Marty
Baskow

MAURICE WILLIAM "MARTY" BASKOW was born in Pennsylvania to Abraham and Rose Baskoff. The Social Security Death Index, however, shows a birthday of January 9, 1908, and the 1930 Census also indicates 1908. The 1910 Census shows the family as living at 244 North 2nd Street in Philadelphia, just off of Vine Street. Abraham Baskow then worked at a brush factory, while Rose worked as a dressmaker, probably from the home. There had been another child who had not survived as of the enumeration of the Census. The family was still in Philadelphia as late as 1915.

By 1924 the family had moved to 1938 Fillmore Street, the corner of Fillmore and Jefferson Streets, where the family ran a grocery store on the corner opposite John Bouillon's saloon, which, after 1936 was known as the Blanche Cafe. They were still there at the time of the 1930 Census. By then, Martin, or Maurice, had graduated from high school, most likely Camden High. He was then working in the family grocery. 

The family business had moved to 601 Sycamore Street by 1942. Abraham Baskoff and family were then living at 1437 Broadway, just below Atlantic Avenue, near Solomon Goldstein and his son, Dr. Hyman I. Goldstein, who was at 1425 Broadway, the corner of Broadway and Atlantic Avenue.   

Martin Baskow was living in New Jersey on July 2, 1941 when he was inducted into the United States Army. He was single at that time. The 1947 Camden City Directory shows the Abraham Baskoff family at 1504 Bradley Avenue in Parkside, with son Maurice and daughter Gertrude. 

By 1951 Martin Baskow had married Ella Zinger. Their first child was born that year, a daughter, Jackie. A son, Bruce, would follow in 1955. The family was living in South Jersey in the mid-1950s. They were at the Parkview Apartments in Collingswood in the fall of 1956, but had moved to 109 East Cuthbert Road in Westmont by the fall of 1959. The family moved one again, to 315 Monmouth Drive in the Cherry Hill Estates section of Cherry Hill NJ, by the mid-1960s. The also lived for a time in East Camden.

Martin W. Baskow went into the business world while living in East Camden. He operated a vending business out of his home. Around 1961 he acquired the Nine- Thirty-Nine Bar, which was located at 939 Market Street in Camden NJ. While he prospered during these years, he let the location of the family's grocery store at 601 Sycamore Street go back to the City of Camden for unpaid taxes.

Martin William Baskow was brutally murdered in his bar on the morning of July 14, 1967. News accounts of the day describe the crime as being the result of a robbery. As of July 2006 the case remains unsolved.

The Nine- Thirty-Nine Bar

Frederick Fielder Jr. lived at and operated a cigar store at 939 Market Street in the late 1880s and early 1890s. The address was still a cigar store in 1924, when Francis Yost was in business at the address. A convenient address, across the street from the R.M. Hollingshead chemical factory and the 1933 repeal of Prohibition brought about a change in the usage of the building, and a liquor license was obtained.

In June of 1939, it was reported in the Camden Courier-Post that a John Stevenson received a liquor license renewal for the property. The 1947 directory also shows at the property. 

The 1954 New Jersey Bell Telephone Directory shows the bar as the Nine Thirty Nine Bar. The 1959 Directory shows  Pink Poodle Inc. conducting a bar at the address. Shortly thereafter Martin Baskow, who had previously conducted a vending machine business in East Camden, acquired the bar, which he operated with his wife Ella. Jaki Baskow, his daughter, states that the bar was still called the Nine Thirty Nine Bar as late as the summer of 1967, and news accounts of that time confirm this. By that time, virtually all of the other business in the 900 block of Market Street had closed, in anticipation of the to-be-constructed interstate highway Route 676, which was completed in the 1980s. This construction would soon raze the Nine Thirty Nine Bar as well.

There is a traffic light at North 10th and Market Streets, but no building stands on the corner where the Nine Thirty Nine Bar once stood.

Camden Courier-Post - July 14, 1967

Camden Courier-Post - July 15, 1967

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Philadelphia Inquirer

July 15, 1967

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Philadelphia Inquirer

July 15, 1967

Camden Courier-Post - July 17, 1967

Philadelphia Inquirer

July 17, 1967

You Can Help Solve This Mystery

The proprietor of the Nine Thirty Nine Bar, Martin William Baskow, was brutally murdered in his bar on the morning of July 14, 1967. If you have any information concerning this crime, please e-mail me. Your identity will be kept confidential and there is a reward for information leading to an arrest.

Phil Cohen
June 26, 2006.