Fill This Front: Convention Center Parking Facility

1324 Arch Street

YELLOW!!!!!!!!!111eleven

                      This'll be another quick Fill This Front considering that this storefront has only existed for a little over a year, so there's no history to talk about. Nonetheless, there's little reason that this nice, brand new, gigantic storefront space has sat empty for this fucking long. Let's get something in there!
                    This space is located in the butt-fugly $27 million parking facility recently built by Berwyn-based Realen Properties in anticipation of a hotel conversion of 101 North Broad that'll probably never happen. Sure, its a little out of the way from both Broad Street and the entrance to the Convention Center (which is always the corner of 12th/Arch even though it has like 5 million doors) and there's a bunch of homeless services/mental health stuff/halfway houses/methadone clinics nearby... but when there's a convention going, there's tons of people passing through this block! Also, the Courtyard Marriott and Home2Suites (which was able to fill 2/3rds of its fronts instantly) are nearby.
                  On top of that, get this: there's very little the way of NIMBYs here. The closest residential homeowners are over at the other side of 13th Street... across the street is the Great Wall of Pennsylvania and directly next to it are a women's shelter, a church, and the back of the Masonic Temple. Therefore, if you can get the right kind of license, you could put the kind of shit here that would normally get railed against by Heroes of NIMBYdom. Since conventional retail/food stuff obviously isn't interested in the spaces, try something else out... A nightclub. A small concert venue (its bigger and has a higher ceiling than the Unitarian Church basement). A 24-hour drunkfood restaurant (an entire American city's restaurant scene depends on this and Philly used to have them in droves). The whole thing is 16,256 square feet, but I'm sure that's splittable considering there's a three doors on the front.

The floor plan from Loopnet

                    There's a lot of possibilities. The space is managed by CBRE Fameco... here's the listing. The rent is "negotiable" so after this long you can offer like 6 farthlings and you'll be just fine.FILL THIS FRONT!!

Rendering by Erdy McHenry of what the retail would look like if it was filled and if your named you store "Retail". I wish the real garage looked as good as this.

             ....and while we're on the subject of storefronts, check out the Community Design Collaborative's Storefront Challenge 2014!

99 Years Ago in Philadelphia: End of June, 1915

After Flourishing 6 Decades, Camden's "Squattertown" Finally Destroyed

              In late June, 1915, Camdenites had about enough of Squattertown, the large shanty town that had existed for 60 years on city-owned land on the Delaware Riverfront at Spruce Street in Camden. Highway Commissioner Albert Sayers made it his goal to literally wipe Squattertown off the map. Camden residents of the day called it a "rendezvous of petty criminals, drunkards, and general trouble-makers" leading a "lazy existence".
             Sayers spent a whole afternoon warning the residents of Squattertown of its imminent destruction the next day, convincing most to leave. However, about 40 stayed behind in defiance. These 40 got their assess handed to them the next day, when every cop in town assisted by 100 day laborers descended upon Front and Spruce Streets, armed with picks and axes, ready to rumble. Horses were brought in to pull apart the ersatz structures in Squattertown and the whole kit and kaboodle was dumped into the adjacent Delaware River.
            99 Years later, Squattertown is called "Tent City", but it no longer on the riverfront.  Pretty much the same exact scene as above took place recently, when the city came in and destroyed it all over again.

The site of Squattertown as it appears on Google Streetview.

Thief Steals From Little Girl, Gets Ass Kicked

           Nine-year-old Katie Shuster was given a special task by her father: cash a $35 check and bring me back the dough. Katie followed her Dad's instructions and brought her baby brother with her in his stroller. Upon returning from her three block trek between the house and the bank on 52nd Street, she encountered the likes of John Williams, a local whacko in the neighborhood that everyone knew as "Nervy".
           Seeing the 35 bucks in the baby's stroller, Nervy grabbed the cash and ran, but must have not realized how many witnesses were about, including cops. All at once, scores of people started running after Nervy, having had enough of his bullshit over the years. Storekeepers, women who were shopping, newsboys, "white wings" (street cleaners), and a few policemen started chasing Nervy through the streets and alleys of West Philadelphia. Nervy managed to outrun them all, running into a vacant house at 5425 Chestnut Street and hiding in a closet. The owner of the house, one John Griffith, just happened to be checking on the place at the time, finding Nervy in the closet.
           Griffith, who also knew about this guy and also had enough of his bullshit, locked him in the closet and called the cops without even knowing about the recent robbery. The cops came along and, upon seeing who was locked in the closet, proceeded to beat the everloving shit out of him before locking him up.

