99 Years Ago in Philadelphia: Middle of February, 1916

UPenn to Build Big Motherfucking Stadium!!

Its not the one you think. North is to the right on this plan, btw. Image from the Library of Congress

          In 1916, Philadelphians and UPenn officials were feeling pretty snubbed due to the Army Navy game going to NYC instead of Philly because there wasn't a stadium big enough to hold it. Sure, the University got some really bad land very very cheap from the U.S. Military to build their own Franklin Field in 1895, but that piece of shit was at the time only designed for 19,000 people and at times stuffed in 32,000.
         University officials, led by one George Neitzche, got their shit together with city to build not just a new stadium, but a giganto-fucking huge one. After all, plans for a Grand Assembly Centre in Fairmount Park had fallen through and the sesquicentennial was still 10 years away. With this new gigantic stadium would not only lock in the Army Navy game, but might even be able to get the Olympics!
        The site for this new $750,000, 100,000-seat stadium would be Woodland Ravine, a forgotten piece of geography that was a depression on the southeastern side of Woodland Cemetery. This would be the perfect place to have a half-sunken stadium. Along with it would come a sunken Greek Theatre(which was proposed for the ravine 6 months earlier), an educational building, and a new dormitory building. UPenn's Botanical Garden of the era would be extended into the stadium grounds. A new train station called Union Station would feature a Pennsylvania Railroad stop AND a stop on a proposed elevated subway line connected to the current MFL that was never built. Cars could reach the new complex from the newly-built University Avenue (which was in a slightly different location at the time) and a proposed Franklin Boulevard, a Parkway meant to connect UPenn with Fairmount Park via 500-foot-wide street running in the area in between 33rd and 34th Streets.
       Preliminary plans were put together by a flash-in-the-pan architecture firm named Koronski & Cameron and the rendering, seen above, was passed all over town and were published in newspapers all across the country. This was going to be a big fucking deal!!
       As it ends up, the huge stadium plan started fizzling almost immediately. About a week after first proposed, the 100,000-seater became a 75,000-seater. About five years later, it was decided that an expansion of Franklin Field would be more prudent, and the stadium that's still there today is the result. Despite the massive success of Franklin Field, its most well-known and oft-cited event is the 1968 booing of Santa Claus.
       The Woodland Ravine ended up becoming the site of the Philadelphia VA Medical Center in 1950. The huge and exceedingly dangerous intersection of University Avenue and Civic Center Boulevard now stands at the location of where the stadium would have been.

The Mystery of the "Masked Widow" Makes Philly Go Nuts

Image from the Library of Congress

           In the Middle of February, 1916, a mysterious woman arrived in Philadelphia by train wearing a white mask. She walked the streets, stopped traffic and caused a crowd of onlookers to hold up the sidewalk. She had a "svelte" frame, blond hair, blue eyes, and spoke like a rich socialite. She claimed that her name was Dorothy Kensington and that she had just returned to America from London.
         She explained that she had met a poor but fine British Lieutenant in England while her rich family was visiting and married him against her father's wishes. He was killed a year before in the Second Battle of Ypres and Mrs. Kensington had finally gotten up the gumption to return to Philadelphia. She wore a mask to conceal herself from the other Philadelphia blue bloods so as not to shame her family. She first tried to book a room at the Bellevue-Stratford but was turned away because the mask and the crowd it generated were seen as bad mojo for the hotel. She then tried the Hotel Majestic at Broad and Girard but was rejected there as well. Word spread quicky of this hot chick walking around in a mask and the fairly new Hotel Adelphia though it would be a good idea to give her a room so they could get their name out there.
       Her and the man who said she was her brother stayed there for one night before making their way over to the Continental Hotel. By this point, everyone in the city knew about the Masked Widow and their 4 block walk from 12th/Chestnut to 8th/Chestnut was almost a goddamn riot. The brother and sister announced that they were low on money and would take any job. Dorothy noted that she would be a maid or work in a mill if she had to, but then went about demonstrating her great singing voice. This led some to believe that she was an actress and that this might be a publicity stunt for an upcoming play.
        A few days later, news had spread to other cities about the Masked Widow, and by the end of the week she was doing interviews with New York papers and had been signed by a vaudeville theater manager in Boston.
       Of course, Boston is exactly where she wanted to go. It ends up that the Masked Widow was a young debutant from Boston named Alice Crowley. After missing appointments with her violin/acting/singing coach, she wagered with him that she was talented enough to get a job without further instruction and that she could make herself famous enough within a month to secure herself a job. She donned the mask, made up the widow story, and hopped a train to Philadelphia with her manager so she could enact the plan. Philadelphia was chosen because, well, she figured Philadelphians were stupid enough to fall for her gag. It worked, but backfired. After about 7 or 8 nights of working as a singer, she became overwhelmed by vaudeville work and quit.
      She ended up penning her entire story for the Boston Sunday Post in March, where it was finally revealed publicly who the mysterious Masked Widow was.

George Washington Vs. Chinatown: the Final Battle

        An old bum who called himself George Washington stumbled his way into Chinatown while taking a walk away from his usual Skid Row haunts. Some local Chinatown residents stood at their doorways, observing George for the specimen of homelessness that he was. George responded by walking up to their doorways and staring right back at them. The first "Celestials" to whom he did this kicked his ass and threw him into the middle of the street. Undeterred, George got up and continued on his Chinatown tour.
        Now untrustworthy of groups of Chinese immigrants, the drunken George Washington then approached such a group he saw that was staring at him and talking amongst themselves. Washington figured they must be plotting against him. George pushed them all down onto the street, which seemed to be a successful preemptive measure until they stood up and proceeded to kick his ass.
       Washington then pulled off one of his boots and threw it at one of his attackers. He missed and hit a rich fellow, no doubt a descendant of one of the remaining rich families that inhabited what is now Chinatown in the mid 19th Century,  right in the top hat. The rich dude turned around, cleared some of his Chinese neighbors out of the way, and beat the living shit out of George Washington with his cane. This got the attention of Policeman Burgess, who then led the bleeding and bootless George Washington to the 11th and Winter Streets station (now the site of the 6th District police station). Magistrate Collins, after hearing the story, made a deal with Washington. He could either go to prison or be exonerated of all charges if he was able to run back to Skid Row in five minutes. Old George chose the latter.

Behold the Camden Viaduct!

