Saturday, November 24, 2012

Marvintown Golden Dawn, 28th and Parade, Erie PA

Golden Dawn at 28th and Parade Street in Erie, PA. Photo ©Debbi Lyon 2012.
This area of town at 28th and Parade Street in Erie, Pennsylvania is known as Marvintown. Golden Dawn, shown in the photograph above, was a mid-sized grocery store located on the east side of Parade Street at 28th Street. The store was managed by Raymond Fitzgerald.

Robert's Five & Ten Store was located next door, to the north, at 2711 Parade Street. It was previously known as Meister's, and was a really neat old-style store with a creaky wooden floor. It had dump bins full of items and the setup was such that you could see across the entire store. I bought a clear 'shatter-proof' ruler at Robert's, which broke in two when I used it as a drumstick to tap on my desk. (Shatter-proof and unbreakable must be two different things, like a 'wrinkle-resistant' shirt.) The store was owned by Robert and Patricia Tatara.

Golden Dawn and Robert's were demolished to build a drug store.

This shot was taken around 1979 looking north from the parking lot at Herman's Cafe, 2802 Old French Road. The cafe, which is not shown here, would be on the left of this photo. The cafe was owned by Herman Marquardt, Jr., who died in 2007. Herman's was formerly known as the Marvintown Inn. This building still stands.

There were two donut stores right in this vicinity: Dunkin' Donuts at 2801 Pine Avenue and Mighty-Fine Donuts at 2612 Parade Street. There was also a gas station on the northwest corner of 28th and Parade.

Old French Road and Pine Avenue converge at 28th Street, forming a triangle at the traffic light. 

Enjoy more historical facts and photos of Erie, Pennsylvania at: Old Time Erie

13 comments:

  1. In the early 80's the Golden Dawn was hit by lightning causing a major fire.

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    1. Wasn't it like '81 or '82? I renember the fire, lived down the street and remember the fire trucks driving by my house to put it out, then driving by the next morning to see it with my mom.

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    2. It was June 3, 1980. I know because my father and two other men that I've known since I was a boy (I was just shy of my 7th birthday) nearly died in that fire. To this day, they call each other on June 3rd to wish each other a happy birthday.

      https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.176169015881734.1073741851.145599388938697&type=3

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  2. Mighty Fine still lives.....the best donuts I've ever had, by the way.

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  3. I BELIEVE IT WAS AND A/P FOOD STORE BEFORE GOLDEN DAWN. MIGHTY FINE DONUTS STILL THERE. ALSO OHMERS HARDWARE WAS ON THE S/W CORNER OF 27TH-PARADE

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  4. The gas station is still at the NW corner of 28th & Parade St.- It's Althof's service station. Also, this was just one part of the Marvintown area, which ran further east to at least as far as 28th & Elm St. where Walmart is. Before Walmart, Hill's Dept store, Festival Foods, Super Duper, that was the 2B and 3B Little League Boys Baseball field, known as the Marvintown League.

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  5. My Aunt and Uncle used to own Miesters 5 & dime.

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    1. Frank, if you have a picture of your aunt and uncle at the store, I would love to put it on Old Time Erie. Thanks!

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    2. I will find one. I'm sure I have something.

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  6. Interesting site! Thought you might be interested in a page I created on Rootsweb regarding Marvintown. My husband's family settled there. There is a plot map of Marvintown extracted from an 1876 Atlas of Erie County, that show the families living (owning homes) in the area back then. Also is a photo of an oil painting made by a great-cousin of my husband, Ida Heibel. Somewhere I have an interesting newspaper article told from the prospective of an "old-timer" Lutheran resident and she jokes about how she and other children would play with the Catholic kids on Sunday mornings and when the Catholic children would hear the church bell ring and realize they missed Mass they would fill their flasks with creek water to take home to their parents :-) I'll have to dig that out!

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  7. Sorry - I forgot the link... http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~paerie/townships/MarvintownErie.htm

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  8. This is a great site!!! If the picture of the Golden Dawn store was taken in the late 70's, the it was taken from my father's Magnavox dealership - Marvintown TV. When my family bought the property in the mid 70's we converted the old gas station into a TV showroom. Again, incredible site!

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  9. How about Fred's Dairy Bar. I used to go there after morning mass with my grandpa.

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