Arlington Street

Arlington Street for all intents and purposes disappeared off the face of the earth when demolition was completed of its one block in the second week of February, 2004. Running parallel for one block between Broadway and South 4th Street south of Jefferson Street to Chelton Avenue, Arlington Street was developed some time after 1891 to provide housing for workers at the new industrial sites in the area. Arlington Street lay adjacent to the Howland Croft & Sons Company textile works, built in the mid-1880s, and a short walk from the Camden Brewery, the New York Shipbuilding Corporation shipyard, the Eavenson & Levering wool scouring plant, the McAndrews & Forbes licorice factory, and Samuel Langston’s plant which produced machinery used in the manufacture of cardboard and paper boxes, all of which began operations between 1890 and 1920. Another factory came to the neighborhood in 1916, the General Gas Mantle factory, located at 2000 South 4th Street, adjacent to the homes on Arlington Street. General Gas Mantle’s presence on Arlington Street would prove to have an impact that far outlived its presence in the neighborhood.

A working class neighborhood, Arlington Street like many others all over the United States would send its sons off to fight in the conflicts of the 20th century. Howard Cassady lived at 2005 Arlington Street before joining the Marines in January of 1917. He was the son of Joseph P. and Bella Cassady, who lived at 2005 Arlington Street. After undergoing basic training at Parris Island SC, he served at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis MD, and was then assigned to the USS Reina Mercedes IX-25. While aboard ship he was stricken with Spanish influenza, and was taken to the United States Naval Hospital at Annapolis, where he died on October 19, 1918. He was survived by his parents, and younger siblings Mildred and Theodore. At the time of the January 1920 Census, Joseph Cassady was 73 and working as a special officer at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation shipyard. Theodore Cassady worked at General Gas Mantle, as did two boarders. Another boarder worked at New York Ship. Later that year Mildred Cassady married George Titus, a fireman at New York Ship and lived on Arlington Street for many years afterwards, as late as 1969. Theodore Cassady lived there as well to at least April of 1930.

2000 Arlington Street was a grocery as early as 1920, when Louis and Jennie Schwartz rented the building and operated the store. Vincent and Helen Bresan, who had come to America from Croatia in 1910, purchased the building at 2000 Arlington Street at some point in the 1920s. When the Census was taken in 1930, the Bresans were living there with three children between the ages of ten and sixteen. Vincent Bresan then also worked as a machinist at New York Shipbuilding. The Bresan family operated a grocery store there until at least the late 1940s. Helen Bresan remained a Camden resident until her passing in 1968.

When Prohibition became the law of the land 2051 Arlington Street was soon rented to George Wallace, a Canadian immigrant who was a foreman at New York Ship. With his wife Nora, he operated a boarding house at the address, and had 12 fellow employees at the shipyard as tenants in January of 1920. By 1931 Stanley Wojciechowski was operating the Rosemont Cafe at 2051 Arlington Street. After he passed away in October of 1936 his wife Stella operated the business. She remarried by 1947, and as Stella Horner owned the bar into the early 1970s. By 1977 the Rosemont had changed hands and was known as the Frosty Mug. The bar closed its doors once and for all by 1982.

Herman G. Rohde Sr. had come to America from Germany in the 1890s. At the time of the 1920 Census he was working as a machinist at the Samuel Langston Company on South 6th Street. A widower, he married early in 1920. Herman and Freda Rohde had a son born on February 20, 1921, also named Herman. The elder Rohde soon took a job as a stationary engineer at the Camden Brewery at South 6th and Bulson Streets. The Rohde family soon moved to 2033 Arlington, where they remained for many years. The young Herman Rohde began wrestling professionally in 1939, and went on to international fame wrestling under the name of Nature Boy Buddy Rogers.

Private George N. Binnix was the son of William and Sarah Binnix. George was born in 1922, his father a machinist who had been born in Tennessee and had come to Camden to find work, marrying a local girl. George Binnix grew up a few blocks from Arlington Street at 1743 South 4th Street. His family moved to 2013 Arlington Street sometime in the 1930s. After being inducted into the Army, George Binnix volunteered for service as a paratrooper. A member of the 82nd Airborne Division, Private Binnix was highly decorated during the brief time he saw action. He was killed in action on July 4, 1944 in Normandy, exactly four weeks after D-Day. He was survived by his mother, Mrs. Sarah Binnix, of 2013 Arlington Street, Camden NJ and a half brother, William Kramer. A memorial service was held for him on Arlington Street on July 30, 1944, organized by his friends and neighbors.

