Fishtown lost a legendary neighbor on August 12th. Ed Staniszewski was the owner and operator of Star Shoe Repair on Girard Avenue for well over 60 years. Ed had worked at the shop for many years prior when the shop was owned and operated by his Dad. He took over the family business when his father passed away in 1953.

Ed is survived by his wife of 60 years, Frances.  Frances worked with Ed in the shop, and I always found this couple inspiring. After all of their years of marriage, they remained very much in love and you felt it whenever you were in their company.  They were a beacon of hope, a reminder that true and lasting love could still exist in this often mean and cynical world.

Marc Brodzik is a local filmmaker and founder of Woodshop Films, an independently owned multimedia company housed in a working woodshop here in the city. The company serves as a think tank for the creation and production of documentary films and multimedia. Woodshop produced a charming documentary short about Ed and Frances that can be seen on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNelxBX_uuI.

I am really glad that someone had the sense and heart to capture Ed and Frances in this way. I asked Marc what inspired him to make this documentary. He replied, “They were a sweet couple. I remember dropping off shoes to have repaired and just being inspired by their sweetness. That’s what prompted me to do a story about mending souls.”

Other members of the community responded strongly when I asked them about their favorite memories of Ed and Star Shoe Repair. Joey and Mike Moore, both Philly cops, took their Highway Patrol boots to Ed many times. Mike loves Ed and Frances, calling them “A Class Act”.

It wasn’t just shoes that Staniszewski repaired either. Karl Preston reminded me, “I always took my shoes to him, but as a kid I also took my baseball gloves and hockey gloves to him for repair. He sure worked his butt off for all those years.”

In a recent visit from Joe Walker to The Spirit, Joe shares his thoughts on Ed.  He remembers going to Ed many years ago to discuss how he could make a wallet that he could wear on the inside of his clothing because at that time, Joe traveled a lot and was worried about someone picking his pocket.  Ed made a wallet out of an old glass case with a clip on it that Joe was able to carry on the inside of his pants.  “I still have that wallet,” says Joe.  “He was the last cobbler in this area.  We don’t have anyone else that does that now.”

Jenni Schmidt-Spiker, who was raised in Fishtown, but now lives in Shiloh, New Jersey, said, “I remember taking my school shoes to him to have them fixed. The place always smelled of strong glue. There would be shoes piled everywhere, and I always wondered how he kept track of all of them. You can’t find many shoe repair places anymore. It’s a lost art. With the economy the way it is, we need places like shoe repair shops to save some money somewhere.”

I used to go to Star Shoe Repair quite a bit in college with my buddy Joe Wichert. We would take our steel-tip boots to Ed back in our “angry youth, mosh pit” days. I always found it kind of funny to be involved in this collision of generations. We would be planning to go jump on people’s heads at some concert on the coming weekend, so we would take our boots to Star, where the clock seemed to stop at a time when our parents were just little kids. Ed liked the quality of our boots. We liked the job Ed did fixing them. In spite of vast generational and sociological divergence, good and honest business was conducted. My friend Joe said of Ed’s passing, “It’s so sad. They were awesome people. I’d always taken some boots and shoes to be resoled and repaired. They were always so nice.”

What impressed so many neighbors about Ed Staniszewski and Star Shoe Repair is the fact that the business stood the test of time. Years and years ago, long before my birth, Girard Avenue was like Fishtown’s “Main Street”. My Dad and Grandmother talked about Front Street and Girard Avenue as shopping districts. You could walk those avenues and they were lined with shops. Like a small town, you would come to Girard to get what you needed, no matter what it was. When I was a kid, there were more empty storefronts than open shops. With the gentrification of the past few years, that is slowly changing. But Ed and Frances, from Star’s window, have watched it all happen: the avenue, the neighborhood, the world changing around their little shop. Christine Andonie talked to me on this subject, saying, “I’ve always admired Ed’s perseverance. Before the neighborhood was gentrified, I would walk past his shop on my way to the el and wonder how he managed to stay open. Somehow, he stayed open! He witnessed firsthand the many changes that Fishtown underwent. Sometimes we would exchange an occasional wave through the window. I looked forward to that on my walk home.”

In Kindergarten, sitting on the floor in Ms. Planisch’s room during story time, I would hear the Brothers Grimm Fairytale about the Elves and the Shoemaker. I always pictured Ed as the shoemaker in the story and that vision of him never left my mind.  I would look for those elves in the shop when I was really young. Later in my life, as I entered Star Shoe Repair as a teenager, a college student, and as an adult, I would get this romantic feeling of “Old America”, like I was walking into a Norman Rockwell painting. It’s like the feeling you get when you watch an old movie, and you get sentimental for a time you didn’t even live through. Ed and Frances somehow managed to hold down this tiny corner of the neighborhood and stop time. Maybe that’s the secret to how they held onto so much love for their work, the neighborhood, and each other for so many years. Rest in Peace, Ed.