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Thursday, October 29, 2020

Western Electic Company - N. Eleventh and W. York Streets - 1913




Western Electric Company's Philadelphia Office

This is a partial view which does not do justice to the desk room and number of employees on the second floor of that company's building at Eleventh and York Streets.

At row 1 of desks — in the lower left corner are the Telephone Claim Clerk, Pricing Clerk and Stock Editor .

At row 2 are the Service Clerk, Stock Main tenance Clerks and Editors .

At row 3 are the Telephone Invoice Checkers. 

In the extreme rear are the Western Electric purchase order clerks and stenographers. At the extreme left are the comptometer operators. At the extreme right are the corps of telephone service clerks, stationery editors, typists and comparing clerks. Dictation is done by phonograph.

In the rear is a system of files where “live” telephone tickets are audited and kept for ready reference. Beyond this is the record room and - filing department .

Not shown are the non-licensee sales departments, purchasing, bookkeeping and magazine offices. The offices of the Manager of the Philadelphia House, Stores Manager, Buyer, Treasurer and Accountant were behind the camera.



Tuesday, October 27, 2020

Philly's Finest - 1970

 



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Wednesday, October 21, 2020

North Catholic Faculty House - 1926-2020 - Erie & Torresdale

 


Click to enlarge

Original photo: J Rowe


Before they built a chapel on the third floor of the school, mass was celebrated in the Faculty House chapel, right there on the left, first floor, up the driveway steps. Can remember being recruited once or twice to be on honor guard duty at night after school in the Faculty House chapel, one hour, two students, at foot and head of the coffin of a deceased brother or priest awaiting their funeral next day. Can still remember the silence and lit candles and occasional visitors. Think it was Father Hanlon, WWII B-17 gunner btw, senior social studies that did the recruiting.




P. S. Duvall Lithograph - No.7 Bank Alley (Gold Street), 227 Dock Street - circa 1840 - Library of Congress



1858-1860 Hexamer Map




Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Pissing on a Bastard's Grave - Bucket List - Just Saying LOL


Annie Cotterall used to babysit us when we were kids. 

Aunt Annie Cotterall turned the deed to her house over to daughter on her wedding day. When her daughter died, son in law tossed her into street and Aunt Rose took her sister in. Have often thought of it a bit, since I don't have a bucket list per say, I still would like to take a leak on the son in law's grave before I die LOL. 

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/13105324/annie-m-cotteral

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/13132866/joseph-e-kurtz



William F. B. Johnson Townhouse - 1708 Rittenhouse Squre - John W. Keyes, Architect - Inquirer 30 Nov 1948



Compact Mid-City House

by A. H. Alexander

ON a narrow street leading from Philadelphia's famous Rittenhouse Square there is a row of buildings that once served as stables for nearby city mansions. The horses vacated their quarters long ago; most of the mansion owners departed, and the buildings were transformed, in gradual stages, into garages, shops, warehouses and a miscellaneous array of business places. 

Perhaps the most interesting recent transformation in this Philadelphia Britannia Mews is the town house of Mr. and Mrs. William F. B. Johnson. When the Johnsons bought the property it already had gone through several stages, ending as a warehouse. The dirt floor of the stable still remained; the arch of the carriage entrance was there; the brick walls were sturdy, but the rest of the building was crumbling toward decay. John W. Keyes, the architect, was forced to rip the building down to a skeleton before he could make it over into a solid and comfortable home. 

The result is a compact three-story living unit, that benefits from a somewhat dramatic treatment of the first floor, and of a quite conventional treatment of the other floors. The third holds the bedroom and bath, and closets, of the Johnsons' son, who usually is away at college. The second floor, which is fulllength, holds two sizable bedrooms, two dressing rooms and two baths, nicely arranged so that guests can be housed in the front bedroom without inconvenience to the Johnsons in the bedroom at the rear of the house. 

The first floor, however, is the most interesting. Two-thirds of its area has been made into a giant, 41-foot-long living room and dining room. The high arch of the carriage doors has been made into a big studio window at the front of the living room. The entrance doorway flanks this window. Behind the entrance doorway the stairs rise to the second floor, and in the corner made by the stairs there is a neatly arranged library nook and a desk. The concrete floor has been heavily padded and carpeted in soft gray. The walls, also gray, have been covered with fabric and then painted. 

The long, narrow living room runs back to contain the dining space. Here the walls have been painted with a decorative floral design. Behind the living room is the kitchen, also long and narrow. At one end of the kitchen is a dining alcove. Beside this back end of the kitchen is a small bedroom and bath for the maid. The heater room also is just off the kitchen. 



As house has neither attic nor basement, the architect provided plenty of closet space. In all, the house has about twenty closets, and these are augmented by various built-in spaces. 

In the living room, for example, there is a connected sequence of cabinets, bookshelves and cupboards that lines one complete wall. One section of this built-in wall detail includes space for a radio phonograph, television set, and for a motion picture screen. At the dining end of this long room, the built-in fixtures include a glassed-in cupboard. All of the cabinet work is done in attractive natural birch. 

The front of the house is severely plain. Its surface is white-painted brick. The shutters are bright red. An attractive lantern flanking the front door, slightly relieves the severity of the facade. The house has been thoroughly sound-proofed against traffic noises, and some of its rear windows, which overlook a rather drab prospect have been fitted with fluted glass. This lets in the light, keeps out the view. For the rest, it is a small, self-contained unit, a sort of island in the mid-city section that lends itself to relaxed living. 






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Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Frankford Schul-Verein - the "Dutch Club" - Buckius and Jasper Streets - John W. Keyes, Architect 1892-1970 - Inquirer 8 Oct 1933

 

Click on Photo to Enlarge

Frankford Schul-Verein - the "Dutch Club" - Buckius and Jasper Streets - Original clubhouse (1895) - 1905 Buckius Street on right of photo. 




19O5 Buckius Street - Front entrance bricked up Oct. 1958.




Sunday, October 11, 2020

Breaker Boys - Eagle Hill Colliery - Pottsville Pa. - The Reading Railroad, History of a Great Trumk Line 1892

 

Click on Photo to Enlarge


FYI: These children in the photo are separating Slate attached to Coal at the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad's largest coal mine, in a "breaker" end of the mining process for the King of Coal Corps in late 19th century Pennsylvania. They are doing it with their bare hands and this is no before and or after school part time job. It is dawn to dusk and for pennies an hour. 

Oral history in my family is that my grandfather, of McAdoo, Pa., born 1866, a Civil War Boomer, did a similar job at age six in order to supplement income for his sick father, whose health and or immune system had been damaged being a Confederate Prisoner of War, after he helped Sherman burn Atlanta btw. The Vet eventually got a disability pension from the gubmint and died of bowel and or prostate cancer in 1900, two months after surgery at the local Veteran's hospital. Diagnosis rather vague on his autopsy report performed at that same Veteran's facility. But I would assume the above translating their general area of body illness on the document, removal of organs etc., on a copy of that autopsy from back then and from the National Archives.

That being said, probably with temporary improved health of his father and or help from relatives, my grandfather managed to get a standard education from about age 10 onwards and ended up as a grocer and Postmaster of McAdoo, Pa around the death of his father in 1900. 

The store and post office burned down shortly thereafter on the timeline and, when past the age of forty, and probably considered unemployable, not unlike to the present day, he migrated with his immediate family to Philly around 1908 and got a gubmint job at the Frankford Arsenal until his death in the 1930s.