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Don't look for any of them today. They're all gone. Chester now has just one independently owned pharmacy -- Burman's at 21st and Edgmont Ave.
Twenty have disappeared since 1965, places like Bullock's at 8th and Fulton, Al Brown's Chester Arms Pharmacy at 3rd and Edgmont, the Harris Pharmacy at 2nd and Central, Central Drug at 24th and Madison.
What's happening? According to Harvey Burman, who recently turned his business over to son Stephen, two culprits have made the friendly neighborhood pharmacy as dead as the dodo bird.
"Between the HMOs and the conglomerates - Rite Aid, Walgreen's, CVS, Eckerd - the little guy doesn't have a chance," he said. "The HMOs tell you what you can charge for a prescription. What do you think we make on a $75-'script? We're lucky to clear four or five dollars. Twenty dollar 'script? Maybe a couple of bucks.
"Forget about the out front business. We can't compete with the conglomerates. We used to sell 500 cartons of cigarettes a week. Now I wonder if we should even stock aspirin."
One reason Burman has stayed in business as long as he has is that he has inherited some of the moxie that made his father, the late Bobby Burman, a legendary boxing figure.
"In some ways I'm like my father," he said. "I wanted to still be standing when the final bell sounded. I wanted to out-last the others, to be the last pharmacist in Chester so I could pat myself on the back for surviving."
Bobby Burman went into the newspaper business when he was 6 years old, one of 11 kids living in a Philadelphia rowhouse, and never got out.
"I never had a chance to play baseball at Chester High," Harvey said. "Every day at 3 o'clock I had to go to the shipyard to sell papers. Hundreds and hundreds of newspapers. Dad would give me 10 or 15 bucks a week.
"My Dad was hard on me, but he never lifted a hand. Maybe because he was a boxer and was afraid he'd really hurt me. If I needed a smack, my mother would oblige. I couldn't even complain. If I did, Dad, remembering his childhood, would just say, 'Poor boy..you poor boy.'"
Harvey sold enough newspapers as a kid to realize he never wanted to sell another one. Luckily, he had an inspirational science teacher at Chester High, Dr. James Rose, and he decided to become a pharmacist.
"Pharmacy college was only four years then, it's six years now," he said. "My first good job was with Mel Hausman on Fairview Road. Worked there for seven years."
Harvey claims he was fairly strict with his three college-educated sons "but nothing like my father."
In addition to the store at 21st and Edgmont, Stephen, 40, also operates Home Health Care, Inc., in Brookhaven. Martin, 32, owns the Natural Foods LTD, also in Brookhaven. Dave, 43, is a disc jockey in western Virginia.
"Guess who's the happiest?" Harvey said with a grin. "That's right. David, the disc jockey."
Harvey is partially retired now, limiting his working time to three hours a day. It's a far cry from when he took his life savings of $1,000 and opened his first store at 24th and Madison, 35 years ago.
"I worked 13 hours a day - 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. - seven days a week," he said. "We all did back then."
He purchased the 21st Street operation, just two blocks from his boyhood home at 203 E. 22nd, from Les Zeitz 22 years ago.
Why has he lasted when so many others have failed?
"I just followed my father's advice," he said. "Forget everything else. Just take care of your customers."
Ed Gebhart is a retired public relations executive. His column appears Sunday and Friday.
