Reading Terminal Market

Reading Terminal Market has fed generations of Philadelphians, wowed countless tourists and conventioneers, and set the gold standard for public markets across the country. But the market's growing profile and increasing sales, swelled by the expanded Convention Center, have created a need for more space - a good problem to have if the market weren't landlocked. "We are maxed out on space," said longtime general manager Paul Steinke. After Labor Day, several tenants are moving to larger spaces within the market as part of a $3.5 million revitalization.

Valley Shepherd's Eran Wajswol has blasted out the side of a North Jersey hilltop with dynamite in his quest to make the ultimate cave-aged cheese. So how hard can it be to bring a steady milk supply into the Reading Terminal Market, where he plans to begin making cheese this summer? "It's a nightmare," he says, the remnants of his Israeli-Belgian accent lilting with enough drama to make clear he's also thrilled by the challenge. "To do this in a 120-year-old building, to drill a 15-foot double pipeline through the wall into our milk tank in the basement — it's like making the Holland Tunnel.

In an old city neighborhood where many people don't drive, a supermarket within walking distance is a necessity, say Mantua community leaders. In Mantua, that becomes one more necessity people learn to live without. Three years ago, the neighborhood's only full-service grocery, on Haverford Avenue near 34th Street, closed after a fire. Since then, Mantua residents who depend primarily on their feet for transportation either have had to buy groceries at small, expensive convenience stores or at the closest commercial shopping strip, 42nd Street and Lancaster Avenue, 10 blocks or more away, according to Charles C. Cole Jr., a community activist and board member of Mantua Community Developers.

We're marching to City Council today and we're asking the people of this city to join us. We're the merchants of the Reading Terminal Market and we're marching mad. We were promised the sky and we're getting it - soaking filthy rainwater. For several months, we and our customers have endured deafening jackhammering, falling debris and paint chips, cascading water, flooding, mice, city health inspectors, grandstanding politicians and more. It's like the 10 plagues. Take us to the promised land!

Surrounded by the glitz of the Convention Center, the Reading Terminal Market is struggling to hold on to its character as a farmers' market. It battles the growing perception that it has become just another mall-like food court, said Marcy Rogovin, general manager of Reading Terminal Market Corp. To help in the fight, the venerable market soon will be decorated with 20 handcrafted outdoor signs, at a cost of $100,000, to remind passersby that the place is still what it has always been.

The chicken fryers are cold and the signs are dark at Delilah's, the signature soul-food stands at Reading Terminal Market since 1984 and at 30th Street Station since 1993. The stands are closed, apparently as a result of a bankruptcy case in New Jersey, where founder Delilah Winder lives and bases her business. Winder did not return messages left at her office and on her cell phone Tuesday. Her attorneys indicate in court filings that her rents had been paid through March.

With luck, it may turn out that Philadelphia's new Convention Center won't damage "important Philadelphia values" or that it will "enhance and bring to life some of our finest historical monuments" as Edmund N. Bacon asserts (Op-ed Page, Nov. 8). But I'm not betting on it until I've seen some thoughtful planning and careful budgeting to help the historic Reading Terminal Market survive the four-year construction period. I'm one of the merchants there and, so far at least, I haven't heard of a sound plan to help the market make it, period, forget enhancing the neighborhood.

It's lunchtime at Reading Terminal Market, and the cacophony of the crowd, piano player and pushcarts is building. The regulars lay claim to their seats as tourists and conventioneering nephrologists shuffle along the "avenues" separating the 76 merchants. On this day, it's easy to believe five million people a year visit the 112-year-old market. But in his cramped loft office above the market floor, general manager Paul Steinke's mind is on just 400 of them. They are shoppers stopped on the market floor this year and asked about buying habits.

Jean M. Kraybill, one of several thousand Mennonites in town for their national covention, was sitting at Olivieri's in Reading Terminal Market yesterday afternoon, finishing a cheesesteak and recalling her youth. "Let me tell you, I came here as a child with my father. We lived in Montgomery County, but we came here and we sold things - chickens, turkey, eggs," said Kraybill, who now lives in Goshen, Ind. Kraybill was among about 7,000 Mennonites, including teenagers and children, who had the distinction of breaking in the new Convention Center.

Valley Shepherd's Eran Wajswol has blasted out the side of a North Jersey hilltop with dynamite in his quest to make the ultimate cave-aged cheese. So how hard can it be to bring a steady milk supply into the Reading Terminal Market, where he plans to begin making cheese this summer? "It's a nightmare," he says, the remnants of his Israeli-Belgian accent lilting with enough drama to make clear he's also thrilled by the challenge. "To do this in a 120-year-old building, to drill a 15-foot double pipeline through the wall into our milk tank in the basement — it's like making the Holland Tunnel.

