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The Ninth Street Market and South Philadelphia: PERSONAL CONNECTIONS, PARTICULAR VIEWS, PAST TIMES, & EMBODIED PLACES Author(s): JOAN SAVERINO Source: Pennsylvania Legacies, Vol. 7, No. 2 (November 2007), pp. 14-20 Published by: The Historical Society of Pennsylvania Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27765103 Accessed: 30-04-2015 16:07 UTC

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PERSONAL CONNECTIONS, PARTICULAR VIEWS,

PAST TIMES,

& EMBODIED PLACES

BY JOAN SAVERINO

phia in 1988, Philadelphia for me was a hodgepodge of remem

brances dating back to my first visits as a college student din ing the summers of 1972 and 1973. I was a counselor in summer camps

outside Philadelphia, and on weekends off a few of us ventured into the city. Sites that the typical tourist experiences

Independence Hall, Society Hill, Old Bookbinder s Restaurant still loom large and bring back the exhilaration that I felt?having grow

n up in a small town in West Virginia?exploring the urban

scene for the first time with peers. In the summer of 197?, I again came to Philadelphia, this time to attend a political march. Today, my mind s eye sees the oval in front of the art museum filled with hundreds of ragtag protestor s, and I recall that youthful feeling that we could change the world if only there were enough of us yelling meaningful slogans. After I settled here, I began discovering other

neighbor hoods with interesting pasts. One of my first discoveries after I moved here was the Ninth

Street Market. For me, the market's Italian businesses evoked parts

of my own past. The aroma and view of cheeses and salumi hang

ing in DiBruno Brothers educed the dark interior of my maternal

grandfather s grocery. The visage and sturdy body of Joe, a Sicilian

immigrant who works there, elicited the image of my preschool self

approaching my Sicilian paternal grandfather sitting on a kitchen

chair, my nose twitching from the smell of wine on him, kissing him good-bye

on a Sunday afternoon. Seeing the strands

of linked

pork sausage curled in metal pans at Fiorella's Sausage Company

conjured my maternal Calabrian great-grandmother's spare coal

camp kitchen, 100 pounds of homemade sausage piled there dur

ing her annual fall production ritual.

My memories demonstr ate how humans embody the places they

14 Pennsylvania LEGACI KS November 2007

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and South Philadelphia

^^^^^^ November 2007 Pennsylvania LEGACIES 15

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liave experienced throughout life. We absorb diem through

our

five, senses and relegate them to the deepest parts of our psyche.

They may reemerge when we see, touch, smell, beai', or taste the

same place again

or experience something

familiar about a new

place. Place is not something merely physical, but is a collection of

everything that happens in die lives of people and tilings. The

power of place lies in gathering all within one sphere of common

engagement. This understanding of how we interact with the land

scape and built environment and impart significance to it have

helped us here at the Historical Society craft a new project called

PhilaPlace, which uses the lens of place to look at neighborhoods in Philadelphia. One of those neighborhoods is South Philadelphia, among

Pliiladelphias oldest, yet historically overlooked, areas. Lying out

side Perm s histor ic grid, it was considered geographically and liis

tori< ally marginal. In fact, it is essential to understanding the his

tory of Philadelphia. Over* three centuries, new

immigrants settled

here because of the affordable housing and convenience to

places

of employment in nearby factories

and in the maritime trades.

Today the ar ea continues as a vibrant multiethnic center. Howev er,

as economic growth drives up property values,

newer immigrants

and some long-term residents are threatened with displacement,

and stories and sites of the past are fast disappearing. By exploring the role that place plays as a repository of memory

and change, PhilaPlace addresses issues of neighborhood change.

gentrificati< >n, and mterethnic relations in the past and into

contem

porary times. In conducting research tor this project,

I have come to

believe that the market itself is a microcosm of the socioeconomic

and cultural change that has occurred in South Philadelphia.

Surprisingly, as vibrant and important

as the market has been

and continues to be, it has not been the focus of much research.

Here is what we can document: The historical heart of the mar

ket is the area of Ninth Street between Christian Street and

Washington Avenue, but it also encompasses blocks to the north

and south of the main strip and Fighth Street to the east, blocks

that reflect the changing ethnic composition of Philadelphia via

the commercial landscape. The Ninth Street Market is one of the

nation s oldest continuous open-air markets, dating to the turn of

the 2()th ceri tu rv when Italian immigrants sold fruit, vegetables,

and meals from carts and stands. From initial oral testimonv. we

Fante's delivery cart with Dominic Fante seated in the cart, 1906.

