Hoagies revisited

[Laurence Horn]

 From last Wednesday's NYT Living section cover story on food in
Philadelphia, a.k.a. "Singapore on the Delaware":

=====================
The New York Times
May 28, 2003, Wednesday, Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section F; Page 1; Column 1; Dining In, Dining Out/Style Desk

HEADLINE: A TASTE OF PHILADELPHIA;
  In Hoagieland, They Accept No Substitutes

  BYLINE:  By R. W. APPLE Jr.

  DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA
...
  According to those who have explored the murky recesses of local
food history, hoagies owe their name to the Hog Island shipyard on
the Delaware River. During the Depression, or so the story goes,
construction workers there used to buy Italian sandwiches from a
luncheonette operated by one Al DePalma, who called them "hoggies."
Time changed the name to hoagies.

  Hoagies are not fundamentally different from New York's heroes or
Boston's grinders or Everytown's submarines. Call them what you like,
but Philadelphia must eat more per capita than anyplace else, and in
a city where almost everybody, including Wawa convenience stores,
fills eight-inch-long bread rolls with cold cuts, South Philadelphia
fills them better than anyone.

  The bread is the key to quality. So who better to make a great
hoagie than a great bakery? That would be Sarcone's, a fixture on
Ninth Street, which a few years ago opened a tiny deli a few doors
away. Its Old Fashioned Italian (Gourmet) hoagie is a minor
masterpiece. A roll with a crunchy seeded crust and a soft, yet
densely chewy, interior provides a solid base with plenty of
absorptive power. Both are sorely needed after they pile on the
prosciutto, coppa, spicy sopressata, provolone, oregano, tomatoes,
onions, hot peppers, oil and vinegar.

...
==================================

Well, Sarcone's hoagies sound great, even though the etymology may be
a bit suspect.  I can't remember what we had for this, if anything.
AHD4 gives "alteration of _hoggy_"  Various online resources have
various suggestions, including some that concur with Apple's:
===========
Hoagie came from the name of a shipyard along the East coast that
made submarines for WWII and so the long "subs" in that region became
hoagies.
==========
Interestingly, one such internet source is a paper of Labov's, in
which he (oops, looks like a possessive antecedent!) comments
==========
The sandwich called hoagie originated in Philadelphia in sandwich and
ice cream shops, along with the Philadelphia steak sandwich or
cheesesteak. Early telephone listings show that it became generalized
in Philadelphia shortly after World War I, as shown in Table 4. The
various
spellings have been cited many times by those searching for the
etymology of this term, but it is evident that by 1955, it had become
focused on hoagie or hoagy.

Is there anyone on the list who can come up with evidence for an
actual etymology?  Just curious.  (The article also mentions the
existence of a "Vietnamese hoagie" but doesn't provide a list of
ingredients.)

Larry