letter in response to "Another bites the dust"

Dear Mr. Trout:
The building on West Laurel Boulevard in Pottsville, Pennsylvania that was recently demolished was certainly not the old Marsden Potato Chip factory, nor was it a cabaret that featured Pearl Bailey. No, Mr. Trout, it was one the best examples of “organic architecture," which is a philosophy of architecture promoting harmony between human habitation and the natural world. This is accomplished through design approaches which totally integrates its site – building, furnishings and the surroundings become part of one unified composition.


Architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright were proponents of this architectural philosophy. Look carefully at the geometries of the building and you definitely discover a central mood and theme; everything relates to one another, reflecting Pottsville's true hidden nature. The building unfolded from the earth like a seed sprouting in the rays of the summer sun. To me it signified “the continuous presence” and was almost zen-like as it sat along Laurel Boulevard, only to be torn apart and discarded like so many Minersville Street cheap one-night stands.

The building also signified the city’s spirit of adventure and surprise. Just look at the whimsical bright blue plastic roof. If you remember that plastic roof would flap with the wind expressing both the rhythm of music and the power of dance. There are not many buildings with bright blue plastic flapping rooftops and now the world is mourning the loss of one of the best. Sadly, the building (which had no name) was a masterpiece for its dynamism. The architect was a genius for blending every detail of his design. Your photographs can only give a mere glimpse of its magnificence. I understand that the building was partially the inspiration for Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” but if this is true then Miss Rand also failed to give justice to the structure.
It is for these reasons that so many people were outraged when the building was leveled. The Historical Architectural Review Board should have taken immediate action to protect such a valuable architectural gem now extinct.
Sincerely,
Dean Jonas Wright
Architecture & Design Department
University of Pottsville, Jalappa Campus

Another bites the dust

Another historic building has been leveled in Pottsville, this one in the historic Minersville Street area, which had been renamed as Laurel Boulevard in an attempt to become more upscale and fashionable like Knob Hill or Rodeo Drive.
Yes, the building is gone, taken apart board by board. While Pottsville had undergone a feeding frenzy on historic buildings in the past several decades, this latest building to disappear has particularly stunned nearby residents. But at first I thought their concerns were unjustified.

I was told that it was not just a building made of wood and nails. No it was a social and architectural landmark within the city. It harkens one back to the forgotten era when Minersville Street was the social hub of the east coast; back to the gilded age when Pottsville was the center of the booming potato chip industry.
By the Civil War, the potato chip was king in the United States, and Pottsville was the heart of this prosperity. The Union Army needed potato chips and this area would supply them. Soon Victorian mansions sprang up and breweries were built. Potato chips make one thirsty and thereby created the need for beer. Plenty of beer.

Anthracite coal was dug and brought in by railroad to heat the chip ovens, while canal boats would float up the Schuylkill and unload their shipment of lard, salt and, of course potatoes, all to be taken up by mule team to the Potato Chip factory. On the return trip to bring the potato chips from the factory to the markets in far-away London, Paris and Rome, the workingmen would stop and enjoy the cultural delights that the city of Pottsville had to offer.
Did you know that in 1839 there were over 290,600 tons of potato chips that made their way down the canals to the ports in Philadelphia? Most of these were regular potato chips but at least 30,000 tons were of the bar-b-que variety.

Some historians believe that the leveled building (as seen in the photo at the top of this blog) was the long lost potato chip factory and it may have contained some potato chip fossils as well as other artifacts of the Minersville Street era, such as beer bottle caps.
“It was shocking that the building was knocked down without a field team of archeologists being permitted to sweep the floor first” said one self-proclaimed historian, a resident of Laurel Terrace Apartments across the street.

“It is a disgrace that the City permitted it to be torn down. There was so much history there. Young immigrant men were recruited and came from Europe to find employment in the local potato chip industry.”

Again, I thought that these people were wrong. I continued my investigation at the County Historical Society and researched the potato chip industry within the county. Lucky for me the Society had a special exhibit on fast foods eaten by early settlers. While most attention of the exhibit was devoted to the soft pretzel, I did find many learned treatises on potato chips. I sat in the reading room browsing through the dozens of books on the potato chip industry that made Pottsville an economic powerhouse in the 19th century. However I could find nothing on the old maps linking the leveled building to the potato chip industry or the entertainment industry on Minersville Street. The irate populace was misguided. The Marsden potato chip factory was located several blocks to the west. This building was also not a nightclub that World War II servicemen flocked to on weekend forloughs. Pearl Bailey never performed there.