Courtesy of Fante's Kitchen Wares Shop.

have learned that the vendors went to the docks each morning to

purchase foods wholesale and then headed to Ninth Street to sell

to neigliborhood

residents. Situated amidst a major- manufacturing

area, the market maintained late hours to accommodate late-shift

factory workers. As the vendors could afford to, they purchased

properties, which allowed them to achieve more permanence and

also expand their businesses.

Page of 1880 federal census with the record for the household of Nicholas Glenn, 1006 S. Ninth Street.

Although it was once the social and commercial heart of the

Italian community, the Ninth Street Market was an ethnic mix

from its inception. For much of the 20th century, Jewish vendors

sold fabrics and household items alongside the Italian-owned pro

duce stands. Using census data and Geographic

Information

System (CIS) mapping techniques. University of Pennsylvania stu

dent Shimrit Keddem fias been able to show clearly the patterns of

change in terms of ethnic make-up of households

and property

ownership (rom 1880 through 1020. Residential patterns changed dramatically

on Ninth Street during (Iiis period. By 1()()(). die Irish.

Germans, and African Americans were being replaced primarily by

Fiorella Brothers Sausage Company Collection.

16 Pennsylvania LEGACIES November 2007

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The Ninth Street Market is one of the nation's oldest continuous i

I open-air markets, dating to the turn of the 20th century when italian ?I - immigrants sold fruit, vegetables, and meats from carts and stands.

j _I ; Her w i

Italians, Jews, and a lew

"Syrians (who, based on what

we know about immigration pat terns, were

probably ( Christians). I sing

census data and city

di rectories, we traced a lew spe cific properties

over the same

time span, illustrating on a per

sonal level the ethnic transfor

mation of [Ninth Street. For

i list an< ?.< \ t he 1880 ce ?sus sh< >ws

that Nicholas Glenn, an Irish

immigrant, lived at 1000 S. Ninth. I le was an upholsterer and had his store. F. P. Glenn &

Brother, at the same address.

I lis wale, Mary, was born to Irish

i 11 lign i r its. ' ( ensi is d< ?s not

reveal if the Glenns owned or

rented then" property. A few

doors down at 10()() S. Ninth

lived Annie Finnegari, another

Ir ish immigrant. By 1000, Guiseppe Eratanduono and Ins wile.

Emilia, were liv ing at 1006. Guiseppe, with Raffaele DeAiigelis, who lived at 103-+ S. Ninth, was a macaroni merchant at R. DeAngelis ?S:

Co. at 021 S. Seventh Street. Botli Guiseppe and Emilia were Italian

immigrants, and thev rented the property and took in two Italian

hoarders. Syrian immigrants Elias and I leseny Joseph, a husband

and wife, lived at 1000. which thev also rented. Elias was a salesman.

By 1010. an Italian immigrant couple, James Campallone, a

laborer1, and his w ife, Maria, had replaced the Syrian renters. The

( lampallones may have kept boarders

to make some extra money, as

Aerial view of shoppers and vendors at a fruit and vegetable stand

at the Ninth Street Market, 1947. Courtesy of the Evening Bulletin Collection, Urban Archives, Temple University.

a Russian and a Polish ini mi

grant are also listed at the same

address. D( >menie< > Fante. wh< >se

occupation is listed as ^furni

ture," had purchased the proper

ty at lOO? S. Ninth. Fie and his wife, ("?rmela, both aged >().

were also Italian immigrants. Domenico was the founder of

Faute s Kitchen Wares, which is

still a thriving business at the same location on Ninth Sneet.

Stories corroborate the archi

val record, which shows that by

the early decades of the 2()th

century Italian and Jewish resi

dents were living and working side-bv-side on Ninth Street.

Paul Giordano, who is an owner

of Giordano's Produce on the

corner of Ninth and W ashington, has described the color ful life in

the market that he remembers as a child growing up in the lc)3()s. 1 le was the youngest child of a large family, which lived above the store. I lis mol her, Frances, was the business head in the family. According lo Paul, it was she who had the foresight to buy one proper ty and then adjacent

ones, adding another

one as the family could afford

i(. Since Frances wor ked long hour s in the stoic, she needed s< >me< >ne

to help her with childeare. The children's nanny

was an immigrant

Jewish woman who spoke no

English. As a result, all the children

were fluent in Yiddish, Sicilian, and English. These mterethnic ties

are confirmed by similar stories from several other people.

ff A

left: Paul Giordano Sr., northeast corner of Ninth and Washington,

1938. Courtesy of Paul Giordano Jr. and family, above: Paul and

Francis Giordano Produce, 1043 S. Ninth Street, May 2006.