The chicken fryers are cold and the signs are dark at Delilah's, the signature soul-food stands at Reading Terminal Market since 1984 and at 30th Street Station since 1993. The stands are closed, apparently as a result of a bankruptcy case in New Jersey, where founder Delilah Winder lives and bases her business. Winder did not return messages left at her office and on her cell phone Tuesday. Her attorneys indicate in court filings that her rents had been paid through March.

KOBE BRYANT drowned his sorrows at Delilah's (100 Spring Garden) Monday night, after his hometown loss to the Sixers. The newly single, Lower Merion-raised Lakers superstar dropped by the gentleman's club about 1 a.m. Tuesday with a few friends and was joined a little later by teammate Andrew Bynum, who had just dined at Del Frisco's (15th & Chestnut).   Rick's return? Rick Olivieri wants to bring Rick's Steaks back to the Reading Terminal Market.

Domenic C. Spataro, 94, of Buckingham, Bucks County, patriarch of Spataro's, a decades-old sandwich shop at Reading Terminal Market, died Thursday, Jan. 26, of congestive heart failure at Doylestown Hospital. "He epitomized our independent merchant community," Paul Steinke, general manager of the market, said Tuesday. "He became a legend in longevity, having worked in the market since 1930. " Steinke recalled that "occasionally someone comes to our office and says, 'My great-grandfather had some kind of store here . . . and I'm trying to figure out where it was.' "And I would march them down to Mr. Spataro, and almost to the end he would know who they were, where their stand was located, and approximately when they were here.

People who are eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program - SNAP, formerly known as food stamps - have two ways to make the most of their purchasing power. One is Philly Food Bucks, a program of the Food Trust. Shoppers who spend $5 on produce at one of the more than 25 farmer's markets operated by the Food Trust get a $2 Philly Food Buck in return, on the spot. A list of those markets is at www.thefoodtrust.org . Or call the Food Trust at 215-575-0444. The other program, Double Dollars, is available only at the Fair Food Farmstand in the Reading Terminal Market.

Nicholas V. Martell, 77, of Bryn Mawr, a founding partner of Realen Properties, died Tuesday, Aug. 16, at Bryn Mawr Hospital of kidney failure. Since its founding more than 30 years ago, Realen Properties has developed hundreds of apartment and town-house complexes and communities of single-family houses in the Philadelphia region, as well as properties in the Chicago area. As a real estate broker in 1968, Mr. Martell established Realty Engineering with Hal Davis, an engineer.

Frankford Hall 1210 Frankford Ave. 215-634-3338 www.frankfordhall.com Memphis Taproom 2331 E. Cumberland St. 215-425-4460 memphistaproom.com/beergarden.htm   Hop Angel Brauhaus 7980 Oxford Ave. 215-437-1939 hopangelbrauhaus.blogspot.com The Beer Garden by Iovine Brothers Reading Terminal Market 1136 Arch St. ...

Reading Terminal Market has fed generations of Philadelphians, wowed countless tourists and conventioneers, and set the gold standard for public markets across the country. But the market's growing profile and increasing sales, swelled by the expanded Convention Center, have created a need for more space - a good problem to have if the market weren't landlocked. "We are maxed out on space," said longtime general manager Paul Steinke. After Labor Day, several tenants are moving to larger spaces within the market as part of a $3.5 million revitalization.

As all the world knows, the Honorable Michael Nutter is the mayor of Philadelphia. Not in the world of Foursquare, though. In that social-media world, the mayor of Philadelphia is some guy named "Frank S.," from New York. In Foursquare, there's a mayor of the Ben Franklin Bridge, too - EricaLynn Gruenberg of Oaklyn. The mayor of the Philadelphia Museum of Art is John Ingram of Lansdale. And the mayor of the NJ Transit train between Atlantic City and Philadelphia is Trisha Winter of Vincentown.

As Reading Terminal Market opened in 1893, months in advance of the great train shed overhead, teacher Lewis Dubois Bassett set up a white-tiled ice cream shop along the 12th Street windows. The trains have come and gone. So has every other Reading Terminal merchant. On Saturday, Bassetts - run in the same spot by two great-great-grandsons - will lead an ice cream festival in the market's center court, with free ice cream and games. Attendees can re-create the old-time service technique of sliding dishes along the marble counter.