Shortly before America’s entrance into World War II, the General Gas Mantle factory closed its doors. Writing on the impact of General Gas Mantle’s presence on Arlington Street, Tom Laflin of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wrote the following:

Often what may seem like a “bright” idea at the time, can later prove to be a monumental error with many unforeseen consequences. When Dr. Carl Auer von Welsbach first invented a process for making gas lanterns burn brighter in 1885, it seemed like a wonderful discovery. His process of dipping gas mantles into a thorium mixture, greatly improved gas lanterns by causing them to burn brighter and give off more light. However this use of thorium, by two gas mantle factories in New Jersey, has led to the radioactive contamination of hundreds of properties and has created an enormous challenge (for the EPA) to gather and evaluate a massive amount of data.

The Welsbach Factory in Gloucester City, began producing thorium dipped mantles in the 1890s. It was a large manufacturing plant covering 12 acres and employing over 2,600 workers. They produced up to 220,000 gas mantles per day and 25,000 lamps. The mantles were first sewn by hand and then dipped in the thorium mixture. Each mantle was then inspected by hand and packed for shipping. The General Gas Mantle Company of Camden, New Jersey was a small competitor of Welsbach who also used the thorium process in making gas mantles.

As stated above, General Gas Mantle was out of business by 1941, as electric lights became more popular. As the other factories that supported the workers and their families who lived on Arlington Street closed or moved away, the Eighth Ward, and Arlington Street in particular, fell on hard times. As late as 1947 Arlington Street supported a tavern on its south end, known over the years as the Rosemont tavern and the Frosted Mug, and two grocery stores on the north end. Neither enterprise lasted past the early 1980s. Homes fell into disrepair, were abandoned, and became the sanctuary of drug dealers, drug addicts, and prostitutes. Meanwhile, a few homeowners, who lacked the means and resources to leave, desperately tried to maintain a life on a once-vital street.

The final blow came in the early 1990s. In 1992, the building was occupied by Ste-Lar Textiles and used as a warehouse. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) examined the site and determined there was a serious environmental threat due to radiation contamination. As a first step they removed approximately 15,000 bolts of textiles contaminated with thorium. Removal of the contaminated textiles significantly reduced the potential health risks to the public in case of a fire. To protect workers and local residents, in the early 1990s, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection relocated Ste-Lar Textiles from the General Gas Mantle building and installed radiation shielding in the sidewalks and the industrial building located to the south of the former General Gas Mantle site.

In 1996, the Welsbach and General Gas Mantle (GGM) Superfund site was added to the National Priority List of the country’s most hazardous waste sites by the Federal Department of Environmental Protection. The Agency subsequently completed an investigation of the site and issued a record of decision laying out cleanup plans for all affected residential and industrial properties. Overall site plans included excavation and off-site disposal of radiologically-contaminated soil and waste materials at approximately 60 properties, as well as investigation of more than 600 properties to ensure no contamination is missed.

EPA finished demolition of the General Gas Mantle building in February of 2001. The City of Camden cleaned up the street and attempted to seal all the vacant buildings in February of 2002, and it was announced that all eight remaining families would be relocated by July of that year. It was also announced that Arlington Street would be razed from one end to the other. In the summer of 2002 Arlington Street was seized by eminent domain. The few remaining families were finally relocated.

Announcement of the plans to demolish Arlington Street brought bittersweet reactions from former and current residents.

“They’re going to tear down a part of my life,” said former Arlington Street resident Don Stech, 56, who then lived miles away in a sprawling subdivision in Voorhees, but who played stickball and hide-and-seek on Arlington Street only blocks away from the once-booming Camden waterfront. “I went off in 1966 to Vietnam and came back in 1970, and I asked what happened,” Stech remembered. “It was like a different world…. [In some sections of the city I] felt like I was back in Hue.”

Julia Brown, 62, a 34-year resident of the block, dated the deterioration to more recent times. “It was a great neighborhood until 10 or 15 years ago,” she said early last month as she packed up her things to move.

“To me it was the world,” said Stech of his long-ago home on Arlington Street. “Let’s hope they do something good.”

Arlington Street remained standing until its historic status could be determined, and for the rest of 2002 and 2003 Arlington Street stood vacant, inhabited only by drug users and streetwalkers. The demolition of Arlington Street finally occurred in February of 2004.

In 2002 the McAndrews & Forbes Company, which imports licorice root through the Camden port, had announced plans to build a 40,000-square-foot warehouse on the site to replace two that it was renting elsewhere in Camden County. The company has been located at South 3rd and Jefferson Street since early in the 20th Century.

Phil Cohen

My mother, then Teresa Saunders, lived at 2010 Arlington from 1943–1961 with her parents, Charles and Mary Saunders and her brother Thomas Saunders. Her parents inherited the property from Charles’ mother who lived there pre-1943 for quite some time.

