ARLINGTON STREET for all intents and purposes disappeared off the face of the earth when demolition was completed of its one block in the second week of February, 2004. Running parallel for one block between Broadway and South 4th Street south of Jefferson Street to Chelton Avenue, Arlington Street was developed some time after 1891 to provide housing for workers at the new industrial sites in the area. Arlington Street lay adjacent to the Howland Croft & Sons Company textile works, built in the mid-1880s, and a short walk from the Camden Brewery, the New York Shipbuilding Corporation shipyard, the Eavenson & Levering wool scouring plant, the McAndrews & Forbes licorice factory, and Samuel Langston's plant which produced machinery used in the manufacture of cardboard and paper boxes, all of which began operations between 1890 and 1920. Another factory came to the neighborhood in 1916, the General Gas Mantle factory, located at 2000 South 4th Street, adjacent to the homes on Arlington Street. General Gas Mantle's presence on Arlington Street would prove to have an impact that far outlived its presence in the neighborhood.

A working class neighborhood, Arlington Street like many others all over the United States would send its sons off to fight in the conflicts of the 20th century. Howard Cassady lived at 2005 Arlington Street before joining the Marines in January of 1917.  He was the son of Joseph P. and Bella Cassady, who lived at 2005 Arlington Street. After undergoing basic training at Parris Island SC, he served at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis MD, and was then assigned to the USS Reina Mercedes IX-25. While aboard ship he was stricken with Spanish influenza, and was taken to the United States Naval Hospital at Annapolis, where he died on October 19, 1918. He was survived by his parents, and younger siblings Mildred and Theodore. At the time of the January 1920 Census, Joseph Cassady was 73 and working as a special officer (probably the equivalent of a security guard) at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation shipyard. Theodore Cassady worked at General Gas Mantle, as did two boarders. Another boarder worked at New York Ship. Later that year Mildred Cassady married George Titus, a fireman at New York Ship and lived on Arlington Street for many years afterwards, possibly into the late 1960s. Theodore Cassady lived there as well to at least April of 1930.

2000 Arlington Street was a grocery as early as 1920, when Louis and Jennie Schwartz rented the building and operated the store. Vincent and Helen Bresan, who had come to America from Croatia in 1910, purchased the building at 2000 Arlington Street at some point in the 1920s. When the Census was taken in 1930, the Bresans were living there with three children between the ages of ten and sixteen. Vincent Bresan then also worked as a machinist at New York Shipbuilding. The Bresan family operated a grocery store there until at least the late 1940s. Helen Bresan remained a Camden resident until her passing in 1968.

When Prohibition became the law of the land 2051 Arlington Street was soon rented to George Wallace, an Canadian immigrant who was a foreman at New York Ship. With his wife Nora, he operated a boarding house at the address, and had 12 fellow employees at the shipyard as tenants in January of 1920. By 1931 Stanley Wojciechowski was operating the Rosemont Cafe at 2051 Arlington Street. After he passed away n October of 1936 his wife Stella operated the business. She remarried by 1947, and as Stella Horner owned the bar into the early 1970s. By 1977 the Rosemont had changed hands and was known as the Frosty Mug. The bar closed its doors once and for all by 1982. 

Herman G. Rohde Sr. had come to America from Germany in the 1890s. At the time of the 1920 Census he was working as a machinist at the Samuel Langston Company on South 6th Street. A widower, he married early in 1920. Herman and Freda Rohde had a son born on February 20, 1921, also named Herman. The elder Rhode soon took a job as a stationary engineer at the Camden Brewery at South 6th and Bulson Streets. The Rohde family soon moved to 2033 Arlington, where they remained for many years. The young Herman Rohde began wrestling professionally in 1939, and went on to international fame wrestling under the name of Nature Boy Buddy Rogers. 

Private George N. Binnix was the son of William and Sarah Binnix. George was born in 1922, his father  a machinist who had been born in Tennessee and had come to Camden to find work, marrying a local girl. George Binnix grew up a few blocks from Arlington Street at 1743 South 4th Street. His family moved to 2013 Arlington Street sometime after in the 1930. After being inducted into the Army, George Binnix volunteered for service as paratrooper. A member of the 82nd Airborne Division, Private Binnix was highly decorated during the brief time he saw action. He was killed in action on July 4, 1944 in Normandy, exactly four weeks after D-Day. He was survived by his mother, Mrs. Sarah Binnix, of 2013 Arlington Street, Camden NJ and a half brother, William Kramer. A memorial service was held for him in Arlington Street on July 30, 1944, organized by his friends and neighbors.

