Jeweler sticks with neighborhood, dies after shoot-out during robbery

Bill Glatz refused to abandon his Philadelphia roots.

His father opened the family's first jewelry store on Rising Sun Avenue in the Northeast more than 60 years ago, and even as the neighborhood changed around him, Glatz continued to be an unabashed booster.

Even when most of the old family businesses closed or moved from the city, giving way to the next wave of immigrants, Glatz stayed.

Even when others complained about rising crime and urged him to leave, Glatz remained a fixture on "the Avenue."

"I think everyone saw the neighborhood changing, but he wanted to hang in," said Charlie McKeown, whose family used to own a deli and beer distributor nearby. "This is where his dad and mom had been."

On Thursday morning, police said, two armed robbers walked into the iconic William Glatz Jewelers. They exchanged gunfire with at least two employees.

Police said "numerous rounds" were fired in the small store, in the 6400 block of Rising Sun Avenue. When it was over, one of the men lay dead on the floor, and Glatz was being rushed to Albert Einstein Medical Center. The second suspect escaped and remains at large, police said.

Glatz, 67, was declared dead at the hospital.

"I've been going to him for 27 years. He was the nicest man," said Dorothy Dignetti, standing behind the crime-scene tape. "I'm so heartbroken. I feel so bad for his family."

Across the street, at Safes Unlimited, owner Sal LaValle said he recently had a long discussion with Glatz, his friend for 35 years. He said Glatz "had it in his heart to leave," but couldn't bring himself to do it.

"He was too attached to the Avenue, but all the people he was attached to aren't here anymore," said LaValle, at times fighting back his emotions. "The turnaround has been crazy. Every year or two."

LaValle ticked off a long list of crimes that have plagued the Avenue, a commercial corridor between Robbins Avenue and Martins Mill Road, in recent years.

He said the bank had been robbed several times, a store owner was pistol-whipped, and two people were killed during a stickup at a Chinese restaurant in 2004.

"I don't hide it - I'm armed," said LaValle, a trace of his native Sicily in his accent. Glatz "kept saying, 'I don't want to hurt anybody.' "

Police would not say if Glatz was one of the store "employees" who fired at the suspected robbers, but most people in the neighborhood assumed he was.

The dead suspect was not identified Thursday. His suspected accomplice, described as a thin black man in his 20s or 30s, fled empty-handed along Passmore Street and may have gotten into a car there, police said.

The store's security cameras captured the shoot-out, which happened about 10:50 a.m. Police said they believe the would-be robbers had visited the jewelers before to case the business.

The store was opened by William Glatz Sr., a man known for his kindness and the painstaking care he took fixing the neighborhood's watches and clocks. Customers often were greeted with the soft murmur of cuckoo clocks, which Glatz Sr. bought during trips to his native Germany. Glatz Sr. died in 1990.

The family opened a second shop in Jamison, Bucks County, that was run by Bill Glatz's wife, but the Glatzes were highly regarded for their loyalty to their Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood.

Driving to work on Thursday morning, Bill Gross saw Glatz opening his store, a comforting sight.

Gross said that his parents bought their wedding bands there in 1971, and that his grandfather did some minor repair work for the Glatz family in the 1950s and '60s. Gross has a Glatz clock hanging on his wall.

"Their jewelry and service were always top-notch, and they still hold true to that status," Gross said. "Glatz was the jeweler to go to in the neighborhood."

Around Halloween, Glatz also was one of the prime spots for children to trick or treat. The store would be "packed with kids," said McKeown, now a commissioner in Cheltenham Township.

He said that the neighborhood was "always a great place to live," and that his family never had problems with crime when they owned their beer distributor.

Glatz, he said, was "meek and mild. Just a great guy."

But in the hours after Glatz's death, LaValle said he planned to move his business out of the city. Back in the late 1980s, he moved to Glenside for about two years.

"People begged me to come back, and Bill was one of them," he said. " 'We need you here, we need you here.' "

LaValle returned to the Avenue in 1989.

"It was the biggest mistake of my life."