The D.F. McConnell Modern Porch House where Nervy tried to hide via Google Streetview

Successful Test of the Curtis Building's "Water Blanket" 

The Water Blanket test with a nice portrait of Fire Marshal Barnum, whose office was in the same building.

                   City dwellers of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries were obsessed with fire prevention. Fires were always a big concern because any single one that grew too big could take out the entire city. 1915 was an especially bad year for Philadelphia fires. One that occurred in May was located in a building that was right next door to Christ Church, and nearly took it out-- causing even more paranoia than usual
              To prove that new buildings in the city were equipped with the finest in fire prevention, a demonstration was held at the new Curtis Publishing Company Building for 2,000 spectators and every fire official for 100 miles. While the building had been open for a little while at this point, this was when installation of the "Water Blanket" was just completed. This "Water Blanket" was a big-ass waterfall that would go down the side of a building to prevent a fire in a building nearby from spreading. On the 9th floor of the Curtis Building, several water tanks holding 168,500 gallons each were installed, letting down a deluge of 2500 gallons per minute through sprinklers located above the windows on every other floor on the Sansom and 7th Street sides of the building (the other sides don't face other buildings).
             For the demo, there was a fire drill for the company's 4000 employees, after which Battalion Chief Moodle activated the machine from a switch on the 5th floor (one of many in the building), surprising the fuck out of anyone nearby who didn't know it was about to happen. The system squirted down all of its water over a 30 minute period and made news across the globe.
             The Curtis Publishing Company loved itself some fire prevention. In addition to the Water Curtain system, the building hosted its own city fire station and had a volunteer company made up of Curtis employees. The system was tested one more time in 1922 and I can't seem to find any other record of it being used after that. Even though the building had been renovated and renovated again since, one can still spot the little sprinkler heads sticking out of the facade on the Seventh and Sansom Street sides of the building.

Water Blanket test via Fire and Water Engineering, Volume 58

Who the FUCK Are the Stonemen!?!?

Screen test for a deleted scene in Star Trek V.

              Late June, 1915, suspicions arose across the city regarding a new fraternal organization known as the Stonemen's Fellowship. It was founded in 1910 by Episcopal leader H.C. Stone at the Holy Trinity Memorial Chapel at 22nd and Spruce Streets and only had about 200 members at the start of 1915. However, by late June, that number grew to 6,500. The organization hosted huge banquets every week and allowed members to make use of a huge clubhouse at 2216 Spruce Street (long gone) that offered all the same level of amenities that the big-time motherfuckers like the Union League and the Philadelphia Club did.
              The weird part was that there were NO DUES for membership and all the offerings of the club were FREE of charge. Also, members were allowed to belong to any Christian denomination or political group, or none at all! Membership grew so rapidly in early 1915 that the club was forced to start having meetings in UPenn's gymnasium. The goals and philosophy of the club were kept a tight secret, even to members. One had to achieve the third degree to even get a hint.
             Philadelphians, especially church leaders, began questioning the motives of this new organization, who was funding it, and how the fuck they were recruiting so quickly. Some even thought that this might be some kind of devil-worshipping club and that the benefits of membership for free were the ultimate temptation. Rumors of whacky rituals didn't help matters, neither did stories of individual members recruiting over 80 neophytes a day. The club had no officers, H.C. Stone himself the sole leader.
             As it ends up, the goal of the club was to start a massive Protestant Unification that was planned to sweep across the nation. By the end of 1915, the club had 100,000 members. Ten to thirty thousand at a time would travel to other cities to recruit new chapters, and it always worked, especially because the press would write about how 30,000 members of the same club just reserved all the seats on 20 trains at a time, causing travel woes for others. The unification was to create another church called the Church of God, which members would get baptized into upon reaching third degree membership. While the club stated that there were no conditions for membership, they were decidedly anti-Catholic. When the anti-Catholic part of the club's mission was revealed, there was a huge loss in membership.
            The Stonemen's Fellowship's funding source was never found, but many think that there were a couple of Old Philadelphians involved. Members included some of the city's biggest movers and shakers, including Director of Public Safety (Police Commissioner) George D. Porter and George Wharton Pepper of UPenn. The club seemed like it was going to take over the world and much was written about it until 1917, when World War I claimed a huge part of the membership. After the war, the club was pretty much over and forgotten, though they did exist in a small way as late as the 1930s.