Photograph by Hector Valentin.

November 2007 Pennsylvania LEGACIES 17

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By exploring the role that place plays as a repository of memory and change, I

PhilaPlace addresses issues of neighborhood change, gentrification,

and interethnic relations in the past and into contemporary times.

Oscar Hankinson is a contemporary of Paul Giordano, and his words bring alive the 1930s and '40s when he was

growing up in South Philadelphia. They reveal how he understood and experienced

ethnicity and ethnic boundaries as an

African American:

Iwas born [in 1933] in the neighbor hood . . . little street called Ellsworth

Street, right across from the George

Washington Elementary School, which of course still exists and is doing a pretty good job of educating youngsters. I guess ?

moved a block and half to Carpenter Street

[in 1945]. But moving that block and half

anyone who knows South Philadelphia, or knew South Philadelphia in those days moving a block and a half meant that I moved into a different world. The world that I lived in, or- was born in, was an

Italian neighborhood, and, it was an Italian

neighborhood, therefore I was Italian. And folks who lived in that neighborhood, you were in that neighbor hood, and that's just the way it was. There were little Jewish folks

living in that immediate neighborhood all over there, and certain

ly, around the area. There were no Irish folks living in the neigh borhood. There were just

us Italians. And there was only one other

black family [and relatives of mine] that lived in our Italian neigh borhood. But a block and a half away, there was an African

American?a growing African American community, and so when

I tell you that I moved from Fifth and Ellsworth to Fifth and

("arpenter, it was

only a block and a half

away, right across

Washington Avenue, I

moved into a completely different neighbor

hood, with a different set of ideas and a dif ferent culture, and it took a little time get

ting used to being an African American when I had been Italian all my life. And I say that advisedly, because I certainly lear ned a lot about people in my early years because after all, this was during, right after, I guess, tire end of the second world

war . . . Later* on, I spent many years on

(Carpenter Street, eventually returning to

the neighborhood as a school principal of one of the neiglrboring schools, the McCall School. Now, tfie neighborhood in Southwark as I knew it was far different than it is today. You

see remnants of the

same people. There

are folks that I can

remember in the neighborhood from years

back, but they live in different housing, some of them, their culture has changed

Oscar Hankinson, May 2006. | PHOTOGRAPH BY HECTOR VALENTIN.

also . . . African American folks in the

neighborhood who were around since the

20s, '30s, and 40s?probably see an awful

lot of middle-class white folks as being immigrants to the neighborhood. The

African .American community ran normal

ly from Front Street, or 1 should say Second

Street, over to about Sixth Street, [and] horn south of Washington Avenue all the

way up to Pine Street. And, of course, where Society Hill is today, that

was a pre

dominantly black neighborhood, [a few] Irish folks years back. Lombard Street,

before the Grosstown Expressway started, was

predominantly African American

throughout the 40s and 50s, and I tliink at this point, you probably won't find one native black family to that neighborhood. As I think back, there were individual

neighborhoods. Of course the Italian neigh borhood?that was across Sixth Street. The

Irish neighborhood?that was from Third, Second and Third back, and the Polish

neighborhood just a little south of that, and of course, throughout that entire area was a Jewish community. Fourth Street?if you have the opportunity to ride up and down Fourth Street., South Street, that was certainly a highly developed Jewish neighborhood. I can t tell you how many times?I started to say, "stole' fruit from

the stands, but 1 should say "liberated" from the stands. 1 think about Ninth Street, the Ninth Street Market, there was a time when

[Giordano's] used to stack boxes of grapes from Ninth Street almost to the (-orner of Eighth Street during wine season. And you

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . its, .1 ig. ::i

N;:W T. i;,.: V: fs: =ls Fit f,: ttT :t it : :N ii, Ul ss , . 1: t: . , s tn f in, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... "i. .:f MU i W-2R f i; m i": f lw %

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West side of Ninth Street south of Carpenter, 1925. Courtesy of Fante's Kitchen Wares Shop.

couldn't, as children, we couldn't count it at

all, but what we could count were those

grapes that we liberated from the boxes.

Along Washington Avenue there were train tracks that ran horn the river to the river, and it was one of the highly developed transportation systems. Much of the cargo that was taken off the ships at Front and/ or

Delaware Avenue and Washington Avenue

were carried in the box cars up to the river

for distribution throughout the country . . .

