Three Stores In a Triangle Within a Triangle

I was still pretty smart when we lived on Parsells Avenue. I hadn't taken geometry yet.

Still, I knew what a triangle looked like and a square and a circle. I knew what perpendicular was but didn't know the word...same with parallel. I mos def knew the shortest distance between two places was a straight line, especially if someone or something was chasing me. I knew all the backyards that I could cut through without running into barbed wire or yapping dogs.

Parsells Avenue was located right smack dab in the middle of the Culver Merchants Neighborhood. The house where I grew up was built in 1920. My grandfather had owned the place before my parents. My cousin Moonyeen was born in that house. Our house was closer to Merchants than to Culver.

The whole area is shaped like a triangle with the sides converging at Merchants and Culver. Culver extends all the way through suburban Irondequoit to Lake Ontario. Within the triangle there is another triangle which constitutes the 18th ward and within that triangle is another nearly equilateral triangle. This was my hood.

By 1955, the triangular-shaped Culver-Merchants Neighborhood had become a busy retail area where businesses set up shop within boundaries that extend south to East Main Street, north to Culver Parkway, west to Culver Road and east to Merchants Road.

One point of the inner triangle was located at Burnsie's. Another point was located at Dee's. The triangle came to a point on Culver Road called Star Fruit and Vegetable. Down the road apiece from Star Fruit and Vegetable was the bus loop where we used to catch the bus to go uptown to see and where we got off after the show.

This a is a tale of three stores.

Burnsie's was on the way to school so we passed that place every day. The owner was a guy named Burns who everybody called Red. Red knew my father from my father's boyhood days. Red liked me. I was one of the few people who called him Mr. Burns. I was uncomfortable calling such an older man Burnsie or Red which he seemec to  appreciate. He'd throw in a piece of  Bazooka bubble gum pro bono now and again.

Dees was headed north toward Irondequoit. For all the years that I went there, I never got past a nodding relationship with the owner. He was Greek guy who didn't speak much English plus he had a weird, lazy eyed glance. He knew that If I was there, I wanted baseball cards. This we both understood even though I don't think he understood either baseball or cards. He kinda gave me that "you're wasting your money" kind of shrug when he handed me the cards. I'm sure he would have preferred selling me a pickle from the awesome pickle jar that he kept on his counter. I knew that wasn't gonna happen.

The Culver-Merchants neighborhood homes may have been built, for the most part, only a century ago, but area streets date back many years earlier as trails for Native Americans, European explorers and settlers. Nearby Ellison Park was the site of Native American and French collaboration in the 1700's and was a place where travelers beached their canoes before following the Portage Trail to the Genesee River. Others traveled the Seneca Trail to native villages farther south. Later, commercial ships brought goods to Irondequoit Bay to be carried overland on what is today’s Merchants Road.

If you headed north and travelled diagonally (which was of course impossible because of all the houses and dogs and fences in the way) from either Burnsie's or Dee's you would wind up at Star Fruit and Vegetable.

Johnny was the owner of Star Fruit and Vegetable. He was younger than "Red" or "Dee". He was a portly, moody dude with an indeterminable hair style. Somedays he's be friendly and other days he'd be suspicious and other days he's just want you to buy something and get the hell out of his store. He had fresh grapes, apples and oranges none of which could be had at the other two places. He also was  the only place that sold both grape and cream soda.

Each store had its allure and raison d'etre. Each had a liability. Dees was out of the way with a weirdo behind the counter but he had baseball cards. Star Fruit and Vegetable was on the way home from the movies. Sometimes all we wanted was an apple. Johnny had some baseball cards but ya never knew whether he had any or not and if he did they were Bowman's not Topps.  Burns was on the way to school.  He didn't have baseball cards but he was our friend.

Another big difference; Red was the only guy who sold Clark bars. Clark bars were my favorite over Three Musketeers, Baby Ruth, Butterfingers or Snickers.

If you were in the mood for a Clark bar, you headed East.  

Clark Bars were a classic American candy bar that had been enjoyed for almost thirty years by the time I came along. 

The Clark Bar was first introduced in 1917 by the D.L. Clark Company, founded by David L. Clark in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It quickly became a popular treat across the United States. The candy bar consisted of a crunchy peanut butter center covered in a layer of milk chocolate. Plus each bar was cut in half so it was easy to share and split the cost.

Clark Bars were wrapped in a bright orange packaging. The orange color was used as the dominant hue for the wrapper, with the brand name, logo, and other text often printed in contrasting colors, such as white or black, to enhance visibility. The bars were easily recognizable on store shelves or glaring in their absence. They attracted my attention or disappointment every time I entered any kind of Mom and Pop store for the next dozen years until I went away to college. 