A picture of Stone in 1917, presiding over a memorial for 300 members who died at the start of the WWI.

Fill This Front: Freshii Space

1414 South Penn Square, Suite 1

             Kind of a quick one today, because this storefront hasn't existed for a very long time. Nonetheless, for 1/4th of that time, this little spot has been about as empty as empty gets. There's no goddamn excuse for this, of course, considering that this location gets so much fucking foot traffic that you could open a puppy underwear store here and killlLL!!!
             The Residences at the Ritz building, where this storefront is located, took fucking forever to get built. The corner it sits on, at the southwest corner of City Hall, was blocked off for like 4 years due to its construction. Before it was blocked off, it was mostly a driveway for the parking lot that was here, and before that, was blocked off due to the deconstruction of the old One Meridian Plaza. Therefore, when the RATR was completed, this was the first time this little block had any street level use since February 23rd, 1991.

February 23rd, 1991.

                   In January of 2011, Toronto/Chicago-based chain Freshii came along to occupy one of the two retail spaces on the newly-rebuilt corner. Freshii's decidedly pretentious website describes the restaurant as a place to "help citizens of the world live longer & healthier by making healthy food convenient & affordable" (barf). The chain started in 2005 and has over 80 locations in a whole shitload of different cities and countries... so why not give Philadelphia a try, right?

Freshii in the space in May 2011 from the Google Streetview Time Machine

                 HAhahahahahahaha. I laugh because Goel Management, the Chicago-based company that handles Freshii's American locations, made the same mistake other big chains sometimes make when they expand into Philly: they staffed the placed with real Philadelphians. After its massive free-food giveaway Grand Opening on January 18th, 2011, the restaurant immediately started going downhill. The Yelp reviews of the place show all the indications of the location getting infected with the classic Philadelphian fast food worker: Reports of super-slow service by asshole workers who couldn't get orders right, the menu options dwindling smaller and smaller as time went on, a lack of freshness to the food, the restaurant itself getting dirtier and drabber over the coming months. All the shit that happens when you have a lazy and incompetent staff that think that if no one is puking all over the place or shitting on the floor, everything must be going just fine.
                  Despite all this, they managed to stay opened for over 2 years, probably because nearby office workers who are somehow unwilling and unable to prepare their own healthy lunch felt forced to come here, thinking this was the only place to get a healthy meal on the outside. They officially closed on October 31st, 2013. What a shame. This was meant to be the first of 30 locations in the Delaware Valley. Guess how many there are now? ZERO.
                Baltimore's, D.C.'s, and Boston's locations of the chain are doing just fine. Hell, the place is even kicking ass in Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Westport fucking Connecticut-- but Philadelphia's singular spot couldn't make it. It was that classic Philadelphian incompetence, the same thing that makes our airport suck ass and our fast food locations way worse than their suburban counterparts (which is saying something).
              After the place closed, the folks at the RATR put up a bunch of renderings and text about the new Dilworth Plaza across the street which gives me the hope that MAYBE the city or Center City District is the one leasing the space right now, effectively using it as a billboard. Its gives me the hope that maybe something will open here once the construction it complete. After all, the space doesn't seem to be listed anywhere. Nonetheless, if you are the type of badass that has the ability to jump on a space like this, now's the time.
             This spot gets an unbelievable amount of foot traffic and is soon to be across the street from the newly re-designed Dilworth Plaza, which will hopefully be just as successful as the new Sister Cities Park. The space is directly adjacent to an extremely successful La Colombe coffee location, is right next to City Hall (where lots and lots of people work), a buttload of office buildings (where lots and lots of people work), and the Ritz-Carlton hotel. Directly above live many dangerously wealthy people with tons of disposable income. The space is relatively small but has a huge window frontage and those cool metallic columns in front. What do you have to lose? AGC Realty manages the sales of the condos above, I wouldn't be surprised if they handle the storefront leases as well. Give them a call and get in there before Dilworth Plaza is done! FILL THIS FRONT!!

