Category: Businesses

Mother's Koffee House was a wholesale tea and coffee concerned, founded in 1927 by three partners. The business was located at 1913 Broadway in Camden's Eighth Ward, and was a fixture on Broadway as late as the fall of 1959.

Arthur Holl was born in New Jersey in April 17, 1887. By 1918 he operated a large funeral home at 811 Cooper Street in Camden NJ. By 1920 he lived at and operated a second business at 1401-01 Princess Avenue in the new and fashionable Parkside section of Camden. He later sold that location to a Jewish funeral director, David Berschler. By 1930 he was living in Haddonfield NJ, and by 1947, with son Earl Holl had moved to and set up a second funeral home at 15 West End Avenue in Haddonfield NJ, and Earl Holl was also serving as the Camden County Coroner.

The Reynolds Leather Company was one of many business that were involved in the processing and manufacture of leather goods. The business operated out of a two story factory designed by noted architect Joseph N. Hettel at 816 Division Street.

In the early 1930s The Owl's Studio was located in Morgan's Hall, a building that stood for many years at 418 Market Street. I know little else about the place. The band mentioned below was out of Trenton NJ. The Hotel Hildebrecht, pictured below, was a popular spot in Trenton, and on the outside appears similar to Camden's Walt Whitman Hotel. Sadly it met a similar fate, and was razed in the 1980s.

One of the many Jewish business owners who were a part of Camden NJ in its glory days was Leo Spector. Leo's was remembered long after Leo Spector closed his business on Broadway, for the distinctive sign that graced the building for decades afterwards. Leo's also sold radios and appliances.

The Towne Park Motel stood in the 800 block of Market Street in Camden NJ. Built after World War II, its business declined as Camden's economy fell off. By the early 1990s it had devolved into a rooming house, inhabited mostly by junkies. prostitutes, and other undesirables. It was razed early in the 2000's.

The AQUINAS CLUB appears to have been a social club that existed in North Camden prior to World War I. My best guess is that it consisted mostly or entirely of young Catholic men from the Holy Name parish, although there also were a few older members. The club apparently disbanded around 1915.

If you or I had a nickel for every time someone said or thought "but where's the airport?" while traveling to or from Philadelphia, one of us would certainly have a boxcar or three worth of nickels! Yes Virginia, there once was an airport there... the main airport serving the Delaware Valley, as a matter of fact!

Garden State Park opened in 1942 after delays caused by raw material rationing at the United States' entry into World War II. Due to the seizure of 30,000 tons of structural steel by war authorities, developer Eugene Mori mostly constructed Garden State Park's ornate Georgian-style grandstand of wood. Limited amounts of steel came from the demolition of New York City's elevated railways. Despite this inauspicious start, "the Garden," as it was known, was officially out of the gate.

Edmund Berglund was operating a Ford dealership called Community Motors on Crescent Boulevard in Collingswood NJ in 1934. By the mid-1940s he had moved his business, then known as Berglund Ford, to the Admiral Wilson Boulevard at 17th Street in Camden NJ. Around 1955 he opened up a new building on that site, which became a Camden landmark for years to follow. Berglund Ford closed in the 1980s and the building was eventually razed.

Camden has had two buildings known as Convention Hall, which can get a bit confusing, and the issue gets even more confusing when you add the fact that Camden had four different armories in the years between 1880 and 1960, and one of them was also called Convention Hall! It doesn't help either that Convention Hall was also often referred to as the Civic Center during the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, and early 1950s.

Berkley Hall was built in 1895. It stands at 601 Berkley Street, the northeast corner of 6th and Berkeley Streets.