The original formula of the Clark Bar was pioneered by Irish immigrant David L. Clark in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1917. Its manufacture took advantage of a recently-developed approach that allowed a thin milk chocolate shell to surround a non-chocolate filling. In the case of the Clark Bar, the interior consisted of a crispy confection that included ground peanuts around a caramel core. As such, the Clark Bar became the first successful 'combination' candy bar.

The bar was developed to be sent to troops during World War I, individually wrapped for ease of delivery. It began to be distributed nationally after the war's end, inspiring many manufacturers to produce their own combination bars. During World War II the company was sending daily 1.5 million bars to the armed forces, and when several labor strikes at its plant led to shortages among the troops, the federal government stepped in, calling production "essential" to the war effort.

The Clark Bar was produced by a process taking about 90 minutes. The core ingredients were heated into a taffy-like consistency and flattened into a sheet, which is then coated with a layer of peanut butter, and rolled. After cutting into bar-sized lengths, it is enrobed in liquid chocolate, cooled to harden both core and coating, then packaged.[

Many of the fathers in the Culver Merchants neighborhood were WW2 veterans who had their own memories of Clark bars. My father liked them. I inherited his preference for Clark Bars. My grandfather and his two brothers also liked Clark Bars from their time in WW1.

I haven't had a Clark bar in 40 years. 

The company changed hands a few times in the late twentieth century. 

The D. L. Clark Co. and its Clark Bar were acquired by Beatrice Foods in 1955, then sold to Leaf Candy Company in 1983. It was under Leaf that production was moved to a new facility in O'Hara Township (suburban Pittsburgh) in 1986. In late 1990, Leaf announced plans to close its O'Hara facility and move production of two other D. L. Clark candy bars, the Zagnut and P. B. Crunchers, to the Chicago area. They decided to cease production of the other Clark products, including the Clark Bar, for which their marketing efforts had failed to achieve a national profile.

Pittsburgh-area entrepreneur Michael Carlow purchased D. L. Clark Co. and its remaining brands from Leaf, and combined it with another struggling but iconic local producer, the Pittsburgh Brewing Company and its Iron City beer, as well as a local bakery and a glass manufacturer, plus the Fort Wayne, Indiana-based producer of Bun Bars under the umbrella of the Pittsburgh Food & Beverage Company, continuing production of the Clark Bar in O'Hara.[However, amidst accusations of a check kiting scheme that would lead to Carlow's eventual imprisonment, he was forced to relinquish control in 1995, and production ceased. Leaf then foreclosed on a $3 million loan they were still owed, and commenced making Clark Bars at their Illinois facility with an altered recipe. Months later, Clark's assets were sold through bankruptcy court to the newly-formed Clark Bar America, Inc., which restarted production at the O'Hara facility using the prior recipe. This was short-lived, and the company was shuttered in 1999. The recipe and production equipment were bought at bankruptcy by ......wait for it...... Necco  for $4.1 million, and they moved production to their facility in Revere, Massachusetts.[3]

Almost two decades later, Necco would in turn fail and in May 2018 was sold at bankruptcy court to Round Hill Investments LLC, who briefly operated the candy manufacturer under a Sweetheart Candy Co. subsidiary before selling the assets in July 2018 and abruptly closing Necco's Revere production facility.] At the time of purchase, Boyer planned to restart production of the Clark Bar in western Pennsylvania within six months. Challenges with production machinery speed and reproducing the bar's consistency and shape pushed back their reintroduction, but did provide the raw material for Boyer's first Clark-related product, the Clark Cup, a peanut butter cup that originally included ground misshapen Clark Bar in the filling. Once Boyer resolved these production issues, the Clark Bar was available at the factory outlet in late-December 2019,[26] and was released on a limited basis to stores in the Pittsburgh area in mid-February 2020, to be followed first by a full Pittsburgh release, and then sale nationwide, but as of December 2021, production was still limited, with distribution only to Pittsburgh-area speciality candy stores.

Meanwhile back in the hood Red Burns sold his store which was converted into a nifty, trendy liquor store. Dees disappeared shortly after and was replaced by a sports collectible shop called The Hot Stove League at the exact moment that the value of baseball cards was exploding. Meanwhile Star fruit and vegetable added something new and formidable to its inventory....records. It began with 45's and expanded to albums. 

I headed off to college.

When I came home to visit in 1966. I bought some Thunderbird Wine at the liquor store, bought a bunch of cards at the Hot Stove and finally stopped at Star for the last time and bought The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album.

Everything but a Clark Bar.

Instead, I settled for a roll of chocolate necco wafers.