Butt Fugly Building: Society Hill Club

250 South 5th Street
               

Better off covered in trees

               Ever wonder why Society Hill is rife with the NIMBYest of NIMBYs? Ever wonder what crawled up their butts and died, causing their souls to be infected with a hate for all new development, big and small? Well, this isn't the definitive reason, but a symptom of that problem. I am talking about the old Society Hill Club, now Philadelphia Sports Clubs. Its story embodies all the fears and anxieties that NIMBYs assume will come with any new development. It, along with the complex its attached to, is a NIMBY-creator.
              First of all, what an ugly bastard. Putting a fancy entrance on a building doesn't mean that the rest of the building will look good. Its a big, doo-doo brown brick box with a bunch of mismatched windows. There's a big-ass flat metal cornice-like decoration thingy at the top that is thankfully covered by the street's trees. As if this ugly bastard wasn't enough, facing the pedestrianized 500 block of Locust Street is this:

Uh...

                     Back in the early 1970s, a developer simply called "Philadelphia Banker" came along and bought up a huge swath of properties between the Southeast corner of Washington Square and 5th Street owned by the Redevelopment Authority. They promised to build a gigantic mixed-use development that would include townhouses, retail, a parking garage two residential towers, and this, a giant fitness center for the neighborhood. They immediately went about demolishing the shit out of a buttload of historic homes, an ancient firehouse, and the old Heywood Wakefield plant.

Destroyed to make room for the Society Hill Club. These motherfuckers made my coffee table! Image from the PAB.

                  Then, the land remained an empty lot for a few years [NIMBYism intensifies]. Denny Development Corp then took over the project, building the underground parking garage (Washington Garage), the lowrise townhouse part of the project (St. James Court) and the fitness center, the Society Hill Club. All of it was designed by Cope, Linder, and Walmsley (now Cope Linder).
                  When it opened at the end of 1974, this place was considered the fucking shiznit. It featured a state-of-the-art gym, a pool that was both indoor and outdoor, a fancy restaurant called Cobblestones, and offered nude sunbathing on the roof. That's not a joke. The building was also expandable vertically, built to take on a few more floors on top if necessary.
                    On top of being a gym, the Society Hill Club became a quasi-community center, where the Society Hill Civic would meet so that they could vote down whatever great development was coming their way. From here, the SHCA opposed all kinds of wonderful shit for the neighborhood, most famously killing the plan to build the African-American Historical and Cultural Museum of Philadelphia in an empty lot at 6th and Pine, located in the city's oldest black neighborhood. It ended up at 7th and Arch, only to have the federal lock-up built across the street.
                 After this part of the complex was built, the developer handed off the project to a related company called Empire Associates. They sat on it for the next 4 years, making the southeast corner of Washington Square an empty lot and the roof of an underground parking garage [NIMBYism intensifies].
                 Finally, in 1978, Empire came back and got permission from the RDA (despite vociferous opposition from the SHCA) to add more height to the planned towers in order to make the development profitable enough to get built. They also brought in a few other developers to help get it all going (also despite vociferous opposition from the SHCA). Despite promising residents that the construction would not disrupt their peaceful neighborhood, much turmoil was created over the 5 (FIVE!) year construction period.
                First of all, those who relied on the Washington Square Garage for parking got fucked. Not only was there a constant stream of construction vehicles coming in and out, they closed off all the pedestrian entrances, making it only accessible by the vehicle ramps [NIMBYism intensifies]. Then, for that five year period, construction debris fell into the Society Hill Club's pool from the towers, mostly in the form of candy bar wrappers and hoagie remains from the worker's lunches [NIMBYism intensifies]. Moreover, the once sun-drenched pool at the Club was now covered in shadow for most of the day and the nude sunbathing was no longer an option [NIMBYism intensifies].  Once it was all finished in 1986, public art had to be added, so Independence Place, as it came to be known, installed this piece of shit called Total Environment [NIMBYism intensifies]. Meanwhile, the Club, as ugly as it was, kept going strong.

The Society Hill Club in 1987, ugly metal cornice thing now visible. Image from the PAB.