My mother remembers eating at the Rosemont Cafe and says she wished she had Stella’s recipe for crab cakes. My mother remembers Arlington Street with very fond memories. She has many stories and dozens of nicknames of the neighbors who lived there during that 17 year span. She has a picture taken in the backyard of 2010 Arlington with herself as a 2 year old and her father in uniform having just returned from overseas.

—Sharon Radogna, January 2005

Joseph R. Ackley was living at 2012 Arlington Street in 1930 census, in the household of his son Mark. Also in this household were Mark’s daughter Cora Kain and her daughter Cora.

Joseph’s daughter-in-law, Mary, reported his death in 1932 while Joseph was still living at 2012 Arlington. This leads me to believe that his son Mark may also have been dead by 1932. Joseph Ackley died on June 13, 1932 in Camden, New Jersey, at age 86. The cause of his death was a fall down stairs. He developed pneumonia while in hospital.

—Cynthia Ackley Nunn

I was born in a small brick row home, at 550 Chelton Avenue. My grandmother and her friend, Mrs. Blizzard, delivered me without the help of a doctor. They were women who often delivered babies back then, mid-wives, I think they were called. Shortly thereafter, we moved to 2030 Arlington Street, where we remained until 1946. My maternal grandparents, William and Mabel Blackiston, lived next door to Stella’s (Rosemont Bar). They were there many years before I was born. They were good friends with Stella and both her husbands.

We lived across the street from the Rohde’s, both Herman (Buddy Rogers), and his brother John were good friends with my parents and grandparents through the years. A few doors from the Rohde’s was a photographer, Harry Candera, he took many pictures of the residents over the years. The street was a wonderful place to live, at least for a child. Everyone was friendly toward one-another, and during World War II neighbor helped neighbor when times were tough.

I remember some of the men who went off to war and didn’t come back, those neighbors had a small flag hanging in their window, with a star, designating the loss of a loved one. I remember Stella’s husband, Rusty, I think, was the air-raid warden for our street. Every night we had to have the drapes pulled tight over our windows, sometimes the light would seep through and Rusty would tap on our front window with his flashlight and we would correctly close our drapes. The air-raid box, containing shovels, and other stuff, was right outside our front windows, so I saw Rusty a lot in those days, checking the box and walking the street when we had the drills. For me, it was exciting, but when I got older, I realized it was serious. The day Japan surrendered in 1945, all the whistles in all the factories blew for quite a while. People were in the street cheering and hugging each other, it was finally over, but for those on our street, that had lost their loved ones, it wasn’t over soon enough, happiness and sadness at the same time.

At the end of 1946, we moved to Gloucester City, where we lived until moving back to Camden in 1951, where we stayed until 1971.

In between those years, I enlisted in the US Navy, was honorably discharged, got married, had two children, worked, retired, and am now living in a small section of Egg Harbor Township, called Scullville.

Your article brought back many wonderful memories along with a few sad ones. My grandfather William Blackiston died in 1944, they had the wake in my grandmother’s house. She moved to Cramer Hill in 1950, and passed away in 1966, at the age of 87.

Our family was good friends with Mr. Bodine, the owner of Camden brewery, my aunt Mildred had a restaurant on the corner of 4th and Ferry Avenue. My uncle Jack Ingersoll (Mildred’s husband) drove a beer truck for Camden Beer for 25 years.

It would take another four pages to describe my early years on Arlington Street, so I have tried to briefly outline that legendary street, that is gone forever, but still lives in our memories. I have to stop now because I have enough memory and information about those days, to fill a book!

—John “Chick” Binder, August 25, 2013

Herman and Freda Rohde’s son, Herman “Dutch” Rohde, born at 2033 Arlington Street on February 20, 1921, went on to international fame as professional wrestler “Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers.

I lived at 2034 until 1933 across the street from Dutch Rohde. My father (Thomas J. Gallagher) was head of the union at New York Ship until 1944. I started there in March of 1941 and worked as a shipfitter with Josie Bresan. My father was best friends with Steve Regl whose wife Grace was beautiful. A few years ago when talking to a friend who had lived on Ferry Avenue, I mentioned that I could have bought all of Arlington Street for a $1000 and been king. Johnny Moore was my friend and I can still remember Leo getting beat up at the alley behind the houses. Leo couldn’t fight. Eileen Stenner was my girlfriend when we were about 5 years old. I remember the bootleggers during prohibition at the Rosemont. I played with Robert Stevens and young Titus in Stevens back yard. Ray (Whitey) Yarnell, after World War II, sang with Lucky Steel’s Trail Riders. I don’t think Ray was ever west of Philadelphia.

