Why Ambridge was Chosen as the Home for Bella's Wishes

We chose the small town of Ambridge to locate Bella’s Wishes Creative Arts Center for many reasons.  Here are just a few of them.  We invite you to visit Ambridge and Bella's Wishes. 

Bernadette's grandfather, George Maletic, was an Ambridge business owner. He owned Ambridge Alleys, which operated above Stettler Motors at 914 Merchant Street. This bowling alley closed in the early 1970s as 10-pin bowling, air conditioned lanes, and automatic bowling pin set-ups replaced the antiquated duckpin lanes with “pin boys” that operated since the 1920s.

Bernadette's husband, Mike helped out in his family's grocery store, Bellas Meat Market, which was started by Mike's grandparents.   The store operated at 310 First Street and closed in the early 1970s, as well.  The infamous "First Street" area, which was home to an ethnically diverse group of individuals and businesses, Marshall Alley apartments, and "crackerbox" and tenements housing were torn down to make way for community redevelopment which included the building of the former social security office and the Kennedy apartments.

While these businesses are closed, the growth of new businesses in Ambridge gives us hope for a bright future of Bella's Wishes and for Ambridge.

 Nostalgia is part of the reason that Bella's Wishes is in Ambridge. There were so many childhood experiences, people, places and things that bring back fond memories from childhood days spent in Ambridge.

Bernadette spent many childhood weekends and summer vacation days in Ambridge on Ivy Street (Harmony Township) and in the 1100 block of Duss Avenue. On Ivy Street, the area was quiet and peaceful. Fun was always simple and plentiful, as there were always outdoor activities such as chasing lightning bugs, picking pears or strawberries or wiffle ball on the empty corner lot. Colder season activities included baking and cooking lessons, card games, movies, and a fun game called "what's in the box" where random items were in a box and you had to guess before you pulled it out- a game similar to Ned's Head to today's kids, but our version was scary and fun at the same time. Our family's Sunday Dinner tradition started here.

Time on Duss Avenue offered a completely different kind of fun. Duss Avenue was noisy from the traffic from the mills and the bustling business district. Bernadette would sit on the front porch of her great aunt's house and compete with her brothers in a "count the cars by color" game and wait for the big trucks to pass coming and going from the various steel plants in the area. On the 4th of July, this place was perfect to watch the fireworks launched from the high school field.

Children today could not possibly understand how much fun that was - there were no video games, cell phones, and television was not a daytime activity. Instead, the games were old fashioned and included Lincoln logs or race cars. The phone was a rotary phone, and almost every call was a toll call, and the television was black and white and had just a few channels controlled by an antenna on the roof.

Don't get me wrong - growing up in Baden was awesome, and there is a long list of memories from our neighborhood. However, as a child, these "mini-vacations" to Grandma's or Aunt Lou's house were magical.

We had a lot of fun in Ambridge, including:

• Walking to 8th Street Dairy for penny candy.
• Chasing the Taylor's Milk trucks and eating ice from the trucks (which probably gave us all a strong immune system.)
• Walking to PJ's Deli for comic books and baseball cards.
• Stopping at Hermann's bakery after church for the best bread, rolls and cupcakes in town. Bernadette's mom took those cupcakes to school on each of the kid's birthdays, and they were always a hit!
• Buying a chocolate log cake at the Duss Avenue Baker for special occasions was a big deal, as we had always had homemade cake at home.
• Swimming at the Ambridge Pool brought endless hours of summer fun but only after walking up the steep set of steps to Boro Park. The huge pool, slide, and diving boards were always refreshing, as no one had air conditioning. Frozen candy bars from the snack bar were a real treat for us
• Enjoying the smell of popcorn and roasted nuts at the G.C. Murphy.
• Eating a meal at the Red Bull Inn was a rare and memorable event.

While these special "best" activities no longer exist, we are blessed that there are other "best" childhood places we can still enjoy.

 We are grateful that some of our favorite places from Bernadette's childhood (1970s and 1980s) are still around to enjoy.  These include:

• Maple Restaurant for the best hot beef with fries, gravy all over, and coleslaw.
• Frank's Pizzeria for the best authentic pizza, extra sauce, please.
• K & N restaurant for the best breakfasts.
• Safran’s family grocery store, formerly Pic-n-Save, now SHOP ’n SAVE for the best meat department and hard to find grocery items.
• The Strano family hardware, now Do It Best in Ambridge, where you can find anything and everything you didn’t know you needed. 

Mike and Bernadette both grew up in church communities that were located in Ambridge. Bernadette attending Holy Trinity Croatian Catholic Church on Melrose (now closed) and Mike attending Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church on Maplewood (now in Harmony Township.)

Today, we hope Bella's Wishes Creative Arts Center will become a place for you and your family to share those magical moments and create new memories through the creative arts.