Shortly before America's entrance into World War II, the General Gas Mantle factory closed its doors. Writing on the impact of General Gas Mantle's presence on Arlington Street, Tom Laflin of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wrote the following: 

Often what may seem like a “bright” idea at the time, can later prove to be a monumental error with many unforeseen consequences.   When Dr. Carl Auer von Welsbach first invented a process for making gas lanterns burn brighter in 1885, it seemed like a wonderful discovery.  His process of dipping gas mantles into a thorium mixture, greatly improved gas lanterns by causing them to burn brighter and give off more light.  However this use of thorium, by two gas mantle factories in New Jersey, has led to the radioactive contamination of hundreds of properties and has created an enormous challenge (for the EPA) to gather and evaluate a massive amount of data

The Welsbach Factory in Gloucester City, began producing thorium dipped mantles in the 1890s.  It was a large manufacturing plant covering 12 acres and employing over 2,600 workers.  They produced up to 220,000 gas mantles per day and 25,000 lamps.  The mantles were first sewn by hand and then dipped in the thorium mixture.  Each mantle was then inspected by hand and packed for shipping.  The General Gas Mantle Company of Camden, New Jersey was a small competitor of  Welsbach who also used the thorium process in making gas mantles.  

As stated above General Gas Mantle was out  business by 1941, as electric lights became more popular. As the other factories that supported the workers and their families who lived on Arlington Street closed or moved away the Eighth Ward, and Arlington Street in particular, fell on hard times. As late as 1947 Arlington Street supported a tavern on its south end, known over the years as the Rosemont tavern and the Frosted Mug, and two grocery stores on the north end. Neither enterprise lasted past the early 1980s. Homes fell into disrepair, were abandoned, and became the sanctuary of drug dealers, drug addicts, and prostitutes. Meanwhile, a few homeowners, who lacked the means and resources to leave, desperately tried to maintain a life on a once-vital street.

The final blow came in the early 1990s. In 1992, the building was occupied by Ste-Lar Textiles and used as warehouse. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) examined the site and determined there was a serious environmental threat due to radiation contamination. As a first step they removed approximately 15,000 bolts of textiles contaminated with thorium. Removal of the contaminated textiles significantly reduced the potential health risks to the public in case of a fire. To protect workers and local residents, in the early 1990s, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection relocated Ste-Lar Textiles from the General Gas Mantle building and installed radiation shielding in the sidewalks and the industrial building located to the south of the former General Gas Mantle site.

In 1996, the Welsbach and General Gas Mantle (GGM) Superfund site was added to the National Priority List of the country's most hazardous waste sites by the Federal Department of Environmental Protection. The Agency subsequently completed an investigation of the site and issued a record of decision laying out cleanup plans for all affected residential and industrial properties. Overall site plans included excavation and off-site disposal of radiologicaly-contaminated soil and waste materials at approximately 60 properties, as well as investigation of more than 600 properties to ensure no contamination is missed.

EPA finished demolition of the General Gas Mantle building in February of 2001. The City of Camden cleaned up the street and attempted to seal all the vacant buildings in February of 2002, and it was announced that all eight remaining families would be relocated by July of that year. It was also announced that Arlington Street would be razed from one end to the other. In the summer of 2002 Arlington Street was seized by eminent domain. The few remaining families were finally relocated.

Announcement of the plans to demolish Arlington Street brought bittersweet reactions from former and current residents. 

"They're going to tear down a part of my life," said former Arlington Street resident Don Stech, 56, who then lived miles away in a sprawling subdivision in Voorhees, but who played stickball and hide-and-seek on Arlington Street only blocks away from the once-booming Camden waterfront. "I went off in 1966 to Vietnam and came back in 1970, and I asked what happened," Stech remembered. "It was like a different world... . [In some sections of the city I] felt like I was back in Hue."

Julia Brown, 62, a 34-year resident of the block, dated the deterioration to more recent times. "It was a great neighborhood until 10 or 15 years ago," she said early last month as she packed up her things to move. 

"To me it was the world," said Stech of his long-ago home on Arlington Street. "Let's hope they do something good.

Arlington Street remained standing until its historic status could be determined, and for the rest of 2002 and 2003 Arlington Street stood vacant, inhabited only by drug users and streetwalkers. The demolition of Arlington Street finally occurred in February of 2004. 

In 2002 the McAndrews & Forbes Company, which imports licorice root through the Camden port, had announced plans to build a 40,000-square-foot warehouse on the site to replace two that it was renting elsewhere in Camden County. The company has been located at South 3rd and Jefferson Street since early in the 20th Century. .

Do you have an Arlington Street memory or picture. Let me know by e-mail so it can be included here.

 Phil Cohen