On Carpenter Street, opposite the Shot Tower playground, as you go down on the right-hand side, they were all wood-frame houses. They had indoor water, but everything was outdoors, the plumbing. There’s a little street there, it’s got a gate and it’s all closed off now. Hagan’s Place. Back there were four houses, and they didn’t have indoor plumbing either. Each one had their own private outhouse, their own key and lock. And that’s where they went whenever they had to do the business.

In my time, no one had a telephone in the house. At Third and Carpenter was Cooper’s Drugstore. There were four telephone booths in there. You put a nickel in. On a Saturday night or Friday night, the young fellas would be hanging around the drug store. The phone would ring, the druggist would answer, and he’d tell someone, “Go get Marty Labb, he’s at Second and Christian, he’s got a phone call.”

That’s the way it worked. And whoever got to the house first— “Marty, you got a call at Coopers”—they got a nickel. Big money, big money.

“A couple blocks away is where they met their wife and they raised their family, and whenever a house became empty, someone they knew would move in—my daughter just got married, would buy the house. There are many people in my time still here in the neighborhood who have never ventured away.”

 

Play

The recreation center, Shot Tower, was a beautiful place and a godsend—they had a lot of very good activities there. There was Girls Day and Boys Day in the gym.

If you’re familiar with Shot Tower, there was a little room up there, in fact it still is, but it’s all sealed off now. It used to be accessible through the gym, where you could go up. We played cards up there as kids, or, you know, whatever occurred.

In the old days, the field was cinder. We had the Keilbasa Bowl there. Who knows what keilbasa is? It’s a Polish sausage. The Irish against the Polish. We had the big, rough-contact football game there. In fact, I still have the cinders in my elbow here. Now it’s grass. It’s like the Taj Mahal compared to the old days.

At Shot Tower during the summer, the young men used to have softball games down there. They came back from the war. They were in their late teens, early twenties and thirties, forties, and fifties even, and they would play softball. It really was an area that was crowded with people, teem- ing with young people.

We played half ball, and we played stickball. One of the ways we played at Shot Tower, we’d get a broomstick, cut a piece off about that big. We’d make a little hole and put the smaller stick in the cinders. It would stick up, and you’d stand there and hit it and it would flip up. Then you’d have to hit it so far. There were a couple of fellas out there on the other team—first base, second base, third base, home run. So if the stick hit the ground at third base, you got a triple. That was stickball.

Anyway, you get a cinder in your eye while playing ball, you’re suffering. So we used to go down to Denny’s Drugstore at Front and Christian Street, on the northwest corner. Dennenbergs. We’d go in there, “I got something in my eye, Den.” He’d take the cinder out of your eye. “Goodbye.” That was it—you didn’t have to fill out any kind of form. Even splinters, you’d have someone take them out for you.

We had a lot of clubs, there were a lot of young people around here. There was a club at Front and Queen, it was called Neigh- borhood Boys Club and it was very good for the young people.

The Boys Club was a big thing for us young fellas. They had one of the first television sets, and you could go in and watch. On a Tuesday night, you’d have to fight your way in to see Uncle Milty. The bigger guys had the front seats, the other guys had to stand in the back. That was the big thing, watching these television shows.

Across the street, on Front Street, was a place called Little Bethel. We called it Little Heaven. It was a church, Bethel Church, and we would go over there. On Tuesday night we couldn’t use the Shot Tower gym, because the girls had the gym. So Tuesday night was over at Little Bethel, and that was the Indian Club. The preacher down there paid his dues to God when we got there, believe me. It was something else.

There were two pools open in the summer time. Actually, there were three. Shot Tower had the wading pool. The other was at Reed Street, between Second and Moyamensing Avenue. There’s a playground there now, Herron Playground. They had a swim- ming pool in there, and they had lockers and the whole bit. So you would go down there, say for the one o’clock swim, from one to two.

At two o’clock the lifeguard would chase you out for the next one.  So if you wanted to get in there, you couldn’t get in. You know why? Because you’re bath- ing suit was wet. So what you had to do, if you were affluent, you had another bathing suit. But for the most part, we only had one.

So we as kids, you’d run out to Reed Street and as cars or trucks came by, you’d throw your bathing suit, and hopefully they would run it over and dry it real fast so you could go in for another swim.

Also, on Queen Street between Third and Fourth, there was a bathhouse. It was a dingy place. It had the big pool there. They didn’t have any lockers or anything, and you had to change on the side or else you came in wearing your trunks. You’d go in there, and the water was great. But the bottom of the pool was unfinished cement, it was rough cast. So if you’re swimming and kicking, and you kick too low, you got scraped. That was one of the marks that you went to Queenie’s.