Image from the Library of Congress

             Its finally going to happen. The Philadelphia-Camden Bridge, proposed about 7 times in different forms over a 100 year period may actually come to fruition. In mid-February, 1916, the Philadelphia end of the Philadelphia-Camden Bridge Commission was voted for approval by City Council, the Jersey half of the deal already authorized a few weeks earlier. City Council was busy that week-- they also approved funding for the Free Library of Philadelphia and the Parkway version of Convention Hall that was never built. This commission replaced the Penn Memorial Bridge Commission that was formed in 1913.
          The new $20,000,000 bridge, called both the Camden Viaduct and the Philadelphia-Camden Bridge, had a brand new design by Walter Williams Shipley, modified from one that was rejected a few years before. This one was a double-decked cantilever steel bridge that would span across the Delaware a distance of 1,970 while flying 150 feet high. It would connect between 6th and Market in Philly with 7th and Cooper in Camden. The new bridge would also have a truck/dray(freight) deck, trolley tracks,and a foot path. This thing was gonna kick ass!!
        While World War I held up progress on this awesome-looking bridge, the Philadelphia-Camden Bridge Commission argued for two years if the crossing should be a bridge or tunnel, only to re-affirm it to be a bridge in 1918. In 1919, the Delaware River Joint Bridge Commission was formed and work on the bridge, though of a completely different design by Rudolph Modjeski, and, after much discussion, at a different location than originally planned, began in 1922 and was completed in 1926. All these years later, the bridge still stands, named the Ben Franklin Bridge in 1956 and was painted blue in 1976.

99 Years Ago in Philadelphia: Start of February, 1916

Airplane Runway Planned For Roof of Bellevue-Stratford!!

               
               What the what!?!? In case you didn't know, the Bellevue-Stratford on Broad Street was in its day considered the most modern and luxurious hotel in America. Part of keeping that status is keeping up with the latest shit. In its early days, the Bellevue-Stratford was considered cutting edge because of its roof deck that had both dancing and alcohol in the same location (which was illegal in the city at the time).
                In the early teens, when the addition was built on the back and enclosed banquet halls replaced the old roof deck, two other hotels were being built in the city that were aiming to be more modern. The Ritz-Carlton (now UArts Terra Building/Miguel Corzo Center) and the Adelphia Hotel (now a crappy apartment building of the same name). The Ritz offered smoking rooms and the Adelphia offered an open-air roof deck. The Bellevue-Stratford needed something else to prove their superiority.
             In 1912 and 1913, an NYC construction guru named Theodore Starrett started going around saying that the "skyscraper of tomorrow" would include an airstrip or zeppelin dock so rich-ass visitors could fly directly to the roof of a building and be served with the highest of luxury. He even went about fantasizing how the reception rooms on the roofs of hotels and other buildings would become more luxurious than the street level ones because they wouldn't need huge columns everywhere.
            George Boldt, the guy who ran the place and the world's chief authority on hospitality, wanted the Bellevue-Stratford to be the forerunner on this new level of luxury. However, in 1913, no actual roof-to-roof airline was even in the works, so there was no reason to go to far with it. That is, until the end of 1915, when the New York-Philadelphia-Baltimore-Washington Line was created. Boldt immediately commissioned the short-lived architecture firm of Hewitt & Granger to design a 90' x 300' air strip that could be installed on the Bellevue-Stratford roof and in the beginning of February, 1916, it was announced to the public as something that would happen "in the coming months".
          Of course, old George was getting a little ahead of himself. The new roof-to-roof airline's existence was contingent upon an improvement of airplane technology and a guarantee that these roof landings would be 100% successful.
         Obviously, this whole rooftop airstrip thing never happened. George Boldt died later that year and the roof-to-roof airline went kaput shortly after it was formed. Everyone knows that the Empire State Building was supposed to have a Zeppelin dock on top, but that was mostly just an excuse to add an extra 200 feet to the building.
 
Principal says "Fuck You" to School District With Parent, Student Support

         William Sowden was principal of the Edwin H. Fitler school in Germantown for 18 years and was extremely well-liked by the community. Everything was going fine until the Board of Education voted to transfer him to the John Sartain School in Brewerytown. His replacement, a Miss Margaret L. Gill, was going to be given a much higher salary than the 18-year veteran principal was getting. This sent Sowden, parents, students, and the whole neighborhood into a bloody rage.
        They put together a petition first, gathering thousands of signatures begging the Board to stop the transfer. It didn't work. In the first week of February, 1916, Sowden reported for work at the Fitler School, leaving the Sartain School without a principal. Parents, students, and friends of Sowden protested at School District Headquarters while others tied up their phones all day with outrage. Six local pastors promised to dedicate their sermons that Sunday to the reinstatement of Sowden.
       The next day, all 500 students of the Fitler School went on strike. They started by picketing the school, hooting and hollering and holding up signs along with letters by their parents giving them permission to be absent that day. They then boarded a bunch of trolleys and made their way to the Board of Ed to make a ruckus there as well. The throng of kids, followed by their parents, then went into City Hall and made some noise. They did this all in support of "Pop" Sowden while sleet and snow fell on their little heads.

The early birds to the protest that morning.

                The protests went on for 2 more weeks and got supplemented by letters and petitions from civic, fraternal, industrial, and business associations. This led to a movement to change the school code so that the Board of Education of the city could be changed from an appointed group to an elected one. Both the effort to reinstate Sowden at Fitler and the attempt to change the school code were unsuccessful.
                To this day, 99 years later, there is still a push to make the Board of Education an elected body. The Fitler School is still in operation at the same building and is now called Fitler Academics Plus School, or FAPS, which is a hilarious acronym.

The Fitler School via Google Streetview

Cops May Be Forced To Move Back To The Hood!