                In 1989, the Club was featured on Good Morning America due to its role in the Rambo Aerobics craze that year (look it up). The same year, the SHCA started to warn the operators of the club that the big ugly fence around their tennis court was starting to get fucked up and should probably be replaced. See that picture of the fence at the top of the post? Obviously it never was [NIMBYism intensifies]. In November of 1990, out of the blue, the Society Hill Club closed with no warning [NIMBYism intensifies].
              After it closed, neighbors held out hope that maybe it was just a temporary closure and they'll be back soon. Then years started to pass [NIMBYism intensifies]. Numerous chain gym operators attempted to lease the place but the owners rejected them time after time for one reason or another [NIMBYism intensifies]. In 1995, a young go-getter named Eric Blumenfeld came along and stated he would buy the place and get it all spruced-up. The deal fell through [NIMBYism intensifies]. By 1997, bums were living in the place and the pool was leaking into the surrounding streets [NIMBYism intensifies].
             Finally, after being shuttered for 7 straight years, developer-hero Hal Wheeler came along and bought the place for $900,000. He renovated the entire building and was able to secure a 15-year lease with Town Sports International, who opened it as a Philadelphia Sports Club in 1998. In 1999, Wheeler flipped the place for 2.2 million to Yaron Properties. In 2007, they sold it to D.C. developer Douglas Properties for 4.65 million, who promised to build out those extra floors from the original plan as residential. Of course, that never happened.
             So you see, this is how NIMBYs are made. A string of broken promises, year after year of vacant lots and/or buildings, and a ton of inconvenience created when the shit finally gets off the ground. No wonder the SHCA makes a career out of rejecting shit.

Evolution of a Society Hill resident.

               

Fill These Fronts: 12th and South, 13th and South

1200 South Street

            Fuck this shit. I know this part of South Street might not exactly be Retail Heaven, but it sure has come a long way in the last 10 years or so. Therefore, there's no reason why there should be years-long empty storefronts at two prominent corners with assloads of foot traffic and thousands of permanent residents nearby. I'm talking about 1200 and 1300 South Street, the old Gennaro's Pizza and the old Tattoo shop.           
              First, 1200 South Street, the 850-875 square foot space at the southeast corner of 12th and South. For decades in the early 20th Century, this location was Leroy's Drug Store.

Here in this incorrectly labeled picture from 1953. It had already been here well over 20 years at this point, that is like its 3rd sign. PhillyHistory.org

                   At the start of the 1980s, it was a doctor's office, and then, when its current owner's father took possession of the place, became a restaurant. In 1990, Gennaro's Pizza began their 21-year reign at the space until moving to 1315 Bainbridge Street in 2011. Ever since, this space had been a big embarrassing hole of empty.
                  A couple of years ago, there was some uproar about how the landlord attempted to get some interest in this space. They superimposed a sign on top of the old Gennaro sign depicting the silhouette of a woman with the words "High Traffic Corner". Nearby homeowners got pretty upset about it and eventually complained enough for the problem to be picked up by both Philly Mag and Curbed Philly. I could see their concern-- we're trying to class up this neighborhood a bit, and the implications of the image in that sign, whether intentional or not, wasn't gonna do that.

Pic from the Curbed Philly story about it.

                   Eventually, the landlord placed some black bars over the tits and ass of the silhouette woman, but later took down the sign altogether. Now, I know that folks don't like the building owners, the Yelson Group, very much, but I have to be fair and say that they do maintain some good spaces (Vetri), despite their, shall we say, mixed reviews. The reason I'll give them at least a little bit of credit that is the fact they pay their taxes, put their real names on their properties, and don't hide amongst their lessees.
                 What am I talking about? I happen to know that Washington Square West, like many other neighborhoods in the city, is rife with slumlords. A lot of them are old heads that were the first pioneers into the neighborhood and bought up properties for next to nothing. Many of them converted buildings into apartments 30 years ago and haven't touched them since, paying crooked do-nothing management companies to run them with expired rental licenses and L & I violations up the wazoo. They own the buildings using goofy LLC names with addresses that lead to nowhere.
                  Many still live in the neighborhood while some have had the audacity to build themselves custom multi-million-dollar houses in Jersey and Florida while still showing up to Wash West Civic meetings to yell at everyone about how they're a long time resident of the neighborhood so you'd better fucking listen to anything they have to say. The Yelsons don't come close to this level of shitbagiousness, so as much as people may give them flack, there are much worse building owners in the same hood doing much worse things.
                Anyway, you want to rent 1200 South Street? Well, you can't (at least right now). Despite all those signs you see in the picture above, the listing for this spot was just pulled. When I first found this out, I got excited, thinking maybe someone leased the space. Jonathan Tori of Addison Real Estate, the company on the "LEASE" signs informed me that it has been "taken off the market". Here's their video of the space, complete with somber music:         

               Now that you've seen it, I urge you to consider renting this property, somehow.. (contacting the Yelson Group would probably be the first step). This is an 850-875 square foot floor space complete with basement storage, a bunch of usable kitchen equipment, and an employee shitter. The corner gets moderately brisk foot traffic during the day and shitloads of it at night. Thousands of people live in the surrounding blocks nearby, many of them with tons of disposable income to throw around. This spot would do well as a coffee shop, restaurant, take-out, or even a chain store.
              Ok, so the space needs some work. Good! Tear the shit out of it and make it your own! The last tenant stayed for 21 goddamn years! Its latest price was $2500/month, much reduced from its original 2011 price. How bad could it be? Not interested? I got another for ya...

