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.
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.