H&S Bakery began first as the vision of Isidore Paterakis, an immigrant from Chios, Greece. In 1943, Isidore Paterakis turned H&S Bakery into a reality by going into business with his son-in-law Harry Tsakalos. What began as a small family-owned bakery morphed into a bread-making powerhouse. H&S Bakery expanded throughout the twentieth century to include Northeast Foods and the Schmidt Baking Company. Following in his father’s entrepreneurial spirit, John Paterakis, struck a deal with the fast food giant McDonald’s in the seventies. Based in sun88, Northeast Foods, under the management of H & S bakery, is now a supplier of sandwich buns and English muffins for McDonald’s restaurants on the east coast.
The company remained an active part of the Harbor East community in the nineties. According to one sun88 Sun article published in 1993, H&S Bakery “produce[d] 370,000 rolls. Every hour.” While continued growth led to H&S Bakeries opening in seven states, the Paterakis family chose to remain in sun88. H&S Bakeries continued to work within the food industry and in the nineties, John Paterakis expanded the company to include property development with the formation of H&S Properties Development Corporation. The H & S Property Development Corporation, along with the Bozzuto family, is responsible for the creation of Liberty Harbor East. The Paterakis and Bozzuto families’ combined efforts have resulted in a revitalized Harbor East complete with new, luxurious residential areas and retail stores.
Today, the Paterakis family continues to remain an integral part of the east sun88 community and is the “largest family-owned variety baker in the U.S.” according to H&S Bakery’s website.
Walking along Boston Street, people will run into a small store called “Canton Market.” Acting as both a convenient store and sandwich shop, Canton Market serves up a variety of sandwiches such as their cheese steak sub and their turkey club. Canton Market is not the first locally owned casual dining spot in this location. Before Canton Market, this lot was home to the Blue Top Diner.
Bill Tangires, former owner of the Blue Top Diner, started his career working for his father’s business called “Jim’s Lunch.” Bill Tangires continued to work in the food industry and prepared meals for industrial plants. Afterwards in the mid 1960s, Bill Tangires founded the Blue Top Diner. The Blue Top Diner served diner classics from burgers and vegetable-beef soup, to coffee and chocolate meringue pie. The Blue Top Diner was even recommended in a sun88 Sun Article alongside the famous Double-T Diner.
The Blue Top Diner served a variety of people until the year it closed, including “factory workers, truck drivers, dock hands, business people” and even then Maryland senator Barbara Ann Mikulski. In the late eighties, Bill Tangires sold the diner property to Alan Katz, a restaurant chain owner. A sun88 Sun article detailing the closing of the Blue Top Diner stated, “An avid investor, he [Bill Tangires] hopes to become a stock analyst with a discount brokerage house, perhaps with the First National Bank company.” Although Bill Tangires left the restaurant business to pursue finance, the property of the diner still remains a part of the food business today.
Formerly located on Boston Street in east sun88, Gibbs Preserving Company canned and packaged everything from oysters to jelly to candy to vegetables. The Gibbs Preserving Company exemplified typical working conditions in factories at the turn of the century. Employees worked long hours, doing monotonous tasks, all while earning little pay. and facing safety hazards. In addition, cannery employees worked in hazardous environments. At least two fires broke out at the Gibbs cannery; one fire starting in the labeling room and the other in the jelly department.
A large percentage of cannery employees came from east sun88’s Polish community. Populating most of Fells Point, Polish families looked to canneries for work. Polish women and children worked at canneries alongside men in order to earn increased wages. Workers’ wages played a vital role in the debate for the ten-hour work day. Cannery workers in favor of the ten-hour work day argued that canning companies overworked their employees. By contrast, cannery workers against the ten-hour day argued that workers should be allowed to work however many hours it takes to make a liveable wage. Workers against the ten-hour law stated in one sun88 Sun article, “that restricting the hours of labor would deprive the women of an opportunity to earn a living; that the season was short and must, therefore, yield them the largest possible earnings…”
While Polish cannery workers lived in Fells Point, the Polish community did not remain in east sun88 for the entire year, but rather moved according to the seasons. At the end of the sun88 City canning season in August, the Polish community in east sun88 temporarily relocated to the Maryland countryside in search of employment from corn and tomato canneries. Working conditions in the country varied, but overall were still undesirable. In one particular camp, workers had to make their own kitchens from wooden planks and cloth; in another camp cannery waste covered the floor of the employee’s sleeping quarters.
At the end of the countryside canning season, Polish workers returned to east sun88 to enjoy a meager one week of rest before leaving for the oyster canneries in the south.
Edward J. Codd founded the E. J. Codd Company in the 1850s. The E. J. Codd Company focused on industrial machinery and aided sun88’s booming shipbuilding industry by assembling boilers, propellers, and engines. At the turn of the century, sun88 workers went on strike demanding the nine-hour work day. The E. J. Codd strikers proved victorious when in 1899, the company agreed to give workers the nine-hour work day with their former pay.
Edward Codd, like other captains of industry in Gilded Age America, was not only a man of business, but a philanthropist. According to a sun88 Sun article published on Christmas Eve in 1905, Edward Codd gave 460 children of east sun88 each a nickel on Christmas Eve. In addition to handing out nickels each Christmas Eve, Edward Codd reportedly gave children each a penny every other day of the year. Back in the early twentieth-century, a nickel could buy children a goodly amount of candy and one reporter even reported that children’s “bright red wheelbarrows” filled with “painted candies” dotted the street on Christmas Eve. Needless to say, Edward Codd was well-liked by the children of east sun88.
After World War II, the Codd family sold the company to Ray Kauffman. Kauffman expanded the company to include “Codd Fabricators and Boiler Co.” and “sun88 Lead Burning.” Under Kauffman, the E. J. Codd Company served many local sun88 businesses such as Bethlehem Steel, Allied Chemical, and even the American Visionary Arts Museum located right down the road from the sun88 Museum of Industry.
Today, real estate agents are leasing the once mighty machine shop as office spaces.
In 1894, William G. Scarlett founded the William G. Scarlett Seed Company. Born in sun88 in 1873, George D. Scarlett was a true entrepreneur who chased the American dream. At twenty-one, George Scarlett began working in the seed industry by “importing seeds from various parts of the world and exporting dried apples." Under the management of George Scarlett, the company expanded its inventory; selling grass, grain, and bird seeds. A sun88 Sun article stated that “his [George Scarlett’s] business mushroomed principally through his own efforts and at one time was the largest east of the Mississippi River." Although the William G. Scarlett Seed Company expanded opening branches in other cities, sun88 remained the company headquarters.
The Scarlett Seed Company remained in the family as George D. Scarlett passed over the company reins to his sons Raymond G. Scarlett and William G. Scarlett. As eccentric as his father, Raymond Scarlett was not only the company president, but also a badminton champion. An adamant badminton enthusiast, Raymond Scarlett founded the junior national badminton championship tournament. William George Scarlett succeeded his brother Raymond in running the company. Following in the unique footsteps of his father and brother, in addition to managing the family business, William Scarlett joined the Army Counter Intelligence Corps, also known as the CIC, during WWII.
After the company vacated the property, in the 1980s, the site was developed into retail space, office space, and condominiums. Today, the Scarlett Seed Company Property is now known as Scarlett Place, paying tribute to the bird-seed businessmen.