         A few years ago, Captain Robert D. Cameron of the Philadelphia Police Department defied the rules and moved out of his ward. He was sick of being his ward leader's "stool pigeon" and "door-knocker". Other cops followed suit and it caused a big controversy until the newly appointed Director of Public Safety, George D. Porter, declared that police officers were no longer required to live in their districts.
        The cops and their families loved this for two reasons. One was that their wives and children no longer had to consort with criminal neighbors (especially in the Tenderloin) and the other was that the officers no longer had to act as muscle for the corrupt war leaders. They moved out to the outer reaches of the city where there were new houses and nice neighbors. The West Philadelphia neighborhoods of Angora, Cobb's Creek, and Haddington were some of the most desirable of the time.
        However, at the start of February, 1916, Captain Cameron retired. Somehow, this signaled to the rest of the force that an edict would soon be put forth to force the police to move back to their districts. Officers, their wives, and children all panicked. The officers were well aware of the riff raff they were dealing with every day and did not want to move back to the neighborhoods in which they worked. They were fearful of becoming the pawns of the local neighborhood kingpins. The wives weren't too keen on having their kids be witnesses to crime at all hours and having their fathers be neighborhood pariahs. The kids feared getting their asses kicked at school every day by the children of criminals their dads just locked up.
        In the end, no one was forced back into their working wards and everything was just fine. A few decades later, the whole living-outside-their-wards thing went too far and police started moving outside the city altogether. Eventually in 1953 a residency requirement was enacted to keep officers living in the city in which they serve. In 2012, this was eased up, allowing officers to move out of the city after five years on the job.

Catholics Try To Shut Down "Marie-Odile"

           At the start of February, 1916, the city's Catholic population was pissed off. David Belasco's production of the play "Marie-Odile" was about to come to the Adelphi Theater (now the site of the Convention Center Expansion) and was considered to be at such a level of degeneracy that it could not be allowed to go on. The play ran for five months at the director's own theater in NYC and then completely bombed in London before coming to Boston and then Philadelphia.
         The plot of the play involves the title character, Marie-Odile. She lived in a convent since she was born and knew no other life. The only men she had ever known were the old-ass parish priest and the even older gardener of the place. As an adult, she became a nun (naturally) right about the time some Persians invade. The others nuns evacuate the place but somehow she gets left behind. She meets the Uhlan Corporal and falls in love, thinking this guy is St. Michael. The Corporal gets down and dirty with Marie-Odile, taking advantage of her belief that he's a saint. The war is over a year later and the Corporal leaves the convent behind forever. Upon the return of the other nuns, Marie-Odile presents her baby to them, telling them that he is the miracle-born son of St. Michael. The nuns kick her the fuck out of the convent. End of play.
          Priests no doubt took advantage of the Feast of St. Blaise ritual(very popular back then) to spread the word. Every Catholic organization in town and some from across Pennsylvania wanted this play dead, complaining that it would lead young people to believe that nuns are not only stupid, but assholes too. They got Charles Lee, head of the Vice Squad in the Tenderloin to view the play, to which he laid down a resounding "meh". Director of Public Safety Wilson was then asked to see it, and he found nothing objectionable. A pissed off Catholic police Superintendent then saw it, ready to enumerate all the problems with it, but found very little to complain about.
        "Marie-Odile" lasted about a month or so in Philadelphia before moving up to Newark.

Outdoor ad for the play when it opened in Newark via Duke University Libraries Digital Collections

99 Years Ago in Philadelphia: End of January, 1916

Huge Gas Explosion in Point Breeze!

The dotted line indicates the direction of a flying manhole cover at 20th and Watkins.

             On an unusually warm winter morning near the end of January, 1916, a gas leak was detected around 20th and Morris Streets. The U.G.I. spent hours looking for the source of the leak, and then shit went bad. The gas ignited and rocked the block like nothing else. People were rocked out of their beds, windows shattered for 3 blocks around, and 150lb manhole covers flew up 40 feet. One landed on someone's marble steps and shattered them. Another blew a hole into the cornice of a corner building. Luckily, no one was killed and only one person was injured. A 300-pound Mrs. Holden was thrown out of her bed from the force of the blast and landed on her arm, fracturing it.
           Sadly enough, the whole gas explosion situation has not really changed. Nowadays, gas explosions still happen all the time in this city. Just last year, there was one a few blocks away from the one described here.

The same corner today via Google Streetview.

NIMBYs Go Nuts Opposing Saloon on 52nd Street

         Saloon owner P.J. Malone was tired of having to run his bar in what was then a shitty neighborhood (3rd and Arch) and wanted to move to the burgeoning commercial district found in the city's newest and nicest neighborhood, 52nd Street. He petitioned to move his saloon to the Northwest corner of 52nd and Larchwood, across the street from the new park created from the old Black Oak Woods (now Malcolm X Park).
        This sent the neighbors into a huge tizzy. They had moved over to this neighborhood to get away from the types of characters that would frequent this place! Not only that, it was very close to whqat was then one of the district's finest schools, Samuel B. Huey!

The old Huey School at 52nd and Pine before it was replaced with a shitty building from 1964. Pic from PhillyHistory.org

          The neighbors and local civic advocates had slated this area of 52nd street to be a "Church District" and were pissed off. These saloon NIMBYs were already successful in stopping one from opening at 52nd and Ranstead the year before, so their NIMBY powers were primed to take down another one. The fear, of course, was that 52nd Street would one day become a bad neighborhood. Some were already talking about the shady characters that have been hanging around the corridor ever since the Davenport Saloon at 52nd and Walton opened. The goal of many was to create a "neighborhood of sobriety" here.
          Church leaders, local suffragists, a whole mess of temperance movement groups, and even the owner of the Davenport Saloon opposed the new place. Eventually, the NIMBYs won and P.J. Malone was shit out of luck.
         As many of us know, efforts to keep the 52nd Street corridor from becoming a bad neighborhood, well, weren't quite as successful as those early residents had hoped. Today, the shitty 1964-built replacement of the Huey School has a Great Schools rating of 1 and has a perpetually unfinished mural along its Pine Street facade. Cousin Danny's Exotic Heaven stands even closer to the school than Malone's saloon would have. At least there's a church in between the two. Imagine what kind of stripper you would have to be to only be able to get work on 52nd Street in a club assembled from three D.F. McConnell Modern Porch Houses. I guess teachers at Huey could always point to the place and tell kids "You don't want to end up working at Cousin Danny's, do you!?!? Do your work!"

Huey school on the left, church in the middle, Cousin Danny's on the right. Google Streetview.