Bicycles? If you had a bike you were affluent in this area here. Actually, we didn’t know we were poor. Roller skates were it. If you found a roller skate that was shot, you took it apart, you put a slat on either side, and you nailed the wheels to it. And then you got a box, maybe an old orange crate, and you nailed that to it and put handles on it and you had a scooter. If you were really good, you got a tin can in the front and you had a candle in there so that at night, it was the headlight.

“I-95 almost destroyed the neighborhood because it took an awful lot of homes away. There were a lot of homes on the east side of Front Street, between Washington Avenue and Christian and Queen Street, and they went down because of the highway.”

 

Work

Like I say, it was all working class in this area, and most of them longshoreman. One of the things the young men would do was try to get a job down the wharf, because that’s

where the money was. It was during the war in my time, any- way, the Second World War.

The way hiring worked, you’d go down to the piers, stand on a corner, the gang boss would come along, and if he liked your looks, you were related somehow or other, or if you owed him money—which was another thing—he’d give you a little ticket, a little metal tag, and you’d work with him that day.

You’d get on a truck—not too many men owned cars those days—and get to work at the piers. On Friday, when you went to the paymaster, you’d show him your little metal tag, and you’d get your pay.

Now, along with that, during the week, you might run short on money and have to see somebody to make a loan. So you’d see one of the fellas standing around, and he’d make you a loan, give you four dollars, and next week you would give him five. That’s not a bad percentage.

In the meantime, you’d give him the tag that you worked for, because you got pay coming.

So at the end of the week, on a Friday, the fella that had this tag—the money lender—would be in a saloon named Benny’s, at Second and Monroe. He’d be in one of the booths and have this thing in front of him, with your tag in there, and you’d go in.

“My name is Marty Labb.” “Oh yeah? Here’s your pay.”

He’d take the money out and give you your pay, you’d go out, and you’d be square.

“We used to have slop buckets, too. Twice a week they’d pick up the slop. You’d have food left over, you’d put it in can, and then you’d put it out front.”

 

Street Vendors

The horse and wagon was big in those days. There were always hucksters in the neighborhood. A huckster is a fella that sold “jawella” water. It was for whitening clothes, the Clo- rox in those days. He made jawella water and he would come around on his horse and wagon and yell, “Jawella water!”

Anyone one who’d need it would come out to the front with a jug, and they would trade him for his jug. I think it cost maybe a nickel for a half-gallon.

In the summertime, we had a waffle man. Waffles. And that was on a horse and wagon. Cars weren’t allowed on Second Street. I’m gonna do an impersonation of that

“Ice cream in the middle and a waffle on top Go home and get your money And we’ll make ’em nice and hot”

This gentleman was in a wagon that had this big, open side. You’d go there with your nickel and they’d pour fresh waffles, put a piece of ice cream in the middle, and you got that and your were in pig heaven.

The water-ice man. Guy would come around, had a pushcart with a roof over the top. This is in the summer, of course. Had a block of ice with a burlap bag over the top of it, and he had a scraper, a round thing. He scraped the top and put it in a cone. “What flavor you want?” “I want vanilla.” “Vanilla, there you go.” Two cents, there’s you’re water ice.

The pretzel man, that was another fella. Guy came around with pretzels, he was always around the ballgames at Shot Tower during the summer. Board of Health never caught up with these guys. He had a stick and this jar of mustard, and I think he used the same stick all summer. Might have been the same mustard, too. But you got a pretzel and you were in pig heaven.

Another fella that used to come around was a guy that would fix umbrellas. Nowadays, you get an umbrella, it breaks, you throw it away. In those days, a guy would come around to fix an umbrella. He would do the job. Or a fella came around sharp- ening knives.

Another thing nowadays—photos. Everybody’s got a camera. In those days, if a person had a camera, they were mildly afflu- ent.

So a fella would come around, he had a horse, a little pony, rather, and a cowboy hat. He’d say, “Marty, get on the horse and I’ll take a picture.” So I get on the horse, put the hat on, and take the picture. Then he’d ask, “Where do you live?” He’d get the picture, go around, and sell it to my mother, my parents. There’s a kid’s got a picture.

On Second Street between Christian and Carpenter, there’s a little alley there that was called Melnick’s. The lady there still lives in that house, or her relatives. And that was where a rag shop was, or a junk shop, whatever you want to call it.

The father was a junkman. Had a horse and wagon, and he parked his horse back there, there were stables back there. That was behind Second Street, toward the playground. It was called Marshall’s Stables. There was maybe ten or fifteen horses back there being stabled.

For the longest time, since I can remember as a kid, there was her place back there and there was a little house where another fella lived. He used to help out in the stables.