We played on the trains and the train tracks. We also built fires, we cooked the

grapes that we liberated from [Giordano's] boxes. We ate on Washington Avenue the

white potatoes that we also liberated ... As

I think back, cannot call them the happy times, because certainly

we were just

com

ing out of the Depression then. I didn't real ize it was a depression, but I knew that

most of the folks who lived around me were

[like] ourselves?poor.

18 Pennsylvania EEGACIES November 2007

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Thoai Nguyen also claims South

Philadelphia as his home. But Thoai is of a later generation. Different times and

differential experiences and perspectives demonstrate how a place is not a thing. Oscar's and Thoai's stories differ in terms

of time period and personal histories,

but their cultural experiences of South

Philadelphia share certain patterns:

W T"ou a(lually just heard from one

Italian, so you're probably going to _ _ hear from another one. I came . . .

Well, it doesn't help that my naturalized name is actually Tony. I grew up in South

Philly. My family came in 1975, when I was nine years old. We were the first Soutfieast

Asian family to settle in that area. I think there was some study done that

we were

the ( >nly family within a two or three mile radius in South Philadelphia in 1975. We came as a dir ect result of die war that hap

pened in Vietnam . . . When my family first cai ne to Sout h Philly, S. Seventh Street was basically a bustling business community

. . . [I]t

was mostly Jewish-owned businesses.

But we were perhaps at the epicenter of some very, you know,

South Philly is very divided. You walk from one block to another and the neighborhoods change, and change drastically. Recently

ve heard someone describe Pliiladelpliia as not

neighborhoods but as a collection of tribes living next to each other. So, my family grew up on Seventh and Wolf. The immediate

area was mostly

Jewish. You walk two blocks west, you're in an Italian neighbor

hood. You walk two blocks east of it, you're in an Irish neighbor hood. You walk two blocks north, you're in

an African American

neighborhood. You walk northeast, you're in a Puerto Rican neigh

Thoai Nguyen, May 2006.

PHOTOGRAPH BY HECTOR VALENTIN.

borhood. So, here I was, just, you know, a

Southeast Asian and it was very easy to

identify with the predominantly Italian

cormnunity around there. In fact, no one

ever [called] me Thoai when I was growing up. They'd call

me ... I walked down the

street, was, "Yo, Anthony' or "Yo Ton !

What's up?" . . .

And, years later, the ques tion of identity is very interesting

to me . . .

people may tend to think that identity is

something very static and it's singular. Well, to me it isn't, and growing up in South Philly is a clear example ofthat. I

am Vietnamese. I'm

a Vietnamese American. Sometimes I consider

myself Asian American?whatever that means.

Sometimes I consider myself just, you know, a boy from South Pliilly, and no matter what

country, no matter where I live, I really can't

get the South Philly out of me. And when you push me hard enough, I will, you will truly see the South Pliilly in

me ... I never really appre ciated what South Pliilly is. But years later, I was working for a diversity consulting firm,

and one of die celebrations they wanted to have was, "Thoai, can you

cook something authentic from your culture to

bring to this celebra

tion ?" So, 1 thought about this ami, you know, 1 actually wanted to teach them a lesson, because here's a cultural diversity group that

assumed that as a Vietnamese American I would bring in a

Vietnamese dish. Well, I didn't. I actually brought in, I think, cliicken cacciatore, and when I laid it out on die table

... but they were

actually fruite surprised that I came, and 1 actually didn't explain. And

they had to force it out of me that South Philly?that Italian rreiglibor h( )d w here I gr ew7 up?is as much a part of my identity as is, you know, me

being a Buddhist, or me being Vietnamese,

or me having grown

up nine years of my life in Vietnam and coming here as a

refugee.

Two girls from South Philadelphia's diverse

population. The Starr Centre Association:

Annual Report (Philadelphia, 1904). Philadelphia Wards 2 and 3, showing the Ninth Street Market area (detail). Elvino V. Smith, Atlas of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 30th Wards of the City of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1917).

Noykmbkr 2007 Pkwsyi.yama LEGACIES 19

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I Today, although a handful of longtime Italian American-owned businesses

still anchor the strip once dominated by italian and jewish business owners,

many market shops are now owned by southeast asians and mexicans.

Even today, as South Philadelphia's ethnic mix continues to change, many of

the old interethnic patterns persist as new

ethnic groups arrive and join or replace the old. Ricardo Diaz experiences South

Philadelphia as someone who, as a

Mexican immigrant himself, aids other

new Mexican immigrants:

Iarrived in Pliilly in die fall of '94 as a

student actually documenting and

[interviewing] Italian dialect variances.

