Feb 26, 2005 10 min read

By Glenn Tunney For the Herald-Standard

“Man, if I’m going to work this hard, I’m going to go to work for myself.”

With those words spoken nearly fifty years ago, Ernie Magario of Brownsville resolved to start a business career. His experiences in operating a series of Brownsville stores illustrate how someone with little fear of failure and a lot of gumption can succeed in business.

When Ernie’s business career began in 1961, the “Neck” was jammed with shoppers every day. When he called it quits 30 years later, the once-vibrant stretch of stores, offices and eateries was silent at midday. From his front row seat during those 30 years, Ernie Magario witnessed the swan song of the Neck.

The Neck’s decline was recently spotlighted by the WQED series “On-Q.” I plan to discuss the issues raised by that WQED program in a future column. Ernie Magario’s first-person account of his years as a merchant in bustling downtown Brownsville will be a useful prelude to that discussion, providing context for our examination of the current disheartening situation in the Neck.

Unlike the recent history of the Neck, the story of Ernie Magario’s life is an uplifting one. This classic tale of an immigrant’s son who made good began in a mining patch not far from Brownsville.

“I was born and raised in Allison 2,” Ernie told me, “the oldest of three children of Fred and Mary Marino Magario. My two sisters are Genevieve Capatosti, who is active with the Brownsville Chamber of Commerce, and Theresa Suranski, who resides in McKeesport.”

“Your parents were immigrants?”

“My dad and mother came to America from Italy, met in Allison, and got married here. My dad was a coal miner, and we lived in the patch.”

“And your schooling . . .?”

“I went to Redstone High School and graduated in 1946,” Ernie said. “After graduation, I went to Philadelphia for a year and worked there. There were gaslights on the Philadelphia streets, and each gaslight post had a clock. We would go around and make sure the clocks operated properly and repair them if necessary.

“I did that for about a year. I came home for Easter, went down to the A&P store in Snowdon Square, and talked to Paul Vereb, the manager. He gave me a job in the produce department, and I never went back to Philadelphia. I worked at the A&P until I went to the service around 1950.”

“You enlisted?”

“I was drafted during the Korean War and stationed in Germany. Two years later, I came home from the service on a Friday and went back to work at the A&P on the following Monday.”

“This was in the mid-1950s?”

“This was around 1952 or 1953. Then Bob Tunney from West Brownsville, a staff manager at Prudential Insurance Co. who shopped at the A&P occasionally, talked to me. He wanted me to become a salesman with his company. I decided to give that a try and went to work for him at Prudential’s Brownsville office in the Gallatin National Bank building.”

Ernie was good at his new job and was soon promoted, but the hours were brutal.

“I got promoted to staff manager after six months,” Ernie said, “and Bob got promoted to manager, so he left and I took over his staff. I worked there for a couple years, then transferred to Uniontown at the old shopping center and worked there for a while.

“The bad thing about being a staff manager was that back then, insurance men had regular routes and they would go to the customers’ homes monthly and collect payments on their policies, sell new insurance policies, etc. I would hire guys as salesmen, they’d try it for a while, and then they’d quit. Then I’d have to go out, collect the payments and find somebody else for the job. I also had to go out with other agents and try to help them sell some insurance.

“That went on for a while until one day I thought, ‘Man, if I’m going to work this hard, I’m going to go to work for myself.”

Ernie decided that Brownsville was fertile territory for an energetic businessman.

“I always did like Brownsville, even though I didn’t live there. As a kid I used to get on the streetcar at Allison for six cents and go to the movies in Brownsville for a dime. So I started looking around downtown Brownsville for a way to get into business for myself.”

When the 1960s dawned, Brownsville’s Neck shopping district was still a very busy place. Ernie noticed a narrow vacant storefront that was just what he needed.

“In between Sonny Cooper’s men’s store and Dezure’s meat market was a small shop where Cohen’s Wallpaper and Paint store had been. It was just a long narrow room, only six or seven feet wide and about forty feet long. I decided to put a card and gift shop in there.

“I got hold of American Greetings, and they came down and looked at it. They thought it was a good spot, right across the street from Thrift Drug, which had a lunch counter and was always busy. I opened that store and called it Ernie’s Card and Gift Shop. The cards were along one side the whole length of the store, and along the other side were shelves with gifts and glassware. There was no back door.” Ernie laughed as he added, “Everyone who came in there after I opened up called it a one-lane bowling alley.”