1300 South Street




              This 2,000 square foot retail space has been empty for about 8 years, which is pitiful considering the fact that it was filled pretty much continuously between 1916 and 2006. Its first tenant was the Acme Tea Company, where it was just one of the many many locations this chain had in the city in the early 20th Century.

There it is on the left in 1930. PhillyHistory.org

                Later on, it became Dr. Isadore LeBlang's optometrist office and by 1935 was combined with 1302 to become a bar and restaurant. After a long string of barstaurants, at the end of the 1960s it became Masjid Muhammed of Philadelphia, a mosque. They moved out by the late 1980s and the space went back to being a doctor's office for a short period of time. In 1988, the location became South Street Tattoo and stuck around until 2000, only to be replaced by another tattoo shop, Fat's Tat's, until 2006, when the current owners of the building bought the place.
                The new owners spruced up the building, renovating the upper floors and expanding the windows in the retail space.

How it looked in July 2007, when they were working on it. Love that Google Streetview Time Travel.

               The retail space went up for lease in July 2009 and has been sitting empty since. Unfortunately, it didn't take very long before the place's exterior got all vandalized. Perhaps the place would be easier to lease if it wasn't all fucked-up looking.

Erased graffiti that isn't erased, broken window, insulation popping out. Its even worse than my shitty picture-taking shows.

                 The interior doesn't look so great either. It seems like whoever was working on sprucing-up this space stopped halfway through. How the fuck do they expect to lease this shit for $4,995/month while presenting it in this condition? According to the signs in the windows, the space is offered through Kurfiss-Sotheby. Here's the listing, though there's no photo included. The space comes with a brand new accessible bathroom and brand new dual-zoned heating/AC. All it needs is a hero to come along and make it nice again.
                The reason I bring up these two empty storefronts despite there being plenty others on their blocks is because there are big changes coming all around. The empty lot across from 1300 South is getting a new development with even more new retail.

Image from the Passyunk Post

                   We can't have empty shit on two prominent corners with this kind of stuff about to be built. Its bad enough that Harry's Occult, next door to his new shit, is empty now. On top of that, Dranoff's Southstar Lofts down the block has managed to pick up a new Sbraga, Big Gay Ice Cream, and an un-named gourmet pizza place in like 5 minutes. Therefore, there are definitely some big players that are into this area. Its not like no one's interested.
                  The potential is there. The people are there. This part of South Street's day has come. FILL THESE FRONTS!!

...and don't get me started on this motherfucker.

Old-Ass Building of the Week: Chambers-Wylie Church/Broad Street Ministry

315 South Broad Street
         

Pic by Brad Maule

          This is one hell of a church, both for what it did in the past and for what it does today. Read all about it at the Hidden City Daily! Also, we've added a second tour date (July 12th) for my Forgotten Broad Street Tour!! Sign up now!!

99 Years Ago in Philadelphia: Middle of June, 1915

Hero Gives His Life to Save Children, Can't Stop Joking About It

           Early on a Wednesday morning, 42-year-old William H. McClellan was about to start hauling a bunch of shit for Peter Coyle's operation at 16th and Sansom Streets when he heard the ruckus from two runaway horses-- panicked and careening down 16th Street. McClellan then noticed that a large group of little kids were crossing 16th at Locust on their way to the Hollingsworth School at 15th and Locust. McClellan then jumped from his wagon and grabbed the bits of the horses, only to get trampled by them.
           Despite them stepping on his chest and FACE, he got back up, ran after the horses, grabbed their bits, and stopped them in their tracks. When police arrived, McClellan was laughing his ass off about the whole situation, wiping blood from his eyes and asking if anyone was hurt. They carried him into a patrol car and brought him to Hahnemann Hospital. He continued to joke with the officers about losing an eye in the ordeal shortly before dying on his hospital bed.

The Hollingsworth School, where the children were headed.