And at the time ... I remember, in fact,

looking at the census tract, and my family,

well, there were five Mexicans in our census

tract . . . So our presence is relatively new.

Probably Indonesians as a group are newer

than us now, but our influx lias come in the

last five to six years. m an old-timer in the

sense that I was, you know, I was a Mexican

corning here [that early] . . . [W]e have not

settled irr any particular spots . . .

Many of

us work north of Washington, Center City,

we tend to live south of Washington, maybe between 2nd and 14th if somebody

were to press ine . . . We rent from everyone?anyone

that'll rent cheap enough. Because in fact, we are a phenomenon

of a wave of immigrants . . . For me to represent Mexico is

a big deal

because I know two other people from Chihuahua, from the north,

that live in the area. Most people are from central Mexico where

the climate is very mild and therefore the temperament is different.

Their language is the most commonly spoken language her e, which is N?huatl, which is Aztec

. . . My culture is actually Yaqui,

and

we re from the coastal areas in northern Mexico where deer

abound and running is a

pastime . . . And so it's very different for

me then to be mingling with so many people from Puebla . . . and

the areas around Mexico City where their traditions are very evi

dent . . . You will find in every Italian restaurant and every Italian

stor e [in the market]?I've tested it?if you want to buy your Italian

products in Spanish, you can do it; from prosciutto to a particular kind of olive because they are the people handling the back, in a

large way, cutting the meat, all kinds of ways. So we are a labor

force, we are a contribution, and most recently we are also pretty

much in the streets because of the imirrigration changes that are

coming . . . now we're ttying

to settle into society, of where we fit in

the new American society as we're about 10,000 strong here in South Pliilly.

And so we see once again how the ethnic landscape of the mar

ket has (hanged and how this new immigration has colored Diaz's

experience of the market and South Philadelphia. Today, although a handful of longtime Italian American-owned businesses still anchor the strip once doirrinated by Italian and Jewish business

owners, many market shops are now owned by Southeast Asians

and Mexicans. These newcomers reflect the changing demograph

Ricardo Diaz, May 2006.

PHOTOGRAPH BY HECTOR VALENTIN.

ics of immigration to the United States in the last 30 years.

Many market facades have undergone a

facelift in the last 10 years, but in key ways the street looks like it did decades ago. The

market is still a lively and crow ded jumble of hawkers loudly advertising their bar

gains, shoppers negotiating narrow side

walks packed with overflowing produce stands, flower stalls, and, in the winter, ven

dors keeping warm

by barrel fires. Today, as

in the past, customers of all backgrounds come horn all over the city?and increasing

ly, the suburbs?to purchase etfmic culinary

specialties and other wares

ranging horn

clothing to handicrafts at bargain prices. In recent years, new upscale

restaurants

have begun to cater to those who come to

experience tire market perhaps more than

to purchase its goods. Most tourists who visit Philadelphia never

see much past the historic area that I visited decades ago. This is not unusual for large

cities with rich histories. What casual tourist to Wasliington, DC, leaves the grassy monument and

museum mall to visit Frederick

Douglass's home in the primarily African American neighborhood of Anacostia? How many tourists make it past the Colosseum to

venture into the wonderful small streets of Trastevere in Rome to

discover the unnamed trattorie that cater to the local workers? But

if one has a penchant for discovery, it is just such places as these tliat evoke the rich fiistorical and cultural contours of a city.

Philadelphia has many such neighborhoods and places for those willing to diverge from the beaten track. The Ninth Street

Market and other sites in South Philadelphia are among them. In the last two years?because of my work with the PhilaPlace proj ect?1 have come to understand the market in new and significant

ways. Historical and cultural details, located in place and time

and distinguished by personal experience (and sometimes remi

niscence), have given places that were once mere outlines colorful

details and new meaning.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Oscar Hankinson, Thoai Nguyen, and Ricardo Diaz participated in a sharing circle on May 13, 2006, to discuss their lives in South

Philadelphia as part of the Historical Society's trolley tour, which

was a culmination of a neighborhood planning project that has

since grown into PhilaPlace. I wish to thank Melissa Mandell, who allowed me to freely adapt and use portions of her description of the Ninth Street Market; Shimrit Keddem, who shared her

research and GIS maps; and Daniel Guilfoyle, our summer 2007

intern from Haverford College, who ferreted out more detailed

information on specific Ninth Street properties.

20 Pennsylvania LEGACIES November 2007

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