Reader Rob sent us a couple of photos. He says this Eagles RV is currently parked in the Hershey area and “has not moved in years” –
Rob writes, “dude, it’s been there for years ever since the restaurant closed that’s sitting there. No one knows anything about it though.” I wrote him back to see if he had more information, but in the meantime we were able to do some Big J journalism and discover that the location is Main Street Hummelstown, across the street from an ice cream joint called “Cubby’s.” There is a doctor’s office on the other corner and a credit union next to a Subway restaurant if you go diagonally in the other direction.
Looking through Google’s satellite imagery, sure enough, the Eagles RV is just sitting right there:
“Gas Station Kitchen and Bar” is the name of the restaurant, which shut down in 2016, according to a Penn Live article written by Sue Gleiter. Looks like the operators were evicted back then and owed $30,000 in rent, then an $11,000 settlement was awarded. The property owner, at the time, was listed as a guy named Natale Amato, who runs another place in town called Jo Jo’s Pizza. I wasn’t able to get in touch with him, but talked to a someone at a neighboring business who says the RV has been sitting there for as long as they can remember, but nobody seems to know when it first showed up on the property or who it belongs to.
Meantime, what a beauty this RV is. Straight out of 2002? You’ve got the Donovan McNabb and Brian Westbrook pictures with “Hall of Fame” “written between them. There are pink breast cancer awareness ribbons complementing the Eagles logo and there is a damaged wheel well above the back-left tire. The person who owns this RV definitely has some stories to tell. They absolutely saw 4th and 26 in person. They know all about Freddie Mitchell and his hands. We need to track them down for an exclusive interview. Who detailed this RV and why is it now sitting in the parking lot of closed restaurant?
If you live in the Hershey/Hummelstown/Harrisburg area and you have information, email me at [email protected]. I’ll continue sleuthing and making important phone calls. If we can’t get the mystery solved, I’ll take a take a day next week and drive my ass out there and start knocking on doors. Shoe leather journalism, they call it. Go Birds.
UPDATE 7/21 –
Okay we have solved the mystery, which wasn’t much of a mystery at all. Funny enough, we got like 50 emails about this (thank you), and there were a bunch of people who similarly said they’ve never seen the RV move and have no idea when it showed up.
But – the RV is indeed owned by Natale Amato, along with four friends, who have been season ticket holders since 2003 and started going to Eagles games in the 1990s. Amato...