The banana wagons that used to get the shipments from the piers were all parked to the right. What used to happen was, the hucksters would come and get their horse and hook them up to the wagon, and took them down to the pier to the banana boats. The stevedores would unload the bananas, put them on the wagon, and they would take them wherever they would do their huckstering. They would either deliver them to Fourth Street or Ninth Street, or wherever there were produce people who wanted them. At the end of the night, the wagon would come back with the horses, and they’d park the wagon and the horses would be stabled.

As kids we’d be playing hit and tag on the wagons, jumping from wagon to wagon. Every now and then we’d get lucky. Looking down, there’d be a couple bananas. Hey, we’re in busi- ness, we’d get a couple bananas, we’re living.

By the way, Mrs. Marshall had a couple of chickens and a rooster, and the rooster was worse than a bulldog. You couldn’t go back there without fearing for your life as kids. We were scared the rooster would come after you, and you’d better get out of there.

I guess it was after the war, something happened. A fire. It all went up in smoke.

“There was a market at South Street. From South Street to Pine Street was two long corridors of low buildings, corrugated roofs. You go down the middle of the street and there were stalls on either side. Bakery products, foods, meats, and what have you.”

Stores

The cinnamon buns. I remember, and some of you can remember, Teitelbaum’s Bakery near South Street. They made the greatest cinnamon buns in the world.

There were bakeries all over the place. Linarski’s. Down at Front and Queen, between Queen and Catherine on the east side of the street, was Linarski’s. It was a Polish bakery. Lipton’s at Fourth and McKean was a Jewish bakery. That was way out of the neighborhood, but people went there for the rye bread. It was great rye bread, some of you people might remember. Eagletrout’s at Second and Wharton was a German baker. He was between Wharton and Manton Street on the west side of the street. Fleck’s at Second and South, and Teitelbaum’s, of course.

My father was a butcher. He worked at a grocery store at Second and Wharton Street, Freiman’s. The thing you remember in these local stores was the butcher block. They did all of their meat cutting on the butcher block, and at the end of the day, it had to be cleaned. It was cleaned with a wire brush— sawdust was put on it and it was scrubbed, and that was one of the jobs I had to do.

No credit cards. It’s almost hand to mouth, because a lot of the men worked down the piers, and work was erratic. You didn’t work every day. But if you did, you were in pretty good shape. In this store I remember people coming in and they would buy things and they would put it on credit—they were extended credit.

Now the way it worked was this. You all know Tastycake? The Tastycake box is gray. I recall my father getting a knife, cutting strips of the box, and then writing “Marty Labb bought three loaves of bread.” He’d put the price down. And there was a hook, they’d put it on the hook. And that was your bill for the day. The next day I came in, I got a quart of milk and a pound of sauerkraut or whatever, and that would be put on the bill. At the end of the week, you’d come in, total up your bill, and that was it.

Working in the store, you got away from school for the day be- cause it was the Jewish holidays. I was passed off for Jewish. My name originally was Labedziewicz. Anyway, It’s Labb now.

One of the things I enjoyed, working in the store, was you had access to certain things. If you can recall, the cans of potato chips with the glass front. Someone would come in, they wanted ten cents for the potato chips. You took the lid off, reached in the bag, then you weighed it—and that was your potato chips. It wasn’t prepackaged. When you picked up the potato chips, you took some for yourself, of course. So that was good, too.

I got to be a little zaftig after a while.

Also, there was a market at South Street. From South Street to Pine Street was two long corridors of low buildings, corrugated roofs. You go down the middle of the street and there were stalls on either side. Bakery products, foods, meats, and what have you.

My father at one time—this was right around the Depression— he had a stall in there, and he and another fella were partners. You had the number of the stall, and what he was selling. He was a meat man. He was a butcher.

I was just talking today about a “hindquarter.” You don’t see meat anymore being cut down. You get a piece of meat. It’s wrapped in foil and all the rest of that stuff. In the old days, you’d get a hindquarter, from Jersey they’d bring it over, put it on a hook, and if you were a good butcher you’d cut down that meat in a certain way where you’d get all the good cuts and you wouldn’t have any waste.

The Jaworski brothers had a store on Montrose Street right opposite Lithuanian Hall there, right on the corner. I remember them getting out of the service and asking my father if he could show them how to cut down a side of beef.

That was an art in those days. A good butcher is an artist with the meat, getting the best cuts.

Fourth Street used to be loaded with clothes stores. They still are. When you went shopping, you go in a store. The people there used to live in the back. So if you went in the store and there’s nobody there, and you’re waiting, you would say, “Store… Store.” That’s the way it was, you go in there and say “Store,” and someone showed up and you made the sale .

This is the truth and my wife will verify this. She doesn’t lie, like me. Not too long ago we were over in Macy’s in Jersey, and it was kind of empty. We had some things. No one was around. And I hollered, “Store… Store.” My wife’s hiding somewhere, she’s heading out.