—Tom Gallagher, October 2009

Leon Lokaj, 21, of 1040 Everett street, was held in $500 bail for a further hearing November 19 when a woman who previously accused another man, charged in police court yesterday that Lokaj was the real father of her baby.

The woman, Sue Carroda, 22, of 2040 Arlington street, also told Police Judge Lewis Liberman that Lokaj is the father of a second child she expects soon.

On October 17 the Carroda woman finally cleared the name of Stanley Wrotney, 22, of 1070 Everett street, who had been paying her $3 a week because she testified on February 19 that he was the father of her firstborn. She retracted to Mrs. Etta C. Pfrommer, of the bureau of charities, because her conscience troubled her, she said. The woman testified she lied about Wrotney because she was threatened by Lokaj, who also pleaded not guilty yesterday.

Three masked and armed stick-up men obtained $6 loot early today when they raided the Cafe of Stanley Wojciechowski, at 2051 Arlington Street.

The holdup men, shabbily dressed, directed Wojciechowski, his wife, their daughter, Stella, and Mrs. Mary Miller, of Westville, to turn their faces to the wall. Cowing the four with revolvers, one of the trio rifled the proprietor’s pockets; then all three fled in an automobile they had left parked in front of the cafe.

Camden Detective Sergeant Rox Saponare said each of the four victims expressed belief the bandits could be identified.

My family’s history on Arlington Street spans nearly 50 years.

My great-grandfather, Stephen Regl, was a master machinist who emigrated from Hungary in 1906 and settled in Camden. He went to work for New York Shipbuilding in 1906. Having established himself here, he sent for his wife, Gisela, and their two infant daughters, Rose and Helen, in 1907. By 1910, my great-grandparents had two more children—my grandfather, Stephen Regl Jr. and his younger brother Julius “Lou” Regl—and had bought their one and only home: 2054 Arlington Street.

In 1929, Stephen Jr. brought my grandmother, Grace, to Arlington Street. They raised their two boys in that house—my uncle, Stephen Regl III (1930), and my dad, Robert Regl, who was born in that house in 1934.

In the mid-1940’s, my grandparents bought the house from my great-grandfather (who continued to live there). Stephen Regl retired from the shipyard around 1950. By 1957 my uncle had married and bought a house of his own and my dad was at Drexel completing the first of three engineering degrees. In 1958, my grandparents bought a home in Bellmawr. My great-grandfather went to live with his daughter Rose in Mount Ephraim. The Regl’s stewardship of 2054 Arlington Street had reached its end.

When I was a boy, my dad drove me through the “old neighborhood” from time to time. But the true joy was the tales of his childhood on Arlington Street: his friends Jack Hartner and Richie DeClemente; the Camden Brewery and “Old Frothingslosh—the pale, stale ale with the head on the bottom”; Camden High; the shipyard; Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers.

Although 2054 was right across the street from the Rosemont Cafe, I only heard that name once or twice. On Arlington Street, 2051 was simply and lovingly known as “Stell’s.” My dad, my uncle and my grandfather each had fifty stories about something that had happened at “Stell’s.

My last trip to Arlington Street was in 1982.

—John Regl, February 2005

Mayor Brunner announced today he will call a conference Monday to coordinate city departments in the movement to remove unsightly grass and weeds in the city.

Attending the conference Brunner said will be Director of Public Works Abbot, his deputy, James Swanson; J. James Hainsworth, superintendent of the city asphalt plant; Director of Parks and Public Property Gotshalk; S. Raymond Dobbs, acting chief of the bureau of city property and John Salvatore, who is in charge of workers in the city property bureau.

“The purpose of the conference,” Brunner said “is to coordinate the work of the various city departments in the projects being conducted to clear the city of high grass and weeds.

“There is equipment in the park system that could be used to advantage in cutting down the grass and weeds. Working together, the various city departments will be in a position clear away weeds and grass on city-owned property.”

Grass Around Hydrants

Meanwhile, department of public works workers today started to remove grass and weeds from around fire hydrants, utility poles and traffic standards.

The weed removal crew today went to work on Federal, Cooper and Market streets in the central part of the city, and in the vicinity of the Camden Civic Center.

Swanson said that on Monday, the crew will complete Market street to Twelfth Street, and Arch Street, and then concentrate in the North Camden area.

“After that section is completed” Swanson said, “The crew will go down Broadway, working the South Camden and then the Parkside and Whitman Park areas.