"Demented" Choir Boy Steals 10 Grand Worth of Loot From St. Mark's

           Over the course of 2 years, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, still located in their kickass building on the 1600 block of Locust Street, was losing items one by one. A rector at the church hatched a plan to cut a secret peephole in the wall of the choirroom to see who the thief was, and finally figured out that one of the choir boys, 16-year-old George F. Davis, was the one stealing all of these valuable objects. The police went up to his house at 2423 n. 23rd Street and searched the place, finding silken robes braided with golden thread, silver candlesticks, satin stoles, jeweled ornaments, a big-ass censer, and a bunch of other church shit wrapped in newspapers and tucked into little corners in the attic and basement.
          After the cops locked up George, folks started coming out of the woodwork in his support, stating that the boy's mind was impaired by "too much reading" and that he was suffering from a "religious mania". The kid was a Freshman at Central High, which back then meant he had a verified IQ of over 115, so he was no dummy, just "demented". Young Davis, when asked why he was stealing all this valuable shit priced at about $10,000, stated "I wanted to have church of my own where I could preach my own sermons".
          Magistrate Pennock didn't give a fuck about Davis' crazies and held him on a $600 bail, which was pretty high for the time. About six days later, the church chose not to press charges and were able to get their rich-ass parishioners like George Wharton Pepper to pay for him to be treated in a sanitorium. Magistrate Pennock was satisfied with this and let the boy go.

George's house where he stored all the loot via Google Streetview.

99 Years Ago in Philadelphia: Middle of December, 1915

Big Fucking Snowstorm Hits Philadelphia, Worse in Other Cities

Picture taken at the height of the storm, somewhere on Market just west of City Hall.

            On December 13, 1915, Philadelphia was hit with a huge, unexpected snow storm that had been predicted by weathermen to be nothing but slush. It started out as just a little over an inch of snow all morning and appeared to have stopped completely. Then, all of a sudden, another 4 inches fell in blizzard form around noon and was done in a very short period of time.

The yards on top of the old "Chinese Wall" leading to Broad Street Station during the storm

               That's right, it was only a total of 5 inches. Nonetheless, the city was crippled. However, the effect in Philly was nothing compared to other northeastern cities. Trains were stuck all over the coast with passengers trapped inside. In the end, $2.5 million of damage was done. Telegraph and phone wires were down all over the northeast-- there was zero service of each kind between Albany and Philadelphia for days. Milk deliveries to Philly were suspended for at least one day-- all reserve milk was sent to hospitals and public institutions.
          It makes you wonder how these 1915 folks would have handled the badass winter Philly had last year.

View of Market East getting its ass kicked by the storm from City Hall

The Spirit of Giving, Kensington Style

The scene of Christmas Spirit from PhillyHistory.org

            Hugh McCrane was a bum that primarily hung out at the corner of Front and York in Kensington who apparently loved himself some Christmas. Upon passing a store that had a large stuffed Santa Claus on display, he ripped the beard off of it and somehow stuck it to his own face. He then stole a bunch of baskets of apples from a nearby grocer and started handing the apples out to all the children on the street.
            The grocer himself was understandably pissed off by this and contacted his friend, Officer McClusker, who took McCrane into custody. Santa Bum was sentenced by Magistrate Glenn to 30 days at the House of Corrections. McCrane responded with an endless tirade of bad language.

Front and York today thanks to Google Streetview. Yes, that is the same building.

The Great Trunk Murder Caper

        In the basement of 4062 Frankford Avenue, the demolition of an old house lead to the discovery of a gruesome scene. One of the demolition workers, Louis Dehman, was digging up the cellar of the place when he found a wooden box containing a steamer trunk that contained a body that was completely covered in Quicklime aka Calcium Oxide.
       What came to be known as the "Trunk Murder" or "Box Murder" became big news over the next six months. The victim was 23-year-old Daniel J. McNichol, cousin of a State Senator. He had disappeared 20 months before and just happened to be carrying $2000 on his person at the time. 
          Edward F. Keller, partner of McNichol in a failed leather company, cooperated with police the day the trunk was found but soon became the prime suspect and was arrested the day after. Keller's story changed constantly thereafter but the circumstantial evidence against him piled up like a motherfucker. They found Quicklime at his house (which also happened to be the same kind of quicklime used at the leather plant), he told McNichol's pregnant fiance that he had abandoned her and moved to NYC, Norristown, and/or Detroit the day after he disappeared, Keller owned the commercial laundry business that had been using the building in which the trunk body was found (under a fake name) , and he was witnessed digging a hole in the basement. 
          Keller tried to claim that the man in the trunk was not McNichol at all and that McNichol was not only still alive, but in contact with him, claiming that he had become a bum in New York. This was all disproved pretty quickly using some science revolutionary to the period, aka checking the gold fillings in the corpses' teeth versus dental records. Keller also claimed that the laundry was located in a shitty neighborhood (it was) and didn't have locks on the doors (it didn't), so anyone could have buried that body there. In May, 1916, Keller was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 10-12 years at Eastern State Penitentiary.
          After spending 8 years at Eastern State, Keller was released and found a job as a night watchman at the Corn Exchange Bank (this guy was such a pimp that he was able to get meet a woman and get married while in prison, who got him the job). On December 20th, 1925, he proceeded to steal $20,000 in cash from the bank. He fled from his home to the Lorraine Hotel (you know, the Divine Lorraine!) but then panicked and wanted to leave town. He hailed a cab and set about escaping Philadelphia forever. He opened his suitcase to admire the pile of money and died of heart failure, lying in the money he just stole. The same detective who solved the McNichol case (Detective Belshaw) was called to investigate the death of Keller. How ironic.
        The detective work connecting Keller to the McNichol murder was unprecedented in its use of science and forensics. The story still pops up every now and then, including a shitty 1991 MS-DOS video game called Murder!  and has appeared in detective training literature as recently as 2007.

Edward Keller

Fake Buttermilk and Other Offenses to Food Are Being Sold All Over The City!

             Special Agent Robert M. Simmons of the Pennsylvania State Dairy and Food Commission has made a disturbing discovery: 85% of the buttermilk being sold in Philadelphia is not real! In case you didn't know, back in 1915, people drank buttermilk, the by-product left over from the churning of butter out of cream, because it was believed that the shit made you into a super-healthy Stanless Steelsque mega-monster. 
             Special Agent Simmons discovered that some shady company was selling a specially-made powdered skim milk to most Philadelphia grocers that, when mixed with lactic acid, created an artificial buttermilk that tasted better than the real thing but had no nutritional value. Simmons also busted a bunch of stores for selling rotten "canned eggs", selling goat meat as lamb, and adding sulfer dioxide to cherries.
              Not a damn thing was ever done about it.

Those sulfer dioxide cherries are quite common today. Pic from vineandvapor.com

99 Years Ago in Philadelphia: Middle of October, 1915

Camden Population Passes 100,000!!