My mother used to take us out clothes shopping. So we’re getting a pair of socks. We go in the store, and the fella says, “What’s the size?” What size do I wear? So she says, “Make a fist.” I make a fist, they get a sock, they wrap it around there, and that’s your size.

Whenever I was in need of a coat, my mother would take me to South Street, Fourth Street, and we’d go into one of the stores.

“He needs a coat.” Put a coat on me, it looks good, fit him up.

“How much?” You never, ever paid they price they asked you. Never.

I remember as a kid, going in there, and the fella says, “Twenty- five dollars for the coat.” My mother? No way. I think we were out of that store three or four times, on the sidewalk practically, come back, they’d talk it over. We walked out of there with the coat for ten dollars.

This is the way it worked. I think if you paid the merchant twenty-five dollars, he’d be mad because he didn’t have the chance to do the bargaining.

It really was an art. For me, I couldn’t do it. My mother was great.

Gambling

We’re gonna talk a little about the numbers. Numbers were a big thing here, that’s pre-war, pre-40s. The numbers would come into Cooper’s Drugstore at Third and Carpenter. During the afternoon they would play what’s known as the leads. There’s three numbers, let’s say 832, okay? So the fella’s going round, he’s taking the lead for the first number. You played a one for a nickel. Big money. Then you’d wait for the lead to come in. The lead would come into Cooper’s.

Nobody could use that particular phone booth. Nobody. There was change on the table there, so if you went in you’d know somebody was gonna make a call. And you couldn’t use that particular phone booth because that’s where the number came in from the racetrack or wherever.

So the first number was a three. The guy came out to pay off the number. Okay, what’s the second lead? Play the second lead. When the second lead came in, the same thing would happen. But that phone booth was never used in the afternoon while the leads was being played.

Later on it became more sophisticated, when the vice squad would come around. They had this flash paper that would disappear and there wouldn’t be any evidence against the number writer. So, it was just write the number on a pad and that was it.

On Carpenter Street, opposite Shot Tower, as you go down on the right-hand side, there were all wood-frame houses. There’s a little street there, Hagan’s Place. Back there was a big area—I don’t know, it was before my time—a big stretch of concrete on the ground. Friday afternoons after payday, big crap games back there. Because you could roll the dice on the cement, nobody would bother you, and you weren’t out in the open.

Crap games were the big thing in those days. It got so sophisticated that down at the piers there was one area there where the fella that ran the crap game had a blacktop so the dice would roll better.

The funny part about it was that we as kids would know that. And you could go in on one side round the back there, and guys would be playing craps, and you could see it. The cops knew it, too. So every now and then the cops would block off both sides, or block off one side and drive the car around to where all the money was. Everybody would run, they’d back the car up to where the money was, and took it back to the district—distribute it to the captain there.

Saloons

Saloons were a very big thing in those days. There were saloons practically on every corner. That was the social event for the men, what the men would do, this was even before television.

Audience: When I first moved here in the early eighties, a landlord told me her living room had been a taproom at one time. And another landlady referred to taprooms. Is this a gender thing, men call it saloons and women call it taprooms?

Women called them dens of iniquity. Men called them saloons, taproom—“I’m going to the tappy”—it doesn’t make a difference. The name didn’t mean anything, as long as the beer ran.

Audience: There were a number of women in our neighborhood who called taprooms the bank, because that’s where their husbands left their paychecks. “Johnnie’s down at the bank.”

Friday and Saturday nights were the big nights in terms of sociability, as far as saloons were concerned. That was the focus of the men. The women used to be in the back room. You’d go in through a separate door. You went in the back door and there was a place for ladies. There was no onus attached to it. The ladies would enjoy a couple of beers or whatever they had.

I’m not saying everybody was a drunk or a lush, but this was the social place where they went. It was just like having a country club. Instead of a band playing, you’d have the jukebox.

Every saloon had a dartboard, and the fellas would play darts. Some were sharks, some were hustlers. They would go around to different saloons, you know, challenging someone to a game of darts, like a game of pool. But this was a dartboard, which was less expensive and takes up less room in a saloon.

There was always one or two guys in a saloon who were good, and if I came in and I was good, I’d set up a little game of baseball. First thing you know, you’re involved in how much this, how much that, and you got a game. So these guys were hustlers and they made a buck.

Chasing the duck. On a Saturday night, men would be in the house and they’d say to someone, “Go chase the duck.” You’d get a pitcher and go to the saloon. The guy would fill it up for a quarter and you take it home.

The tricky thing was that when you drew a beer, you’d get a lot of head. So of the men would put a little grease around the edge, and when they opened up the tap you couldn’t get a head—you’d get all beer.

We didn’t have any dummies in the neighborhood.