Leaves E. Camden to Last

“We are leaving the East Camden section to last, because the New Jersey Water Company owns most of the fire hydrants in that area, and they have been requested to remove the grass and weeds from their hydrants.”

Swanson said he was looking forward to being able to utilize men and equipment from the other city departments in the program.

“If all the departments pledge their full cooperation” Swanson added, “we should be able to beat the weed problem within a week.”

Abbott points out that since the campaign was started, workers from his department have uncovered and destroyed a large number of marijuana plants that were growing wild on lots in the city.

One of the largest tracts of marijuana plants was uncovered on a lot owned by the city, which was converted into a playground at Chelton Avenue and Arlington Street. More than 200 plants were found on the lot.

Violators Face Fines

Workers today destroyed more than 100 marijuana plants on a vacant lot on Viola Street, between Master and Van Buren Streets.

Property owners were cautioned by Abbott that unless they remove unsightly weeds and grass from their property they would be hauled into police court.

Abbott said flagrant violators would be subject to fines ranging up to $200.

Warning notices have been sent to more than 300 property owners where inspectors from Abbott’s department found grass and weeds to be growing wild.

“The majority of property owners in the city,” Abbott said, “are cooperating in the campaign. We plan however, to be tough with owners who refuse to remove grass and weeds from their property after being warned by our inspectors.”

They fear they will lose their homes

By Lawrence Hajna, Courier-Post Staff

City and federal officials gathered Wednesday to mark a milestone in the cleanup of pollution in the Waterfront South neighborhood—the demolition of century-old rowhomes contaminated with radiation from a neighboring gas-mantle plant.

But, in an ironic twist, residents of the gritty, mostly minority neighborhood also gathered to express their fear that the cleanup marks the beginning of the end for their neighborhood.

They worry a fledgling city plan to redevelop the area as an industrial zone will drive them out of their longtime homes.

“We would like to keep our homes,” said 71-year-old South 4th Street resident Lula Williams. “My home is paid for. I live off of Social Security, a pension. Where am I going? We are senior citizens that have worked hard and paid for our homes and struggled.”

The city is in the early stages of mapping out a plan that could target the Waterfront South area for an industrial zone as part of Camden’s overall redevelopment.

Officials on Wednesday did not rule out the possibility that this could involve relocation of some of the neighborhood’s 1,700 residents.

Mayor Gwendolyn Faison and Randy Primas, the state-appointed chief operating officer for the city, attempted to ease residents’ fears, though.

“You are not going to be forgotten, you will have a say,” Faison said. “But I want you to remember, your health is the most important thing.”

Primas said the state Department of Environmental Protection has launched a comprehensive study of the neighborhood’s air, ground and water to determine how great a health risk current and past pollution sources pose.

“My concern has been the quality of the environment and moving people into an environment that may not be healthy,” Primas said.

The residents have long lived with pollution from existing industries as well as the soils contaminated by mills and factories that once flourished along the Delaware River.

Over the past two decades, Camden County officials also built a trash-to-steam incinerator and foul-smelling sewage treatment plant in the neighborhood.

The construction several years ago of St. Lawrence Cement, a plant that grinds slag into a component of cement, put residents over the edge. They sued the state, arguing the neighborhood has been targeted for pollution-generating facilities because it is largely black and Hispanic.

Jane Kenny, the regional director for the Environmental Protection Agency, visited Arlington Street on Wednesday to mark what the agency views as a positive step toward ending the area’s environmental problems.

She marked the demolition of 54 homes on Arlington Street contaminated by the neighboring General Gas Mantle plant, which once used radioactive thorium to make gas-lantern mantles.

The $2 million project is part of what is expected to be a $200 million federal cleanup of scores of radiation-tainted properties in South Camden and neighboring Gloucester City.

Although the EPA’s Superfund cleanup program is strapped for cash, Kenny said the Arlington Street cleanup was given priority because of the city’s eagerness to redevelop the area.

Instead of cheers, Kenny was met by residents carrying signs declaring, “Waterfront South is Our Home.”

Christopher Auth is director of the Heart of Camden, a nonprofit group that has rehabilitated about 120 homes in the neighborhood. Auth said Primas has rejected the idea of giving his group any share of the state’s $175 million city aid package.

“Our concern is that the government—the city, the state and the county, put all these toxic facilities in the neighborhood…but now they’re saying it’s unhealthy,” Auth said.

Calvin Aiken, a 62-year-old retired roofer, has lived on Fillmore Street, a block from Arlington, for 30 years. “They’re running us away with nowhere to go,” he said.

Williams, the 4th Street resident, has more questions than answers now. But she said, “If they relocated me, and it was in a nice neighborhood, then I would have to go. What else could I do?”