Photos by John Beale ~ Story by Bob Batz Jr.

	"It's a nice little store, really," says Carmella Ferraro, a part-time worker at H & H Fish and Poultry for 33 years. Click photo for larger image.

Tucked into a skinny storefront on a one-way side street in what's left of downtown McKeesport, in the shadow of the blue onion domes of Holy Virgin Dormition Russian Orthodox Church, is a shop straight out of the old days:

The H & H Fish and Poultry Market.

Unless you're a regular, or at least a local, you've likely never heard of it. But it's been here since the 1920s. It's hardly changed.

The sign still is book-ended by the sailing ship logos of Silver Sea Seafood. Taped to the front window are hand-written signs: "Black Bass is in! $6.49 lb." and "Chicken Fritters 55? each."

Inside, the tin-ceilinged room is dominated by two white porcelain coolers, massive as train cars, filled with ice and fish, from croakers to tilapia, plus chicken wings and salads and "Don't Forget Your Homemade Sweet Potato Pie! Only $1.37 Each!" Up front, there's a hot case for fragrant fish fillets and smelts and other foods cooked in the deep fryers behind it.

	Click photo for larger image.

On the fish-decorated back wall, an ancient clock tells you not only the time but also: "Eat More Fish."

It wouldn't take much to make this a setting for a 1930s movie. In fact, it was, with very little dressing up, for "Becoming Rachel," an independent film premiering at the Jewish Israeli Film Festival that begins at the end of this month.

H & H, named for the Harrison and son who started it, has had only two owners since. The most recent, when he took over a little over a year ago, put up fresh fish wallpaper and paint but didn't mess with the fixtures, such as Carmella Ferraro.

She's worked here for 33 years but remembers as if it was yesterday when the store manager called out of the blue to offer her a job. She was at home in nearby Port Vue, ironing clothes. "I said, 'I don't know nothing about fish.'"

Indeed, while learning to clean fish, she cut one open to find a fish in its stomach and said, "It's pregnant." A co-worker explained that fish like to eat fish, too.

After a few years, Carmella moved to the front window to cook, and she's been there since, three days a week, bubbling along with the deep fryers.

"What's yours, honey?" she asks a customers during the lunch rush. Business people and laborers -- everybody squeezes in. Most seem to be on a first-name basis with Carmella, whose fish-bowl position has lead to her being recognized as far away as Atlantic City.

Roxanna Marshall asks, "You got any perch?" She has shopped here since she was -- well, she holds her hand to signify knee-high. "I remember being a little girl coming here," she says. "And they had chickens in the back." Live ones. At least, temporarily live ones. That was before even Carmella's time.

The busiest days here still are Fridays, especially during Lent, when customers have to take a number and line up out the door.

These days, the fish arrive already cleaned. But the shop still carries old-fashioned specialties such as blind robins (smoked ocean herring).

In this age of big box stores, H & H is more than a throwback. Just enjoy the warmth as Carmella serves up one of the day's two soups and asks, "Do you like the flat crackers or the oysters?"

	Taking an order over the phone becomes a team effort for, from left, Carmella Ferraro, Elaine Herlehy and Cathy Callahan at H&H Fish and Poultry. Click photo for larger image.