Wincing With Change Northeast Struggling To Come Back Economically

Elsie Spangler's job at the Sears warehouse on Roosevelt Boulevard paid enough that she could raise her children on her own.

By 1989, after 20 years with Sears filling catalog orders for curtains, she earned $9.37 an hour plus health insurance, and pension and profit-sharing

plans.

Then Sears became the incredible shrinking retailer, cutting costs and jobs to compete with the Kmarts, the Wal-Marts.

Spangler took early retirement on about $120 a month in July 1990. To make ends meet, she went to work as a waitress at the Empty Glass restaurant and tavern on Adams Avenue, a block from Sears and once the watering hole for its workers. But since 4,000 jobs vanished, Spangler said, "Not that many come in any more."

Like thousands of others, Spangler and the Empty Glass are suffering through the economic collapse that has struck the neighborhoods around Sears.

For nearly 50 years, the Northeast has been the city's economic engine, generating high-paying jobs with good benefits in manufacturing and distribution.

The Sears shutdown was followed by the closings last year of the Mrs. Paul's and Canada Dry factories, which took another 675 jobs out of the lower Northeast.

Since 1988, at least nine other employers have closed or announced job cutbacks - more than 10,000 jobs gone or going from the Northeast.

With so many jobs disappearing, it seems fitting that the economic implosion will be emphasized by a real implosion Sunday when demolition crews bring down the 70-year-old Sears complex with a massive blast.

That will clear the way for a 48-acre shopping center that will house Home Depot, Service Merchandise and other retail businesses. The center should generate several hundred construction jobs and an estimated 700 to 1,100 full- and part-time jobs.

Eighth District Councilman Daniel P. McElhatton and civic leaders are hailing the center as a much-needed bricks-and-mortar project to start rebuilding the lower Northeast's economy.

But the jobs it will bring, like most others recently created in the Northeast, will be service and retail jobs paying $6 to $8 an hour - sometimes without benefits - not the factory and distribution jobs that paid as much as $25 an hour and benefits.

Jim Pohl, president of the nearby Whitaker Mills Civic Association, said many of his friends expect to get jobs in the new center, but he has his reservations.