        In the middle of October, 1915, a two-day celebration was held in Camden celebrating its population passing the 100k mark. Local businessmen paid for the whole affair. It started out with a parade of floats designed and built by each local industry. At night, there was another parade, led by Boy Scouts and the Walnut Street Patriotic Association. Ten dollar pieces of gold were awarded to the Boy Scout troops that had the most in line, the best display, and came from the farthest distance.
     

The Victor Talking Machine Company's float.

              On the second day, there was a Baby Parade, where proud parents created floats and presented Camden's latest offspring to the crowds. Ten dollar pieces of gold were awarded to the best float, an order of one dozen photographs was awarded to the prettiest baby, and a $2.50 piece of gold was awarded to the fattest baby. After that, a Charlie Chaplin impersonation contest was held. Five bucks and $2.50 were given to the first and second prizes respectively.
           Today, Camden doesn't have much to have a parade about. While the future construction of 1,000 houses was announced in the 1915 parade, Camden is now going about demolishing 600 houses, no doubt some of those that were built during that period. Things are shitty enough in Camden right now that the opening of a supermarket there was big news. The current population of Camden is 77,250.

Typhoid in Town! Dont Touch Ya Fren!

It's Dangeruss!!

        Despite vaccines developed in 1897, 1898, and 1909, in the middle of October, 1915, it was revealed that there was an official Typhoid outbreak in Philadelphia. 112 cases were reported and doctors warned that potentially thousands could be afflicted and that many more could be carrying and spreading the disease.
       Typhoid starts out as a really shitty flu-like sickness that seems like its going to go away until the 2nd stage, when the patient will go through periods of uncontrollable diarrhea and extreme constipation. Eventually, a big distended belly will occur. In the third stage, the patient becomes delirious and then goes into what's called a "Typhoid State", lying down exhausted with eyes half closed. Even if someone manages to survive it without treatment, symptoms can re-occur up to two weeks later. Its a pretty shitty disease to get.
        After an investigation, the State Department of Health blamed the curbside vegetable markets for the disease. They were able to isolate Salmonella Typhi in various products purchased at these markets, and declared the origin found. In the Spring of 1916, Typhoid ravaged the city again. Initially thought to be a whole other outbreak, it was eventually found that this was a second wave of the 1915 outbreak. This time, the State Department of Health took it a little more seriously and investigated markets, restaurants, and bars more thoroughly. They then blamed saloons for the spreading of the disease, stating that their practice of providing free lunches for customers spread the affliction through the common utensils that were used.
       Interestingly enough, 1915 showed the least Typhoid deaths in Philadelphia up to that point. For example, in 1906, Philly had 1,063 Typhoid-related deaths, while 1915 had only 106. An antibiotic treatment for Typhoid was developed in 1948 and there are now seven different Typhoid vaccines available, so no one in the developed world gives a shit about it anymore. Nonetheless, outbreaks still occur all over the world, most recently in 2005 the Democratic Republic of the Congo where 42,000 cases were reported.

Chestnut Blight Reaches Philadelphia

           At the same time Typhoid was hitting Philadelphia hard, Chestnut Blight was kicking the American economy's ass. At the time, chestnut trees were found all over the country and were a major staple. Not only were chestnuts themselves a valuable food, chestnut wood was used for telephone poles, roof shingles, you name it. Chestnut trees were prolific and grew gigantic-- ones over 100 feet tall with a diameter of 8 or 9 feet were found in every city park.
         At the turn of the 20th Century, Cryphonectria parasitica was accidentally brought to America by East Asian trees planted at the Bronx Zoo. By 1915, the state had already developed the Pennsylvania Chestnut Tree Blight Commission to combat the destruction. At this time in 1915, it was determined that 88% of the Chestnut trees in the city were infected. Local industry was really upset about this, especially the leather tanners, who used Chestnut tannins for their processes.
       The city went about clearing most of the Chestnut trees in the city at this point, stripping them down for use as telephone, telegraph, and electric poles. They then stored them all in a big pile at the electric company's yards in North Philly.

The pile.

               The Commission figured that they could save the American Chestnut Tree if they cross-bred it with the Asian Chestnut Tree, which was immune to the fungus. This was attempted in the 1930s and 40s by the USDA. They managed to create one single hybrid in 1946 that survived the blight... until 1976.  Big-ass American Chestnut Trees became a thing of the past... its hard to get one to grow over 15 feet before the fungus takes it out. A few sixth-generation hybrids have been able to resist the fungus, but there's only a handful of them.
              In 1987, an attempt was made to create a virus that could take out the fungus that causes Chestnut Blight, but the fungus spreads more quickly than the virus could keep up with, so it didn't work. Today, genetic manipulation is being used to create mega-hybrids that will be able to resist the fungus. Its possible that in our lifetimes, the American Chestnut Tree will tower over all of our shit just like it used to. The same fungus also took out a once-common edible nut-bearing bush called the Chinquapin, but no one seems to give a shit about that.

99 Years Ago in Philadephia: Start of October, 1915

Wistar Institute Scientist: Incest is Awesome!!

          At the start of October, 1915, the Wistar Institute created an uproar when one of its scientists, Dr. Helen D. King, determined that incest produced healthier offspring. How did she come to this conclusion? She experimented with rats. She interbred 21 generations of white rats and found that 30 percent of the 21st generation were bigger, stronger, and healthier than the originals.
        This finding freaked people the fuck out, which led them to run to their clergymen and ask if there was danger that the laws regarding familial intermarriage would change. The clergymen from every religion and denomination in the area then collectively went nuts, discussing it with each other and then with the public. Though none of them thought that this finding would lead to a change in the law, some feared that an evil force my one day attempt to breed a race of supermen through generations of incest.
         Other clergymen calmed the panickers down, stating how the fucked-upedness of the royal families of Europe prove that incest is definitely not best-- no doubt Carlos El Segundo got a mention.
        Dr. King got lots and lots of backlash and hatemail over this subject for the next several years. It got even worse in 1922 when she got even more generations of inbred rats going, creating a race of mega-rats. She eventually dialed back her opinions on inbreeding and focused on domesticating the Norway rat, for which she got much acclaim. One reporter wrote about her, amazed that "one of the greatest authorities on rats in the country is a very human and thoroughly feminine woman".

