Category:601 Hamilton Building, Allentown, Pennsylvania

The northwest corner of Sixth and Hamilton Streets (601-603 Hamilton) has been the location to two buildings.

Kramer Building

In 1878 the Kramer building was built in 1878 by George N and Milton A Kramer. Milton being the great-grandfather of Fred F Kramer, who operated Kramer's Music House at 544 Hamilton Street. It was a four-story brick and steel structure that had a frontage on Hamilton of about 35 feet and along North Sixth for about 40 feet. When opened, the ground floor of the store was the home of Kramer & Co, a dry goods and grocery store operated by George and Louisa Kramer. Kramer & Co went out of buisness in 1884; George Kramer died in 1890. The corner also contained the Rhue Building at 10-12 North Sixth. The Kramer and Rhue buildings were later flanked on each side by the Zollinger-Harned Department Store.

Over the years, the Kramer and Rhue Buildings were homes of various businesses on the main floor, with various professional offices on the upper floors. In 1939 the sixty-year old bu8lding was planned to be replaced with a modern two-story structure, however financing issues and later World War II put the project on the shelf for about a decade.

Mussleman Building

In 1947, plans were drawn up and the tenants wee moved out when the Kramer building was "reconstructed". The third and fourth floors were removed, and the first two floors wee stripped down to its steel frame. The steel frame was rebuilt into a modernistic two-story structure along with the adjoining Rhue Building. The new building opened in the summer of 1948 with eight offices on the second floor and space for two businesses on the main floor. The basement, at Eight North Sixth Street was also available for a business.

In the decades later, the renovated building was used for many businesses, including Speedy's Record Shop and Claude's Tobacco Shop in the basement, both of which were tenants for decades. Speedy's had been founded in the early 1940s, and had moved several times before establishing itself in the mid 1950s in the new Kramer building it sold records, 8-tracks and cassette tapes, the largest such store in Allentown. Speedy's moved out in the late 1980s and eventualy wound up at 1001 Union Boulevard in 1994, remaining open until 2008 when it finally closed due to the retirement of its owner

Claude's Tobacco Shop was a re-opening of the S&T Cigar Store which opened in 1932. The S&T store moved to its other location at 957 Hamilton Street during the 1947 reconstruction, and Claude's opened in its place in the basement of the new building at 8 North Sixth Street. Owned by Claude Himmelwright. Claude's was where you could buy fine and imported tobacco products, and also sold magazines and various out of town newspapers. Claude's was the only retail merchant in the city where you could buy Billboard and Rolling Stone in the 1960s and 1970s along with various adult magazines such as Penthouse and Playboy. In the rear of Claude's was a pool room.

The Spot Lunch, opened in 1943 and formerly located at 601 1/2 Hamilton the Kramer Building moved to the new Rhue Building on Sixth.

In 1980 the building was purchased by James Mussleman, owner of Mussleman Advertising and a local artist and art teacher. He renovated the building into the James Mussleman Art Development Center which it remains today.