BOSCOV ON A READING REVIVAL Retail leader says the city can be renewed, and the blueprint includes housing, education and the arts.

admin//September 23, 2013

admin//September 23, 2013//

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Retail giant Albert R. Boscov had a role model in his father.

The son now serves as a role model and a catalyst in helping to revitalize his native Reading – a rapidly changing and diverse city that is struggling with unemployment, blight and a reputation for crime.

But, Boscov said, the city can and will be renewed if jobs, housing, education, arts and recreation become key priorities for its people and businesses.

“We can win that battle and it won’t take forever,” he said.

Boscov, chairman and CEO of the multibillion dollar Boscov’s department store chain, looked to the future of Reading recently at Alvernia University in the city. The gathering was the first in a series of guest speakers aptly named “Leaders, Legends and Visionaries” to help young leaders and emerging leaders and give them training to develop, support and connect with the community – through the university’s O’Pake Institute for Ethics, Leadership and Community Service.

Boscov welcomed some of the guests with his signature double handshake and a knowing smile as he took the stage in a living room format designed to make visitors feel comfortable about asking questions.

Event moderator R. David Myers, founding director of the O’Pake Institute named after the late state Sen. Michael O’Pake, was to ask Boscov questions, but not before the retail giant playfully tried to take Myers’ folder with notes and questions for the interview, which was met with laughter from the crowd.

“Certainly I had a role model; it was my father,” Boscov said. “Everybody had to say that he was an amazing man, an immigrant, but such a nice person, unbelievably nice person, that we always wanted to be near him.”

Sunday was the Reading businessman’s 84th birthday, and he still reflects on the first job his father gave him when he was only 6.

His father would give young Albert 10 cents for each fly he could catch in the era of screen doors and before air conditioning. It was money he was allowed to spend at the movie theater each Sunday.