"I love you, Super-Rat!" -Helen D. King

Phillies In the World Series!

         AAAAAaaaaaaw shiiiiiiiit!!!!!!!!! For the first time, the Phils are going to the World Series! The first two games were scheduled for National League Park a.k.a. the Baker Bowl and Broad and Huntingdon, where the Phils would have homefield advantage against the Boston Red Sox. The Baker Bowl only had 19,000 seats at the time so William Baker refused Boston's request for extra tickets for visiting fans. When Baker met the owner of the Red Sox, Joseph J. Lannin, at the official ceremonies announcing the dates, rules, and locations of the World Series, he offered him a compromise but was flatly refused.
       After arguing and cursing each other out for several minutes, the National Commission finally ordered that Baker give in to Lannin's request for more tickets. Baker ended up having 3,000 extra seats built into the Baker Bowl to help accommodate everyone.
    

President Woodrow Wilson threw the ceremonial first pitch.

             This World Series was a big fucking deal and brought tons and tons of people to the city even though only a limited number of tickets were available. A whole mess of scalpers ended up getting arrested and Suffragettes proselytized to the huge crowds of people that milled around the Baker Bowl during each game.
           The Phillies won the first game in the series but got their asses handed to them in the next three. It should be noted that this was the second year in a row that Boston beat a Philly team, being that the Philadelphia A's (colloquially known as the "Macks" back then) lost to the same team in the Series of 1914. This 1915 World Series was the only one the Phillies would be in until 1950, where they got their dicks kicked in even worse by the Yankees. The Phils wouldn't even win a single post-season game until 1977 and wouldn't win a single World Series game until 1980. The Phillies just love to suck... I guess that's why we all love them? Read more about the 1915 World Series here.

Crowd chases Jewel Thieves through Center City

           It was a dark and stormy... day. Two jewel thieves that had been plaguing jewelry stores all over town saw the weather as a good opportunity to smash the window at the Kennedy & Bros Jewelry Store located at the southwestern corner of Juniper and Drury Streets (now the location of Mamou) with a hatchet and take all the loot, valued at $30,000.
          John A. Covington, described in the reports as a "negro porter", was a customer at the Kennedy & Bros store while this happened. He heroically ran out the door and pursued the men down Drury Street, yelling "Thief! Thief!" The hubbub attracted the attention of two nearby mounted policemen and a traffic cop. Eventually, the two robbers were being chased by the police, Covington, store clerks, messenger boys, wagon drivers and the street children that were hanging around at the time.
         They ran down Juniper Street, shooting their guns at the crowd (missing each time) and one slunk into the Witherspoon Building while the other ran down Juniper. The angry mob ran into the Witherspoon Building after the one thief, forgetting the other, crowding through the hallways of the old building. Frank Tabasso, a 15-year-old messenger boy, found a case containing $5000 worth of jewelry obviously dropped by the thieves. He got swarmed by the crowd, which tried to take it from him, but held on tight.
        The thief that ran into the Witherspoon Building got away through the Walnut Street side and blended into the street. The other, Nathan Heller, was arrested at 13th and Locust Streets in front of the Pennsylvania Historical Society. Ends up the two robbers were from NYC... apparently the "no snitchin'" rule was around back then too, because the other robber was never found.
      As for young Mr. Tabasso, he returned the stolen jewelry to the Kennedy & Bros store and was commended for his honesty. Mr. Kennedy gave him a small reward and told him there would be more to come.

Frank Tobasso and the smashed up Kennedy & Bros display window.

99 Years Ago in Philadelphia: Second half of September, 1915

School District of Philadelphia Begins Its Long Tradition of Nasty School Lunches

Eerie-looking Philadelphia schoolchildren, school lunch pioneers

            A great moment in history, nearly equivalent to man walking on the moon, occurred in the second half of September, 1915. For the first time, the infamously nasty Philadelphia public school lunch was offered to students during the school day. Though the practice had been in place at some early community centers, children's homes, and settlement houses in the city, this was the first time that the toxic waste that all Philadelphia schoolchildren fear was offered at a Philadelphia public school.
          The "penny lunch", as it was called, consisted of two choices: a pack of "quality biscuits" or a cup of coffee. Yeah, because giving coffee to schoolchildren is such a good idea. Some believed that providing lunch at schools had a two pronged effect: not only would it make kids learn better later in the day, it would also introduce immigrant children to American foods.
         Shortly after this, another breakthrough was made when the lunchlady was invented.

"Watch the potty-mouth, honey"

 Charles Reinhardt: Families Man

            In the second half of September, 1915, Charles Reinnhardt of 3919 Aspen Street was standing trial, accused of being married to two women at once. When Wife #1, Florence Reinhardt, took the stand to testify against her husband, she revealed that Mr. Reinhardt wasn't married to two women at once, but THREE!
           It seems Reinhardt would leave his wives but never officially divorce. He married Florence first, living with her at 1510 Womrath Street until dipping out. He then shacked up with a young widow named Anna Preston, staying with her for only two months after their wedding in an apartment above his own grandfather's saloon. He then married on Helen Lutz, whose house on the 3900 block of Aspen Street he was living in when Florence finally caught up with Charles and had him arrested for bigamy.
            This dude apparently never figured that his ex-wives would ever be able to catch up with him. He's fucked now.

Only Reinhardt's Womrath St. residence still stands, image from Google Streetview

Philadelphian Wanted For Giving His Son Cigarettes

              Twelve-year-old John Storer Jr, juvenile delinquent from Kensington, sat in front of the Juvenile Branch of the Municipal Court for the umpteenth time. This time he was accused of running away from home, a much lesser crime than his previous antics. When Judge Raymond McNeill asked his mother how it is than little John became such a miscreant, she stated that his "worthless" father was to blame. Why? He gives Junior cigarettes, of which he smokes a pack a day.
             Judge McNeill became pissed off about this, ordering a warrant for the arrest of John Storer Sr, whose residence was unknown. The judge then went on a tirade, claiming that a father giving his son cigarettes was no different than a store owner selling them to a minor and that he would prosecute the fuck out of him as soon as he was found.

