Category: Uncategorized

Join your neighbors on Tuesday, October 31 for SoWe’s annual Trick or Treat celebration! If you’re interested in volunteering during this event, you can sign up here.

This article is part of a series of posts from SoWe Volunteer Historian Jim Gerhart about the stories behind the stores on Old Cabbage Hill.

The two-story brick house and store at 604 Manor Street was built by Henry and Anna Mary Breiter in 1882, and it was owned by the extended Breiter family for its first seventy years. It was built on the fourteen-foot-wide southwest edge of Bethelstown lot 21. The other forty-eight feet of the lot’s frontage on Manor had been taken up by the construction of New Dorwart Street in 1881 when a small stream was buried in an arched brick sewer to make way for the new street.

Henry and Anna Mary built the narrow building at 604 Manor for use as a cigar factory. They lived on the second floor above where the cigars were made. Henry Breiter was an interesting character. He was born in Germany in 1830, immigrated to New York City in 1854, and settled in Lancaster in 1865, after serving in the 55^th New York Volunteers in the Civil War.

Henry married Anna Mary Scheetz shortly after arriving in Lancaster, and for a while, he owned a cigar factory on Water Street. He also owned several other properties in the city and was a partner in the building of a hotel on South Queen Street. He bought Bethelstown lot 22 on Manor Street and built a cigar factory in the backyard, which burned down in 1877. In the late 1870s, the courts forced him to sell some of his properties to settle some debts.

Apparently, Henry had a short temper. In his first two decades in Lancaster, he had numerous run-ins with the law, including being charged with assault and battery several times. Henry was not a guy you wanted to provoke—he also was an officer and competition-winning member of the Germania Sharpshooters.

Anna Mary’s life ended disastrously. On the day after Christmas in 1900, at 604 Manor, she fainted while carrying a large pot of boiling water, spilling the water and scalding the left side of her body. She died a couple of weeks later of blood poisoning as a result of her burns. A little more than two years later, her husband Henry died at age seventy-three.

Anna Mary’s younger brother, Lorentz Scheetz, and his wife Ada, took over the cigar factory after the Breiters died, and lived on the second floor of the building. By the mid-1910s, Lorentz had modified the front part of the first floor at 604 Manor, adding a store where he sold the cigars that he was making. The angled doorway and the display windows near the corner of the building probably date to the mid-1910s, as does an overhanging cornice, now modified, that wraps around the corner of the building.

Henry L. Breiter, Henry and Anna Mary’s son, and his wife Minnie, operated the store for their uncle Lorentz Scheetz starting in the late 1910s and moved into the second floor of 604 Manor with the Scheetz’s. Lorentz eventually moved his cigar-making business to 47 Dorwart Street, where he continued making the cigars that Henry L. and Minnie Breiter sold in the store.

In the 1920s, Henry L. took a job as an inspector at Hamilton Watch Factory, and his wife, Minnie, took over the operation of the cigar store, adding candy to its inventory. Henry L. died in 1947, and Minnie continued to run the store after his death. Minnie apparently diversified her business: In 1951, the store was raided by the police and Minnie was arrested for taking bets on horse races. She served a month in the county jail for bookmaking.

Just as her mother-in-law, Anna Mary, had met a tragic end at 604 Manor during the Christmas season, so did Minnie. In the week before Christmas 1953, the building at 604 Manor caught fire. Minnie was discovered unconscious in her bedroom above the store and had to be rescued out of a second-floor window by a fireman. She died three days later as a result of smoke inhalation.

In 1954, following Minnie’s death, the store and house were sold for $21,200 to Anthony and Jennie Caterbone, who opened a branch of DeLuxe Cleaners in the store and rented out the second floor as an apartment. The cleaning business was in operation until 1975, and then the Caterbones leased the store to Zangari’s Pizza Parlor until 1980, when Louis Zangari bought the house and store from the Caterbones for $43,000.

Zangari’s Pizza Parlor was in business in 604 Manor until 1991, when the building was purchased by Lance Newswanger for $64,900. Newswanger opened Cabbage Hill Steak & Subs in the store, but within a year he changed the name to Three Adelphia Pizza & Subs, which was in business until 1998 when Newswanger sold the property to Anthoula Papadimitriou for $80,000. About 2006, the business in the store grew with the addition of another enterprise—Hit the Spot Pizza—to the continuing Three Adelphia business. The upstairs part of the building continued to be a residence, sometimes a rental and sometimes where the owner or store proprietor lived.

After Anthoula Papadimitriou’s death, her estate sold the property to Thomas Haines in 2008 for $110,000. Average Joe’s Pizza replaced Hit the Spot in 2010, and then in 2013, Par Café was added to the mix. In 2016, J&J Mofongo Restaurant opened, joining Par Café and Three Adelphia in the store. Then, from 2017 to the present, J&J Mofongo Restaurant has been the sole business in the 141-year-old store at 604 Manor, with Gabriel De Jesus owning the building until it was purchased by Dustin & Gary LLC in 2022.

This article is part of a series of posts from SoWe Volunteer Historian Jim Gerhart about the stories behind the stores on Old Cabbage Hill.

Close to the corner of East Filbert and St. Joseph Streets, across from the green “Welcome to Cabbage Hill” house, is a two-story brick house with adjoining shop that was the headquarters of the meat business for four generations of the Falk family for nearly 100 years.

Charles Falk, Sr. and his wife Frances immigrated to America from Germany about 1850, when they were in their early twenties. He and Francis went on to have four sons and one daughter. Charles, Sr. was a shoemaker, and he worked in that trade for several decades in their log house at 516 High Street.