But I was shocked to discover that the building leveled to the ground was indeed historic, but not because of the potato chip. No, it had been the inspiration for German author Herman Hesse when he wrote “Steppenwolf.” It was his so-called Magic Theatre. It was his theatre for madmen only. It was the theatre of the soul. Now it is gone forever.
Where is the Historical Architectural Review Board when we need it? If you come up with an answer, pass me the chips and another cold beer.

bleenie bail-out

Shocked about all the bailout? Not me.

History just repeats itself, over and over again, as if history was an insurance salesman trying to sell you a whole life policy. Yes, I remember the uproar when certain deep-fried food stand owners in the county cried for financial assistance back in the late 1970s. It all started with the bleenie stand operators. It appeared that they would all go “pot belly-up” if the County Commissioners would not come to their rescue. Many blamed it on the brutal winters in Schuylkill County, which was especially hard on those in the concession food industry which in those days was a year round industry.
Do think it was fun waiting in sub-zero weather; treading through two feet of snow and ice to buy bleenies? I almost lost four of my toes one winter waiting behind fifty other people in a bleenie line when the woman at the front of the line had a large bucket container for take-outs. Immediately after that incident, the Schuylkill County Emergency Management Agency outlawed take-out containers from Christmas through St. Patrick’s Day at all stands.
For those ignoramuses out there a bleenie is an eastern european potato pancake. Bleenie stands were quite common in every community. Historical records indicate that Shenandoah had more bleenie stands than any other community at one time, beating out Warsaw, Minsk, and New Philadelphia for the honors. Pottsville, the county seat had forty four licensed bleenie stands, although most were referred to as german potato cake stands. German potato cakes are generally much thicker and not as tasty by the way. The number of unlicensed bleenie stands in the county was estimated to be between 400 and 1200. All of these concession stands drew large crowds to the downtowns of every community, keeping the economy charged.
Running a fried food stand is not an inexpensive endeavor; start-up capital runs into the thousands of dollars for the stand or a truck, and then there are the fryers, ranges, and ingredients – potatoes, eggs, flour, and onions. Don’t forget the paper towels, plastic forks and paper plates. Salt and pepper cannot be overlooked and I almost forgot the large investment in sour cream.
The payoff in this “cash only” enterprise can be phenomenal for those not feint of heart. And at one time the bleenie industry welding a lot of political power, causing a fearful President Nixon to impose federal price controls on vegetable oil. Historians are now still listening to the Bootleg Nixon tapes (volume 8 "Tell Tale Signs") unraveling his scheme to cripple the bleenie industry for their overt support of one of his rival opponents, Senator Edmund Muskie. Yes, the bleenie vendors were right up there on the top of Nixon’s Enemies’ List and his shenanigans are referred to as his "geasy tricks." The recent movie "Nixon-Frost" also bears this out; watch Nixon closely as he pretends to enjoy his bleenies that he shares with David Frost, wiping the grease away with his napkin rather than licking it away as most bleenie lovers do.

His subsequent price controls on vegetable oil surely resulted in a shortage causing long lines at the bleenie stands.So it was not long for the bleenie lobby to push for a massive rescue plan. One spokesman said that if the county could waste money on a Sportsman Complex and so many other ridiculous ventures, then certainly two million of federal revenue sharing could be pushed its way. The bleenie industry would be very “grate-ful.”
Such a rescue plan would be unprecedented, but the bleenie industry was as much an integral part of the county’s economic backbone as, say, coal mining or even illegal numbers. It was just too big to fail. As an aside, the county did turn down a bail-out to the numbers racketeers when their revenues plunged after the state lottery commenced.
Besides a call for two million immediate cash infusion to bolster the floundering bleenie industry, another plan called for county coupons as a “stimulus package,” as there is nothing more stimulating than a golden brown mouth watering bleenie. Each adult would be given cards to purchase 172 bleenies. It was never decided but some wanted the cards to be used one per day to keep the lines manageable. Some Schuylkill County officials proposed and “odd-even” distribution of bleenies, that is only odd people as determined by Turning Point could purchase bleenies on odd days and even-keeled individuals, again determined by Turning Point, could purchase bleenies on even days, with all the others left to figure it out for themselves.
In the end, the massive bailout was rejected by the County Commissioners, who found more interesting things to waste the money on; they were also afraid of a government take-over of the bleenie industry on constitutional grounds. Others cynically said that the commissioners were in the pocket of the french fry capitalists and had no interest in helping the bleenie operators. As a result, our downtowns collapsed, the sour cream industry curdled up, and hundreds of bleenie vendors went under, swelling the unemployment lines to rival those of the pre-1978 bleenie lines. The lucky ones received retraining through SCAM to work in the funnel cake sector. The surviving bleenie vendors drastically cut their work schedule, now only working during the summer months. Look around; there is not a bleenie stand in operation all winter.

Not even on Super Bowl Sunday.