“So that was the beginning of your career as a Brownsville businessman,” I nodded. “Do you recall what year that was?”

“I went into business in June 1961.”

“And it wasn’t long before you decided to try to expand your business?”

“That’s right. When I wasn’t in the store doing something, I would stand outside and look around. I would watch the other merchants like Mr. Kart, Bernard Trumper and Sonny Cooper, who all hung out at Thrift Drug because of the lunch counter. They were successful, and I thought, maybe I can find something more. So I talked to Sonny Cooper, who was in business next door to me. Sonny and I were pretty good buddies. He used to tell me all the time, ‘Whatever you do, Ernie, just hope they don’t call off Christmas!’ Sonny encouraged me to look for more business opportunities in town.

“Then one day, Don Swogger (of Hiller) came into my store. He said ‘Ernie, why don’t you buy my hardware store?'”

“Where was Don’s store?” I asked.

“He was in the store front where Isaly’s had been, down the street from my card and gift shop.”

“Did Swogger’s Hardware replace Isaly’s there?”

“No, Circle Sales and Service followed Isaly’s in there, then Don moved in next. His hardware store had been up where the Antique Bar and Grill is now. He moved his hardware into the building where Circle Sales and Service had been, because it had a side door and there were more shoppers in that part of town. It didn’t have much parking, but it did have some room in the back.”

“Why was Don selling his hardware store?”

“He was hired as plant engineer at the new Brownsville General Hospital, so he was getting out of the hardware business.”

“Running a hardware store requires having a certain knowledge about the items you sell,” I observed. “Customers often ask for technical advice.”

“Exactly,” Ernie agreed. “And when Don asked me to buy his store, I told him, ‘Don, I don’t know anything about hardware,’ which was true. He said to me, ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ve watched you. I’ll carry the paper for you.'”

“What does that mean?”

“That he would lend me the money to buy his business, and I would make monthly payments to him. So I told him, ‘I’ll take it.'”

“Now, were you still operating the card shop as well as the hardware store?”

“I moved out of the card store, but I brought the cards with me to the hardware store. So instead of calling it a hardware store, I called it Ernie’s Hardware and Variety Store.”

“How far down the street did you move?”

“Just a few doors down, on the same side of the street. Next to my card shop, moving in the direction of the cast iron bridge, was Sonny Cooper’s men’s store. Next to that was Jay’s ladies’ wear store, then the Nut Shop, then Hopson’s Wallpaper and Paint store, and then my hardware store.”

As Ernie described his newest venture, I wondered: How could this man who knew nothing about hardware hope to succeed in the hardware business?

“When I took over the hardware store,” Ernie said, “I called American Standard. They gave me a book with all of these pictures of hardware in it.” Ernie chuckled and said, “When somebody would come in and say, ‘I need a 2-inch T’ or an ‘elbow,’ I’d go in the back room, look at the book, and come out and give it to them. I took the book home and I studied it. So it wasn’t too long that I had it down pretty good.”

As Ernie described his entry into the world of hardware, I had to admire his fearlessness in jumping into a business selling merchandise about which he was clueless. Some might call it foolhardy. Others might call it having an optimistic “Can-Do” approach to business.

Ernie didn’t even pause for a breather after taking over the hardware store. He was already planning bigger and better things.

“I decided I was going to expand the hardware store as fast as I could, instead of piecemeal,” he said. “Even though I had bought the hardware business from Don Swogger, I did not own the building. The building had three store fronts. My hardware store was on the left, the vacant Endicott Johnson shoe store was in the middle, and Kroger’s was on the right, taking up half the building. I thought, ‘I’m going to get that store room in the middle and really expand this thing,’ and either make a go of it or go bust!”

One of the many things Ernie admits he knew very little about was paint; another was linoleum; and a third was wallpaper. So, it should come as no surprise that his next venture was to open a paint, flooring and wallpaper store. Next week, our conversation with Ernie continues as he explains his carefully conceived business plan – best described as “One Thing Led To Another.”

Glenn Tunney may be contacted at 724-785-3201 or 6068 National Pike East, Grindstone, PA 15442. Comments about these weekly articles may be sent to editor Mark O’Keefe, 8-18 E. Church St., Uniontown, PA or e-mailed to begin mo’keefe@heraldstandard.com mo’keefe@heraldstandard.com end

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