Background: Harry G. Ochs Prime Meats & Reading Terminal Market

On a cold rainy George Washington's Birthday, February 22, 1892, the new Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was opened for business. The market contained 795 stands marked off in 78,000 square feet of space. The Reading Terminal Market has won nationwide fame, noting that it was the biggest farmers market in Pennsylvania, and the largest farmers market under one roof in the country.

In 1906, Harry Ochs Prime Meats was born. Harry Sr. was a German butcher specializing in prime farm-raised beef from Lancaster County. Business flourished as suburban housewives began to take advantage of another aspect of Harry's business in the market, a "free market-basket service" in the suburban train. Under that system, the homemaker could arrange with Harry for the meat order to be filled in the market, and the basket placed aboard a train bound for her town and held at the station until she picked it up.

The depression years of the 1930's were difficult for the railroad and Harry. However, both institutions managed to struggle though the hard times. By the end of that decade, Harry and nine of the original 64 merchants were the only stand holders at the market. During World War II, the market became a Mecca for Philadelphians seeking relief from the rigors of rationing. Even with the war on, Harry managed to provide a surprising variety of scare meats.

In the 1960's the Reading fell under the same economic ball that affected most of the other railroads of the Northeast, and the market got very little attention from the railroad. A severe cash shortage and declining freight and passenger traffic finally forced the railroad company into bankruptcy in 1971. The train shed above, meantime, fell silent in 1985 when the city's commuter rail system was rerouted to bypass the terminal.

After several years of negotiations The Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority was created to convert the Reading Terminal into a spectacular entranceway to the new convention center. Philadelphians, with fire in their eyes, immediately demanded assurances that the venerable jewel under the silent tracks would be part of the terminal's rehabilitation plan. When the refurbishing job was completed, four generations of the Ochs family have been prominent stand holders at the market.