'You are right in the middle of it': Vendors hawk Erie-themed wares for the solar eclipse
The sun, the moon and T-shirt vendors: Each is a sure thing for the total eclipse in Erie.
As locals and out-of-towners drove about the city on Monday to prepare for the celestial event, they likely passed a vendor selling T-shirts and other memorabilia to mark the occasion.
Business was steady for John Bellis, a vendor from Grove City who was hawking his wares on the northeastern corner of West 12th Street and Pittsburgh Avenue, in a parking lot for a Family Dollar store. He had been there over the weekend, selling T-shirts ($25), hats ($20), glasses ($5) and stickers (three for $10).
"Saturday it picked up," Bellis said shortly before 11:30 a.m. "Yesterday it was busy. Today, I think it will pick up substantially soon."
Bellis was also optimistic that the cloudy weather that was hanging around Erie would break by the time the total eclipse took place between 3:16 p.m. and 3:20 p.m.
"It is a bummer," Bellis said of the less-than-clear sky.
Despite the clouds, customers started showing up.
They included two people from Erie and another pair from the Poconos. The latter bought merchandise while heading to what one of the customers, a woman who gave her name as Elena, said was "the island," meaning Presque Isle State Park. She said she wanted to watch the eclipse on the beach, and wanted a T-shirt to prove she was there.
"I am always up for a road trip," she said. "Wherever I go I get a T-shirt."
Bellis, 38, is with Ithen Global LLC, a group that he said had four vendors in Erie for the eclipse. Bellis said he has a day job as a T-shirt silk screener, but enjoys vending as a way to make extra money, meet people and to be part of something big.
"Whatever the major event is, you are right in the middle of it," Bellis said. "If something major happens, you are right there."
Bellis is a veteran of celestial phenomena. He set up shop in October 2023 in Corpus Christ, Texas, for the annular solar eclipse over Texas on Oct. 14, 2023. That event was called the "ring of fire eclipse," for how the sun looked when the moon nearly covered it, leaving the sun's outer edge visible.
Monday's total eclipse is an even bigger event.
Bellis said his hottest seller has been a localized T-shirt. It features a map of Erie — the only Pennsylvania city in the "path of totality" — along with the lines "Total solar eclipse" and "I witnessed it in Erie, PA."
"Everybody," Bellis said of the T-shirt, "likes that it says Erie, PA."
Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com. Follow him on X @ETNpalattella.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Vendors hawk Erie-themed wares as eclipse offers shining opportunity