In 1883, the Falks, in their son Charles, Jr.’s name, bought the lot where 509-509A are located today. The lot was on the northwest side of St. Joseph Street, fifty-five feet wide and extending back to West Vine. By 1885, Charles, Sr. had given up his shoemaker business, and he and his sons had built a two-story brick house facing St. Joseph (now 509A), with a butcher shop and slaughterhouse behind it on West Vine. Charles, Sr. and Frances lived in the house, while their sons Charles, Jr, and Louis continued to live at 516 High while they worked at the butcher shop.

The business got off to a rough start. On a Sunday morning just after Christmas in 1885, shortly after moving into the new house and starting the meat business, Charles, Sr. had an accident while delivering meats. He was traveling in his new wagon on Chestnut Street at Water Street when he almost was hit by a passing train. He barely avoided the collision, but the scared horse bolted and veered into a lamp post, destroying the wagon, which he had just bought a few weeks earlier. The wagon and a new harness were a total loss at $150. Charles, Sr. was not seriously injured, and the horse survived.

Frances died in 1895 and Charles, Sr. died in 1902. Their sons, Charles, Jr. and Louis took over the family meat business, which they named Falk Bros. Meats. About 1920, they built a shop, or meat market, on the southwest side of the house. This is the small building (now numbered 509) that still stands next to the house (now numbered 509A).

By the mid-1920s, the next generation of Falks had taken over the business. Charles III and Louis Falk continued to sell meats under the name of Falk Bros. Meats. They were quite successful, selling meats in their shop, delivering meat to customers, and operating meat stands at Central, Southern, and Northern Markets. Louis also branched out into property management, when in 1923 he purchased the grouping of three houses next door at 513-17 St. Joseph for rental income.

The fourth generation of Falks took over the business by the 1940s. Robert and Richard ran Falk Bros. Meats for several more decades, until they closed the business in 1980, making it nearly 100 years that the Falks had been in the meat business on St. Joseph Street. Increasing Pennsylvania health regulations were part of the reason for their closing in 1980.

Over the years, the Falks had built quite a complex of buildings on their property. In addition to the house and shop facing St. Joseph, and the slaughterhouse facing West Vine, they built a smokehouse, a rendering shop, a wagon house, a wagon-loading stage, and later a garage for cars and trucks.

In the mid-1980s, after the business had closed, the house remained a residence, the slaughterhouse was converted to apartments, and the shop remained vacant. By about 1990, the shop was converted to an apartment as well. In 2022, Mike Brenneman, who lives on the same block, purchased the property and began repairing and updating the apartments. He also opened up the display window in the shop that had been closed up when it was converted to an apartment. See the photo for the renovated buildings.

Jim Gerhart, 2021

Using your smartphone or tablet as your guide, take a stroll down Manor Street at your own pace and discover the history behind some of the old houses and other buildings on Manor Street. Also, get to know some of the interesting people responsible for the growth of Manor Street and its various businesses in the mid 1800s to early 1900s.

Follow-up survey launches to track SoWe initiative’s progress and future planning

SoWe, an initiative of Tenfold, announced the launch of a follow-up survey that will give Southwest Lancaster residents an opportunity to share their feedback on current neighborhood needs, resource gaps, and the impact of SoWe investments that have occurred since the original survey and SoWe initiative was launched in 2016. This will give the SoWe initiative the opportunity to track progress made over the past five years and shape planning efforts for the next five years.

The follow-up survey will mirror the original survey that was conducted as part of the Wells Fargo Regional Foundation Neighborhood Planning Grant in 2016. Millersville University’s Center for Public Scholarship and Social Change will work with the SoWe initiative to administer the follow-up survey and complete the data analysis.

SoWe residents will receive the survey via a mailing and other activities that are planned over the next couple months. SoWe residents can complete the survey by clicking here. SoWe residents are strongly encouraged to participate, as their feedback will be used to set the vision, strategy and objectives for SoWe neighborhood investment over the next five years.

Since inception, the SoWe initiative has leveraged over $5.8 million dollars to support the SoWe neighborhood and its residents. By listening to neighborhood feedback, the SoWe initiative has invested in affordable housing, public parks and street scape, youth programing and education, community safety, neighborhood connections and economic opportunity. Major successes of the SoWe initiative include the renovation of Culliton Park, the establishment of Price Elementary as a Community School, renovation of neighborhood housing for affordable homeownership and rental opportunities, investments into private housing to include an Affordable Home Repair program and the Façade Improvement Program.

A big thank you to all the residents who came out to Two Dudes Painting Co. for the Strawberry Hill Artful Intersection Community Engagement Session. If you were not able to attend, do not worry, here is a recap with meeting materials and videos!

The session started with a brief Powerpoint presentation by Fern Dannis with examples of other asphalt art projects, project scope, and timeline. Jim Gerhart outlined the historical context of this intersection.

Participants were given site maps and tracing paper to make notes or sketches, along with a handout of suggested ideas.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Project Engagement Timeline:

May 28 – Community Survey launched on engage.cityoflancasterpa.com.

June 3 – Mini Artist Workshop Session #1, @Two Dudes from 5:00pm – 7:00pm

June 17 – Mini Artist Workshop Session #2, Culliton Park from 5:00 – 7:00pm

June 22 – Mayor’s Neighborhood Week Event at Culliton Park – Project Outreach

June 26 – Mini Artist Workshop Session #3, @ St. Joseph’s school parking lot, from 10am – 12pm

June 28 – Community Survey Closes

July 16 – Artist Team to Present Mural Concepts for Feedback

August 6 – Mural design Finalized

September - Project installation - September 11th, Rain Date Sept. 18th