Monday, August 12, 2019
Sunday, August 11, 2019
Colosseum - Broadway at Thirty-Fifth and Thirty-Sixth Sts, NYC - Before Its Reassembly in Philly - NY Daily Graphic - 10 Jan 1874
New York Stranger Building in Philly - SE Broad and Locust 1876
Some information and display perhaps overlaying, overlapping with Philadelphia set up of same building, from its former NYC site.
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Saturday, August 10, 2019
Friday, August 9, 2019
Centennial Exhibition - Hospital of U.S. Army Medical Department Exhibit - Eakins The Gross Clinic - U.S. Library of Congress
The Gross Clinic by Thomas Eakins, 1875
PMA - Philadelphia Museum of Art
(Photo: Philadelphia Inquirer 2016)
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Thursday, August 8, 2019
Theatre Unknown - 7939 Frankford Ave - Holmesburg / Torresdale - 1913 - ?
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Film Theatre Activity - Frankford Ave - Kensington Ave - Inquirer 19 Oct 1913
Film Theatre Activity
The old building at the northwest corner of Eighth and Filbert streets, lot 40 feet by 80 feet, which was occupied for many years by Hallahan's shoe store, is to be remodeled into a moving picture hall. Levi and Mandel have leased the property for- the Pennsylvania Company for Insurances on Lives and Granting Annuities to Arthur Kaufman, who will build a moving picture hall on the site, to seat about 500.
Announcement was made during the week of several more moving picture theatres that are to be built in various sections of the city. Karp and London are contemplating the erection of a one story store and moving picture theatre at 2844-2848 Frankford avenue, at a cost of about $30,000. The proposed building will be 80 by 150 feet. Louis Hickman is revising plans for another moving picture theatre to be erected at 1610-1614 South street for John T. Gibson. This building.which will cost about $30,000, will be 51 by 121 feet, one story high. A third theatre building will be erected at 7939 Frankford avenue, Holmesburg, for Frederick B. Richert. The plans call for a building, 81 by 131 feet, with a seating capacity of about 450, and will cost in the neighborhood of $5000. A permit was issued to Thomas Duff to make alterations and build two additions, 19 by 60 feet and 87 by 40 feet, respectively, to the moving picture theatre at the southeast corner of Kensington avenue and Ontario street, for the Ontario Amusement Company. The improvements will cost about $3500.
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Wednesday, August 7, 2019
Columbine Archbishop Charles Chaput Still Speaks the NRA/GOP Party Line on Guns and Violence
I may consider myself as a Progressive but people like Charlie Chaput, current seat holder, seat warmer, at the Cathedral over in Logan Circle but I am not a "godless progressive" as so many of Charlie's supporting crowd would label me. I care more about people than gun sales.
Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Denver, including Columbine Colorado, at the time of that massacre of innocent American life in 1999, is still in his "moral" comfort zone stating with such Trump like PRIDE and total lack of Christian empathy that:
"only a fool can believe that 'gun control' will solve the problem of mass violence"
The so-called "moral agents with twisted hearts" as Charlie polly parrots to gun supporters of gun violence are meal ticket for life religious parasites like Charlie Chaput.
My sympathies to the Catholics in Philly stuck with this moral numbnut.
May the terrorist victims in El Paso and Dayton try to rest in peace.
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Tuesday, August 6, 2019
Fatty Stewart's Apollo Hall - Vine Street - 1860s - Reminiscences of Nick Norton - VARIETY 1906
IN THE OLDEN DAYS
Reminiscences of the Early Days of Variety by the Veteran Manager and Performer, Nick Norton. NUMBER THREE. (VARIETY 1906)
...The East had always been the Promised Land, and I made for Philadelphia, concluding that the time was ripe for an invasion. I had expected to find work at Robert Fox's, but to my dismay Martini Chiriski, a noted juggler and wire walker, was filling an engagement there.
