photos and caption by Bill Cleary

AN ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN-Traveling around Gloucester City on Tuesday, February 20, with my camera, I noticed some of the sidewalks surrounding the parks and playgrounds have not been cleared of snow or ice. Also I noticed part of the sidewalk that surrounds the Gloucester City Fire Department on King Street hasn\’t been touched either.

Top photo is the sidewalks surrounding the Lane and Thompson Avenue playground. The middle photo the Martins Lake playground, East Brown Street sidewalk. The last photo Ellis Street sidewalk behind the City Fire Department.

Why can\’t the Highway Department employees clear the snow/ice off of all sidewalks that are owned by the City of Gloucester? As it is now they just do a few.The sidewalk on either side of the playground on Lane and Thompson Avenue has never been cleared of snow as far as I can remember. In recent years this corner has become a designated bus stop for children going to and from City schools. In the early morning and afternoon the children and parents have to walk in the street because this sidewalk is nothing but ice. In the past the snow could be several inches deep and still the City doesn\’t maintain it.

There are other sidewalks that children use daily like on Market Street from Walnut Avenue across Rt. 130 to the City High School. Nicholson Road bridge sidewalk is also a sheet of ice/snow. This is every winter not just this year.

If someone should fall on one of these sidewalks and get injured I would imagine the City would be held libel.

I would also assume if someone is walking in the street because the sidewalk owned by the City isn\’t suitable for pedestrians to use, the City would be held accountable. Why take the chance?

A City ordinance requires properties owners to clear their sidewalks of snow/ice. The City should be required to do the same.

WHAT IS YOUR OPINION?

….Wakes Up Neighborhood

Bill Bates
NEWS Correspondent

Sunday evening, February 4th, officials from Winzinger Construction Company gathered at the future Walgreen’s site at the Black Horse Pike and Kings Highway. The officials weren’t meeting to finalize plans or to pour concrete, the Winzinger crew was there to accomplish one objective; and that was to start demolishing the remaining Harwan Theatre and adjacent structures.

The demolition crew started working shortly after 10 o’clock at night in the rear of the building and continued to work towards the east side of the building. Several neighbors came out to express their unhappiness of the loud equipment that was disrupting their quiet Sunday evening. One neighbor who only lives two houses from the work site was upset because he was trying to sleep when all of the load equipment started to roar. He was surprised that he didn’t receive a letter or anything notifying him that this was going to take place during the evening. He vocally displayed that he was very upset to a police officer assigned to traffic detail and advised him that he would be contacting borough officials in the morning. The crews continued working till sometime in the early morning hours.

Crews then worked the next day to separate materials and to remove the debris that was dismantled the evening before. The demolition crew then returned again Monday evening to finish the job. The crew started shortly after 9:30 pm and by ten o’clock there was a crowd that had gathered in their vehicles sur-rounding the Harwan site. The crowd of on-lookers and past movie goers came and went for the next two hours. Several vehicles stayed to watch well into the early hours of the morning. Many of the former Harwan patrons took pic-tures and some even captured video of the buildings final run. The demolition continued throughout the night until all of the remaining structures where lev-eled.

The next day, all that remained was just a large pile or rubble. I personally went to grab several bricks from one of my former teenage hangouts. I lost count years ago of the number of inexpensive movies that I have seen at the older magnificent build-ing with many fine examples of decorative art deco on its exterior.

The theatre was built in 1929 and first opened its doors on Thanksgiving Day in 1930. The original owners, Elias and Eva Harwan decided to name it the Mount Ephraim Theatre. It remained that way for years until a young gentleman bought the building in 1968 from the grandchildren of Mr. & Mrs. Harwan. It received a facelift in the early 70’s and over the next 20 years started showing second hand films which many of the locals regularly enjoyed.

The 500 and some seat single screen theatre has seen many different venues from live theatre performances to live bands in its recent years. The theatre in its most recent years be-came very popular when it started running \”shows\” of the famous 1975 film The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which it did for just a little over 10 years. The matinees were shown every Saturday night at midnight and admission was only $5.00. The place was al-ways crowded and filled with energy.

The theatre has not regularly shown films since the early 90’s. In just the past three years, the property was leased to a woman who was on a mission to renovate the historic movie house and to bring live theatre back. Unfortunately, the approximate $70,000 that she had put into the theatre wasn’t enough to save the historic site.

In 2006, plans were approved by the Mount Ephraim Zoning Board which gave the green light to the Walgreen’s corporate officials.

