(From the Monthly Progress in 2004)
The immigrants living in the area around Second Street and Girard Avenue, shopped within walking distance, on Second Street between Girard and Spring Garden Avenues or on Girard Avenue between Front and Broad Streets.
There were clothing stores and a felt hat maker, Edward Biskup. Butchers were Jack Noel at Third and Oxford Sts.; Mathias Stofel at Second and Oxford Sts.; Susi Welsch on Palethorpe Street; and Joseph Horvath on Germantown Avenue below Oxford St.
There was a live chicken store and a store where cheese and dairy products were sold, produce stores, a pretzel store, a shoe store and a men’s store. There was a jeweler, Mr. P. Giel and Caspar Tuszel, had a restaurant at Front and Girard while Peter Graebeldinger a club founder had a music store that sold musical instruments as well as RCA Victrolas along with 78 records.
In the Spring, when the warm weather came, families would congregate in a city owned recreation center located at Master and Hancock Streets. There were swings, seesaws, monkey bars, and sand boxes for the children. The men would play cards and drink beer while the women would have a kaffee klatsch. They even had a name for the center – “Schwowe Park.” This was a noted place for the immigrants of Banat and Batschka to Congregate.
In the summertime, families would go west on Girard Avenue through Brewerytown where many German speaking people lived. They would either visit the Philadelphia Zoo or walk further to Fairmount Park for a picnic. Many people would go to the “Alte Banater” (The Banater Arbeiter Verein at Master and Masher Streets) for dancing, card playing or one of their favorite pastimes “KaffeeKlatsch”.
F.P.W.
(to be continued next month)
EDITOR’S NOTE: this was written and originally published in Monthly Progress, Volume 59, No. 7– July 2004 and No. 8-August 2004. It has been re-published here in 2026 with minor edits. Misspellings of names, capitalization and punctuation have been preserved as originally published.
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