"Cleaner" Disposes of Body, Gets Caught By Bragging About It

               Off-duty cop W.C. Miller was just trying to get drunk at his favorite bar when he started getting annoyed at the boasting of one John Allen, who kept going on and on about how he could get rid of any dead body without anyone finding out. Miller then realized that a 28-year-old woman named Frances Carter had been missing for 6 months and was last seen in that neighborhood.
              Miller struck up a conversation with Allen's drunk ass and figured out that he had disposed of Frances Carter's body. Allen was arrested the next day. He did not admit to disposing of Frances Carter, but did admit that he and his wife shared a house with Walter and Nellie Wilson, the couple that Frances Carter had been seen with prior to her disappearance. Police went to that house, but got the address wrong. They were supposed to go to 1917 Webster Street, but ended up busting down the door at 1927 Webster Street and giving up after a search. 
             Just as police were leaving, neighbors came out of their homes and told the cops that they had seen a ghost walking down the 1900 block of Webster Street late at night for the previous 6 months. Apparently, this was something you could tell police back then and they'd be like, "Shit, let's keep looking!". There were also reports of a bad smell coming from 1917 Webster Street. "Murder Squad" Detectives William Mahoney and William Geonotti entered the home with "Special Policemen" Gibson and Dornick and started digging up the basement by candlelight. After 10 hours of exhaustive digging, the mangled, decomposed body of Frances Carter was found, along with the remains of a newborn infant.
           Frances Carter had been bludgeoned to death and buried half alive. Her body was so fucked up-looking that one of the coroners handling her body fainted twice. Another was sent home after puking his brains out. Walter Wilson was found hiding in a storeroom of a general store in New Rochelle, New York and arrested. The occupant of 1917 Webster Street, Levi Peters, explained that he was leased the house in January 1915, right after Carter's disappearance, by John Allen on Wilson's behalf. Allen had explained to him that Wilson and his wife needed to get out of town right away.
        The whole 1900 block of Webster Street was demolished in the 1980s, and was just re-born with a row of G-Ho specials in 2009-10. If you're going to bury a body there, don't go bragging about it. Also, the ghost of that body will tip people off.

Since the house where the body was found is long gone, here's John Allen's house at 1226 Reed Street from Google Streetview. Check that basement.

Bear Sighted In Tacony

               With all these bear sightings in the news lately, you should know that this is nothing unusual. On this week in 1915, a big, lumbering bear was seen on Longshore Street (now Longshore Avenue) in Tacony, which was then mostly a dirt path into a swamp... only the houses near Disston Park were built at that point. It wasn't just any old black bear that gets seen often around these parts-- it was a fucking brown bear!!
              Local residents found the closest cop they could find, an Officer Flick. Flick readied his weapon while the locals gathered up their own guns from their homes. Flick was the first to approach the bear, and nearly pissed his pants upon finding that the bear had men's shoes on. The night before, a Joe Small, an actor and stuntman, had gotten shitfaced drunk in Tacony and attempted to walk all the way to his home miles away, which meant crossing creeks, swamps, and bogs to Tacony's north and west.
              Small had been traveling all night and had passed out in the mud numerous times along the way. Officer Flick got a broom and brushed all the mud and clay off of Small, then brought him down to the station, where he was hosed off. When brought before Magistrate Borie, the judge couldn't stop laughing about the incident and let him go.

 Cherry Hill Is Closing!!

                Not Cherry Hill Mall, silly, Eastern State Penitentiary! Back then, the ESP still carried the old name of its pre-city grid encroachment location in the minds of local residents. Though still officially called Eastern State Penitentiary, it was colloquially known as "Cherry Hill". This week in 1915, Governor Brumbaugh signed the "Hess Bill", which consolidated Eastern and Western State Penitentiaries in a new prison in a centralized location in Centre County, which was already under construction.The then 86-year-old ESP would be shut down
               Those who worked for the local prison were PISSED. They didn't want to move to boring-ass Bellefonte, PA in order to keep their jobs! Also, it was claimed that the cost and effort to move the 1600 convicts from Eastern and the 800 from Western to this new place was going to be enormous. They pushed to get the convicts at Moyamensing Prison transferred to the old ESP to keep the place going.

Eastern State in 1913.

                 Well, you know how stubborn Philadelphians can be... Rockview, as it came to be called, ended up just taking on minimum security overflow from Western State Penitentiary. Eastern ended up staying open until 197fucking1! Rockview is still in use as a men's medium security joint. I'm sure it'll be on Lock-Up soon enough. Just keep checking MSNBC on a Saturday and you'll catch it.