Dead Man Returns To Piss Off His Family

            In the second half of September, 1915, Mrs. Laura Redmond got a knock on her door at 1745 North 31st Street and got served with a Writ of Habeas Corpus from her dead husband. They had split 14 years earlier and he arranged to have their daughter, Louise, be put under the care of a convent in Baltimore. Mr. Redmond was then believed to have died en route to California.
           When she turned 18, Louise escaped the convent, where she claimed her living conditions were "practically [like] a slave", and made it all the way to Philadelphia, where she re-united with her mother and lived with her. It only took two weeks for the deceased Mr. Redmond to make his re-appearance and demand through the courts that she be returned to the convent. When asked why this man would go through all this trouble to come back from the grave and bring court proceedings against his ex wife and daughter he had not seen for well over a decade, Mrs. Redmond said "To annoy us."

Birth of a Nation Hits Philadelphia Like a Bag of Hammers

"It will make a better American of you"

          Though the film Birth of a Nation premiered in February of 1915, it wasn't until August of that year that the film made it up to Philadelphia, where it played exclusively at the old Forrest Theater on Broad Street. By the second half of September, the film was so popular that tickets had to be reserved 2 weeks in advanced.
        People were enthralled with the film, which was endorsed by President Woodrow Wilson himself. It had the first posthumous depiction of Abraham Lincoln on screen and displayed the latest in lighting and makeup technology. Other people were extremely offended by the film, since it glorifies the Ku Klux Klan and is rife with racist depictions and stereotypes.
        In Philly, the protest of this film turned into a riot. In the second half of September, 1,500 black men, lead by "a tall negro clergyman" marched up Broad Street singing Onward Christian Soldiers until they reached the theater. The clergyman then waved his cane around and a brick was thrown. At this point, all the cops that were standing around the crowd were directed to shut the protest the fuck down.
      They responded by charging into the crowd and cracking every skull within reach with their billy clubs. The crowd panicked and dispersed quickly, some protesters getting trampled in the fray. Others hid in building lobbies and interstitial alleys nearby. Many were severely injured.
        The next day, a group of black men lead by lawyer G. Edward Dickerson and Dr. W.A. Sinclair limped their bandaged-up selves into Mayor Blankenburg's office and demanded that the City Solicitor bring suit against the Forrest Theater and prevent any further screenings of the film. They were unsuccessful. The same group later vowed that they would make their own version of Birth of a Nation, but it is unknown if they ever did.
         In case you never heard of this Oscar-winning racist film or have never seen it, here's the film in all its glory-- all 3 hours 12 minutes of it.

99 Years Ago in Philadelphia- Start of September, 1915

Chestnut Street Opera House Showing Movies, Needs Hot Ushers

Image from the PAB

               In the Fall of 1915, the year-old Chestnut Street Opera House started showing movies in addition to their usual lineup. The Triangle Film Corporation handled the movie side of the Opera House and put a call out in all the local papers for ushers using only four words: Wanted: Six Attractive Girls. The next day, 50 of the city's most beautiful unemployed women showed up to the 1000 block of Chestnut Street, all vying for the 6 available jobs.
             This caused quite the stir to the usual passersby, many of whom thought there was a beauty contest going on at the Opera House. The Triangle Film Corp's reps then came out on to the street and warned the crowd that the usher job will have a strange requirement: each usher will be required to wear a uniform that looks exactly like the costume worn by Sarah Bernhardt in the 1900 opera L'Aiglon.

This is the costume. She's playing a dude.

               Upon hearing that not only would they have to dress in pants for the job but also carry a sword while they worked, many of the women left. The remaining ladies became the Opera House's new ushers.

Rumble Erupts at a Tango in the Tenderloin

       Back in 1915, the Tenderloin, an area we call part of the Loft District/North Chinatown/Eraserhood today, was a crazy place. Even a fun little party could lead to chaos. This was the case in the first week of September, 1915, when friends Jennie Murphy and Margaret Wilson decided to throw a Tango party, inviting two dancing partners for themselves, Thomas Murphy and William Carr, to their house at 330 N. 11th Street (later demolished to make way for the Reading Viaduct).
         Before any music or dancing even began, all four had a difference of opinion on how to properly execute a Tango and got into a vicious fight. Each one started throwing any object they could get their hands on at each other, including china, pottery, picture frames, forks, and spoons. When a china plate flew out the window and nearly hit a pedestrian, the cops were called. Officers Slook, Lowery, and Hayes ran over from the nearby police station at 10th and Buttonwood and entered the house through the front door.
        Upon the appearance of the cops, all four arguers suddenly united against the one thing they all hated: law enforcement. They proceeded to then pelt the three officers with the very household objects they were just dodging. The cops ran down the basement steps and hid under some chairs for several minutes until the four attackers ran out of stuff to throw. They then climbed back up the stairs and were able to get them to surrender.

Giant Pile of Crap Left Behind By the Billy Sunday Tabernacle

               Billy Sunday was a former Philadelphia Phillie that later in life became the single most influential preacher in the United States. He would go from city to city, erecting giant temporary structures where he could evangelize to thousands at a time (without a sound system!). Sunday's Tabernacle came through Philadelphia in March of 1915.

No surviving images of the temporary structure but there is this one drawing from March 15, 1915 depicting Billy losing his shit during on of the Philadelphia sermons. Image from the Free Library of Philadelphia

                Well, by the first week of September, 1915, a giant pile of debris was still leftover from the long-gone ministry-- chairs, sawdust, hatpins, all kinds of trash. The problem with this, of course, was that the tabernacle had taken place on city-owned land that had just been cleared for the construction of what we now call the Ben Franklin Parkway. This site in particular was about to be prepped for the construction of the new Central Library!

The pile of shit in question.

                  Joseph M. Steele, chairman of the local Billy Sunday Committee, refused to take responsibility, saying that the rubbish was the remains of houses demolished for the Parkway, not the temporary Billy Sunday structure. He claimed the city was trying to pull something over on the Billy Sunday crowd. Meanwhile, a city resident who also claimed that there was a big pile of Billy Sunday trash in front of his house was ready to fuck the committee up as well.
              The city ended up having to spend $500 clearing Billy Sunday's shitpile in order to start construction on the Free Library, which was completed in 1927, many years later. Billy Sunday himself is pretty much responsible for Prohibition getting passed... so leaving a giant pile of crap behind for others to clean up is not the worst thing he ever did.