One can only wonder and hope that this new drug-store chain doesn’t end up like the one only a mile down the road in Audubon at the White Horse Pike and Kings Highway. Eckerd Drugs bought the former aged movie house and adjacent costume fabrication store out in 2003 to make way for a new location. This new store didn’t even make it to the one year mark before they had to close their doors. The building has been vacant ever since.

Let’s just hope this doesn’t happen to a building that will sit at the main entrance of a revitalization project that will begin this spring to give the main corridor in town a major face-lift, a facelift to the sum of $250,000.

WHEN EAST MEETS WEST !

  Commentary By Hank F. Miller Jr.
(Hank is a former resident of Gloucester City NJ who now lives in Japan)

\”A Journey Through The Island Of Kyushu!\”

In some ways the island of Kyushu is as \’foreign\’as Hokkaido. it wasin Kyushu that the first foreign ships were seen,in Kyushu that the first foreigners were allowed to live,and in Kyushu that the first foreign languages were learned, and in Kyushu that the first Christian churches were built.

Even during the two hundred and fifteen years when \’ the doors of Japan were closed to the world\’, when no Japanese people could travel abroad and no foreigner was suppose to enter the country, there were no foreigners living west of Kyushu and, through Kyushu,foreign goods were being bought into Japan–tabacco, medicineand guns.
Kyushu has long been famous for it\’s pottery–certainly avery Japanese art.
But Japanese pottery owes something to Kyushu\’s \’foreignness\’ too, since it was the tiny Kyushu village of Onta that the English potter Bernard Leach learned his art, and it was Bernard Leach, together with the Japanese potter Hamada Shoji, who helped make the rough, simple pottery of the country so popular.
Five miles from Onto lies the larger village of Koishiwara. These two villages are only 2 hours from my home,there are so very many other places of interest with in a few minutes to a hours driving distance away.
Almost all the shops in Koishiwara are pottery shops and in the narrow sloping street above the villag we can watch the potters at work. Koishiwara is well known for it\’s pots and the people of the district must be quite used to visitors.
As any visitor to this district should not expect any trouble finding such a well–known place.
But it was on the road to Kioshiwara that we got lost.
My cousin Bill Barron visiting us fron Hong Kong,where he was a professor.\” He\’s from Gloucester City also and has visited us on several occasions over the years.\”Along with Bill was my wife the kids and I.We had just visited Akizuki village earlier in the day and we figured that Koishiwara about an hours drive away after looking at the map.

The day had begun well. The weather was good and the mountains to our right were sharp and blue in the May sunshine.
By two o\’clock in the afternoon we had reached the small village of Masuda.to get to Koisiwara I knew that we have to leave the road I was on an take one of the narrower roads over the mountains, so I stopped an old man on a bicycle and we asked him which road we should take.
\’Go straight on to Hikosan,\’ he said. \’Then take the right road. You can\’t miss it.\’
Pleased that the way appeared so simple, we took our time and stopped at a small fish restaurant and had a nice lunch along with a few beer\’s.
My wife was driving so Bill and I drank my wife green tea only.
\’Where are you going?\’ asked the women in the restaurant.\’Koishiwara,\’ I said.\’You\’ve come the wrong way, then.\’I put down my glass of beer and sighed.
\’You\’ll have to go back to Soeda,\’she said.\’that\’s about four miles.Then take a bus.\’I don\’t want to take a bus,\’I said.\’ It\’s a long way,\’she warned.\’You\’ll never make it.\’ We looked at the map.It was about five miles. Can\’t we get there from Hikisan?\’I Asked.
\’Wait a minute,\’said the women,disappearing into the back room. She came out a minute later with her mother.
\’Koishiwar?\’said the mother, breathing hard, now let me see,\’you want to go to Koishiwara?\’\’That\’s right,\’ I said \’I was told I could get there from Hikosan.\’

The mother made a funny noise,half caugh,half laugh.\’You\’ve no need to go to Hikosan. Go straight for another half mile and you\’ll find a sake shop on the corner.The road that starts there goes straight to Koishiwara,but if you\’re not too sure you can ask at the sake shop.\’

I had now collected three separate and quite different Pieces of advice on how to get to Koishiwara. after arriving at the sake shop.\’Hello.\’I said then,\’Can you tell me which of these roads goes t Koishiwara?\’ \’None of them,\’said trhe owner of the sake shop.\’You\’ll have to take the train and change at Daigyoji.\’Never mind we said and left the sake shop.\’

Anyway we finally got there and mind you and it took about another 2 hours or so.\”That was the last time ever that we got lost traveling from Akizuki to Koishiwara,\’because we never went that way again.\” We always go there from home straight to Koishiwara.

A Journey Through The Island Of Kyushu! (To Be Continued:)

Warm Regards From Kitakyushu City Japan