Lifetime Achievement Award from Center City Proprietors Association

Nick Ochs (pictured here in sunglasses) accepted the award on behalf of his father.

Harry Ochs, who has run his family business, Ochs Prime Meats in Reading Terminal Market since 1947, recently received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Center City Proprietors Association (CCPA) during the 2006 REAL Small Business Awards presented at the Kimmel Center. The man credited with leading the effort to save the Reading Terminal Market in the 1990s received a Lifetime Achievement Award Thursday night at the annual Real Small Business Awards presented by the Center City Proprietors Association.

"Harry Ochs of the Harry G. Ochs & Sons butcher shop "led the Reading Terminal Market Merchants Association in their successful negotiations to preserve the market during the construction of the [Pennsylvania] Convention Center in the 1990s," CCPA said.

A headline in the Philadelphia Inquirer read: “A block of Filbert Street renamed for Reading Terminal butcher Harry Ochs.”

A jazz band serenaded him, dignitaries sang his praises, and fans shouted ‘congratulations!’ Why all the fuss?

Ochs, known as “handsome Harry, now 79 years old, led the Reading Terminal Market Merchants Association in their successful negotiations to preserve the Market during the construction of the convention Center in the 1990s.

Harry, who took over the business, Harry G. Ochs & Sons, in 1947 from his father, is known as “The Mayor of the Market.” Ochs, a third generation butcher whose name has become synonymous with the market, has been cutting meat for 56 years.

When asked, “How did you do it for 56 years?” Harry replied, ‘It was easy. I had good friends and good customers.”

Harry, still involved with the business, works along side his son Nicholas. The butcher stand, which began in the Reading Terminal Market and he says, “will stay there,” recently celebrated its 100th anniversary.

CCPA recognized and honors Harry Ochs for his lifetime achievements that have touched the hearts of so many and contributed so much to our community.