City Can't Find Slumlords, Arrests Tenants Instead

            On June 11th, 1915, an act was passed stating that "modern conveniences" should be available in every tenement house in the city. It was not until the first week of September, however, when any of part of this act was actually enforced. On that week, Arthur E. Buchholz, supervisor of the Department of Sanitation of the Bureau of Housing, chose the five occupied properties in the city that were in the worst condition: 1231 Kenilworth St, 909 Poplar St, 620 North 3rd St, 916 Lombard St, and the only one still standing today, 1133 Pine St.
          The problem, however, was this: they couldn't find any of the owners of these places. The solution? Arrest the tenants! Some of them were just living at these places, others were proprietors that worked for the owners. Each defendant made the excuse that they've pleaded with the owners of their buildings to repair the places but never got a response. No record exists of what happened after this, but even today the city has a hard time finding certain slumlords. If only Philadelinquency was around back then!

1133 Pine, the only one of those five properties still standing. Its obviously doing a lot better nowadays. Image from Google Streetview.

99 Years Ago in Philadelphia-- End of August, 1915

The Great Mosquito Genocide

           The Summer of 1915 was an especially hot, humid, and rainy one. That particular summer, mosquitoes had become a huge problem and the citizenry blamed the city-owned marshlands and creeks that surrounded Philadelphia at the time. After an entire summer filling pools of standing water with oil and digging trenches to drain marshes, it was decided that in the third week of August, 1915, a mass Mosquito Genocide should take place with what was left of the paltry $3500 the city had set aside (actually increased from $2500 to $3500 in mid-June) in their annual budget for this cause. The target? The marshes around League Island, where it was said that the swarms of mosquitoes were so thick that they cast a shadow over the entire area.
          Fifty employees of the Bureau of Highways surrounded the mosquito epicenter, located just east of Broad Street at Government Avenue, now the exact location of GlaxoSmithKline's fancy new Center City-ditching U.S. headquarters in the Navy Yard. The workers came at the marshes with scythes and then sprayed a whole shitload of "Chinese Punk" incense, so much that people near City Hall were able to smell it. After that, the kerosene made its appearance.
         Though some appreciated this effort, it wasn't enough. The Bureau of Highways was out of money and there were other well-known mosquito transwarp hubs at Cobb's Creek and all along the long-lost Curtin Street Canal. Two days later, a whole mess of realtors got together to complain that home values in South, West, and Southwest Philadelphia were going down because of the mosquito presence and the city better fucking do something about it.
        As it ends up, they did. The budget for mosquito control was increased more than tenfold (thanks to help from Senator Vare) in 1916. The crew handling mosquito breeding grounds were given some extra weaponry (cyanide, specifically) and dirt being moved for new road construction was dumped in existing marshes. Also, eight inspectors were employed to go house to house and eliminate any mosquito-causing situations that might be present.

Fifteen Pall Bearers Needed at 500-pound Man's Funeral

             At the end of August, 1915, one Edward J. Griess of 1540 Butler Street, a century ahead of his time in the Third Wave of the Fat Acceptance Movement, died of a heart attack at age 51. In preparation for his funeral at the Willis G. Hale-designed St. Stephen's Catholic Church, a massive coffin made of solid mahogany was constructed to hold the 500-lb man at the Battersby Funeral Home at Broad and Westmoreland. Once complete, Griess' corpse was somehow placed inside, wrapped up in a shroud because they couldn't find any clothes big enough to fit his 64-inch waist.
            Then they had to find a hearse big enough to carry the 800-lb combined weight of body and casket. They used a carriage normally meant for moving large amounts of cargo for the trip. Fifteen men then pall-beared Griess up the stairs of the church for his service, then hauled the monstrous casket in that big-ass carriage to the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Cheltenham where he was to be interred in an extra-large plot. 

Griess' house as it appears in Google Streetview. Its a grocery store now... how ironic.

What the Hell is Under City Hall?

           It was time. Due to an extensive transit plan (that included a bunch of subways and els that never got built) created in 1912 after the success of the just-born Market Street Elevated, digging would soon have to begin under City Hall for the first time since the gigantic building was constructed. At that point, the Market Street line jogged around the foundations of City Hall, its builders not wanting to deal with the logistics of going underneath (though they eventually did 1929-34 when they built the modern piece of the MFL that goes under). The Broad Street Line, however, WOULD have to travel under the giant building.
         Things started at the end of August, 1915. S.M. Swaab and the Keystone State Construction Company drilled 10 borings and dug 7 test pits from various points in City Hall's basements to determine what kind of shit was underneath. The result? A lot. Loam, sand, clay, gravel, and mica schist were found at all varying depths and thicknesses. The bedrock varied from 59 feet to 40 feet below ground. Much to the engineer's surprise, no bit of the extremely heavy City Hall's foundation touched bedrock. In fact, the thickness of City Halls' foundation varied between 14 and 32 feet below the surface. How the fuck was this thing even standing?
         The engineers determined that the new subway tunnel 46 feet under the surface would require the movement of 100,000 cubic yards of earth and the blasting of some of the bedrock that was in the way. Also, they would have to underpin City Hall, connecting it to the bedrock underneath.
         This work would take the next five years and City Hall Station did not open for business until 1928.

1915 plan for City Hall Station. Only three of the buildings seen in this drawing still stand. That's a shame. PhillyHistory.org

Dude Gets His Ass Kicked By A Bunch of Chicks

                 Hugo Mulcrane doesn't like beef or pork, he likes chicken. After seeing a few random chickens walking around the city, Mulcrane had a bright idea: sprinkle some chicken feed around and he'll be able to catch one. After trying this out at the corner of Susquehanna and Girard for a few hours, the chickens didn't come. Mulcrane got frantic and started yelling "Chick! Chicken! Chick!" thinking that the chickens would hear him and come callin'.
                  Unfortunately for Mulcrane, some young ladies were walking by and misinterpreted his beckoning. One of them approached and clocked Mulcrane in the face with her parasol, stating "I ain't no chicken." You see, in Philadelphia of 1915, "chick" didn't just mean female, it meant under-aged female. These ladies were pissed off  1) for getting "mashed" on by this crazy bastard who was spreading chicken feed everywhere and 2) for being mistaken for under-aged girls. After the initial parasol attack, the rest ganged up around Mulcrane and proceeded to beat the shit out of him until his cries for help were heard by Sergeant John Hasslett. He rescued Mulcrane and brought him down to the East Girard Police Station.
               After explaining his story to the cops, they advised him to stick to roast beef. In regard to the young ladies, Mulcrane stated "I wouldn't of had any of 'em anyhow."

The scene in the incident as seen in Google Streetview