Bill Text: PA HR442 | 2009-2010 | Regular Session | Introduced

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Bill Title: Honoring the 75th anniversary of the Northeast Times newspaper and its contributions to the people of northeast Philadelphia.

Spectrum: Slight Partisan Bill (Democrat 24-14)

Status: (Passed) 2009-08-19 - Adopted [HR442 Detail]

Download: Pennsylvania-2009-HR442-Introduced.html

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PRINTER'S NO. 2589
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA
HOUSE RESOLUTION
No. 442 Session of2009
INTRODUCED BY D. O'BRIEN, McGEEHAN, BOYLE, COHEN, CURRY, MURT, M. O'BRIEN, PAYTON, PERZEL, SABATINA, J. TAYLOR, BENNINGHOFF, BRENNAN, CALTAGIRONE, CONKLIN, DALEY, DALLY, DePASQUALE, DiGIROLAMO, FLECK, GEORGE, HARKINS, HELM, KORTZ, MANDERINO, MILLARD, PASHINSKI, REICHLEY, ROEBUCK, SAINATO, SEIP, SHAPIRO, SIPTROTH, STABACK, VEREB AND WALKO, AUGUST 18, 2009
INTRODUCED AS NONCONTROVERSIAL RESOLUTION UNDER RULE 35, AUGUST 18, 2009
A RESOLUTION
Honoring the 75th anniversary of the Northeast Times newspaper
and its contributions to the people of northeast
Philadelphia.
WHEREAS, The Northeast Times has been a staple of news and
information to northeast Philadelphia for 75 years; and
WHEREAS, The Northeast Times began as the Mayfair Times,
started by Richard Thorpe Lawson in the winter of 1934 while
still a journalism student at Temple University; and
WHEREAS, Lawson invested his own savings and some bank loans
into secondhand equipment, including a linotype machine and
small press, and began the Mayfair Times as a one-man operation,
gathering community news, selling advertising, printing the
paper and distributing copies around the neighborhood; and
WHEREAS, Lawson eventually printed the Mayfair Times from a
narrow, three-story masonry building dating from the 1850s in
neighboring Holmesburg until 1991; and
WHEREAS, The Mayfair Times began expanding its scope in the
1950s to include distribution into the established row house
neighborhoods of the lower northeast; and
WHEREAS, During the 1950s and 1960s, the Mayfair Times
expanded into other neighborhoods, including Frankford, Tacony
and Holmesburg, enabling Lawson to build a small news-gathering
staff; and
WHEREAS, When Lawson passed away in 1961, his business-savvy
wife, Eleanor Smylie, continued the success of her late husband,
seeing the Mayfair Times through a significant growth spurt
during the 1980s, including a workforce growth to nearly 100
employees, a move to computer technology, geographic expansion
to Somerton, Bustleton and Parkwood neighborhoods, a
reformatting to a smaller tabloid style and a decision to call
the paper the Northeast Times to reflect its broadening reach as
the paper of record; and
WHEREAS, Smylie's work, along with that of her two sons,
Robert and Tim Smylie, expanded the paper to a true northeast
newspaper with eight zoned editions and a combined weekly
circulation of nearly 110,000; and
WHEREAS, The Smylie family's expansions included the
acquisition of the Bucks County chain of shopper publications
that became the Midweek and today is known as The Trend and the
emergence of a parent media company, ProMedia, incorporated by
the Smylies to encompass the Northeast Times, Midweek and future
acquisitions and efforts devoted to expanding into new zones in
Montgomery County and other regions of Pennsylvania and southern
New Jersey; and
WHEREAS, When Eleanor Smylie passed away in 1998, the
family's 65-year ownership of the Northeast Times came to an end
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in February 1999 with the sale of the company to Philadelphia
Newspapers Inc., a Knight-Ridder subsidiary that published The
Philadelphia Inquirer and The Daily News; and
WHEREAS, In 2006, under the pressures of a changing newspaper
industry, Knight-Ridder was sold to Brian Tierney, a native of
the region, thereby returning the Northeast Times to local
ownership and safeguarding the legacy of a valued northeast
newspaper that was started in such modest fashion 75 years ago;
therefore be it
RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives honor the 75th
anniversary of the Northeast Times for its invaluable
contribution in reporting news and disseminating local
information to the people of northeast Philadelphia.
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