Coming into West Chester on Route 202 from Route 1, there is Jimmy John's Pipin' Hot Sandwiches, a roadside staple for the area, countless car dealerships, shopping centers and plenty of traffic lights. It's easy to not notice any of them, except the traffic lights, of course. But if you slow down and take a look, you might notice another landmark tucked off of the side of the northbound lanes, just next door to Jimmy John's — Tony Polito's Barber Shop.
When you take your first step into the barbershop, the first things you notice are the barber chairs, Polito and the military memorabilia he has collected over the years.
And then your eyes start to wander. There is a lot to see. Not only the memorabilia that include pieces from World War I through the present day, but also pictures. Lots and lots of pictures.
Polito, who has lived his entire life in West Chester, will celebrate 50 years of being a barber on Nov. 13. Odds are you've seen some of his more famous customers — Ernest Borgnine, Bill Guarnere (a World War II soldier brought to fame in the HBO series "Band of Brothers"), Vic Mills, who invented disposable diapers that you would know as Pampers, and Bill Bergey, who played for the Philadelphia Eagles.
Although Polito enjoys being a barber, which you'd assume since he's been doing it for half a century, he chose it as a career because "it got me out of the grocery store," Polito joked.
Polito's parents owned a grocery store in West Chester and he knew he didn't want to work there for the rest of his life. Through a friend and a relative, becoming a barber was suggested. And on Oct. 1, 1959, he received his barber's license. Not too long after he got his first job at a barbershop in what would eventually become the shopping center at the intersection of Route 202 and Route 1 — before it was developed.
Then, 30 years ago, he bought the shop next to Jimmy John's and he's been there ever since, never taking a week's vacation, he said, but relying on three- and four-day weekends, with the exceptions of getting sick and being in the hospital. From 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, Polito said, "(I) just go to work."
And the changes that 68-year-old Polito witnessed: Remember when Route 202 was a two-lane road? Polito does. Remember when Route 202 was bordered by farmland and not shopping centers and car dealerships? Polito does.
"We went from a farming community to an urban community," Polito said, adding that most of his customers used to be farmers who would come into his shop after working their farms or those stopping in after working at local factories. "The biggest part of your business was after (everyone else finished) work." Now, customers come in all day, throughout the day.
Even though the business has changed, most of his customers have not. For some families he's been the barber for five generations of family members and his oldest customer is 102.
In 50 years he's seen the barber business bloom, almost die out and rebloom. He's seen the short hairstyles of the '40s and '50s give way to the longer styles of the late '60s and '70s and eventually return to the shorter styles. "The hair trends," Polito said, "there have been a few changes."
Polito gives what he calls the businessman haircuts, those that are shorter and clean and not stylized, unlike what you would get at a salon. Using scissors, which is the old-fashioned way, Polito said, instead of clippers and numbered guards. "I don't cut by number 'cause you wouldn't ask Andrew Wyeth to paint by number," he said. Cutting hair to Polito is a talent and takes a special touch.
And he's seen shaves go away almost entirely. You could do two haircuts in the time it took to complete one shave, "so it faded out," he said.
As styles and fads came and went, Polito's military memorabilia only came in. Although Polito has been a part-time state constable for 18 years and would've liked to have been a Pennsylvania state trooper, he's been blind in one eye since suffering an injury when he was 9 years old. Polito, with respect to those that serve in the military, has collected items related to the military and law enforcement for decades, like a military-issued coat that was donated by a local family that belonged to a bomber pilot who died in World War II.
The pilot's mother didn't know what to do with the coat and it ended up in the barbershop. Along with clothes there are helmets, boots and all sorts of other items. "I'd hate to throw it away," Polito said.
Over the years, "the big thing is the people you meet," said Polito, who doesn't plan on stopping anytime soon. People stop in for haircuts and to just sit around and catch up, "there's always something interesting going on here," he said.
But, Polito said, after 50 years, "I keep threatening to take some time off and go somewhere."
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Information from: Daily Local News, http://www.dailylocal.com