There was no chance for me, so I took an engagement at J. C. ("Fatty") Stewart's Apollo Hall, a Vine street basement place where the ceiling was so low it was impossible to work on the stage and even from the floor it was hard to find room for my juggling.
My salary was small because Stewart knew that I was stuck, but I did not get even that, for Stewart was an inveterate faro player and as soon as the receipts were in he would streak off to a gambling room and lose the entire amount in the hopeless endeavor to gain back what he had already lost. The result was that the ghost was permanently disabled and when at last an opportunity came to go to Baltimore for an engagement at Bob Gardner's Melodeon. I could not raise the fare.
The late "Billy" Barry was then a youngster in the company, and it was to his inventive mind I owed my escape. Our credit was good at the bar and at Barry's suggestion I drew against the bar to the extent of my salary in bar checks and sold these to the waiters at a discount.
In this way I got enough for my fare and got out of town, leaving all of my personal effects except the suit I was wearing at the boarding house in lieu of my board money.
The Baltimore engagement was a good one and in a couple of weeks my effects were redeemed and my chances began to look more rosy. Later on business dropped, and when, on April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth assassinated the President, all theatres were closed with no prospect of an early reopening and the management made this the excuse for welching on several weeks of arrears of salary.
I was broke again and without a single place of amusement in the entire country doing business.
Theatres then were not the important ventures they are to-day. A store with a stage at one end and ordinary kitchen chairs strapped to wooden bars constituted the equipment of many of the places, and I have known a place to be opened within forty-eight hours after some one had decided upon such a venture. If the place failed to pay there was small loss, and since there were no heavy investment charges the managers were not so anxious to keep the place open as they are now. There were from four to eight of these places in every town in addition to the standard place. I recall only eighteen important places open in the season of 1864-65, to wit:
Howard Athenaeum Boston, Mass.
Bob Butler's Theatre Comique, 444 Broadway, New York City.
Robert Fox's Casino, Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
Bob Gardner's Melodeon, Baltimore Street. Baltimore, Md.
George Lea's Canterbury...Washington, D. C.
Ben Trimbie's Varieties Pittsburgh, Pa.
Turn Chrr's Melodeon, Main St., Buffalo, N. Y.
Montpelier's Athenaeum, Superior Street, Cleveland, Ohio.
Theatre Comique (Chas. M. Welch), Detroit, Mich.
Charles Chadwick's Varieties. Dearborn Street. Chicago, Ill.
George Deagle's Varieties St. Louis, Mo.
Green Street Varieties ((apt. John Smith). Albany, N. Y.
Palace Varieties Cincinnati, Ohio.
Haverly's Theatre (J. H. Haverly), Toledo, Ohio.
Spaulding and Bidwell's, St. Charles Theatre, New Orleans, La.
Bloom's Varieties (John Bloom). Memphis. Tenn.
Tom Poland's Varieties Nashvllle, Tenn.
Bella Union San Francisco, Cal.
The list is unimportant as compared with the formidable array of houses today, but these'were the schools wherein many of the important legitimate actors of to-day and practically every comic opera comedian of importance was trained to his work. Men like Eddie Foy, Ned Harrigan, Francis Wilson, James T. Powers, Peter Dailey and hundreds of others were grounded in these variety houses, and they do credit to their instructors.
(To be concluded.)
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Katherine Klare "The Irish Thrush" - Performing at the Metropolitan Opera House - Inquirer 6 July 1913
University of Washington
Digital Collection
Katherine Klare - Vaudeville performer and singer. Wife and sometimes stage partner of fellow Vaudeville performer and composer Charles B. Ward.
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The Contrabandista - Performances at Broad Street Theatre - 1879
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Monday, August 5, 2019
Charles B. Ward - Vaudeville Performer, Composer Started in Philly Theatre - NY Dramatic Mirror 18 Jan 1896
Charles B. Ward, who has been singing at Proctor's Pleasure Palace for several weeks, has had an eventful career. He is known as "the Bowery Boy" because he sings ditties illustrative of life along the lower east side of New York city, of which section the Bowery is the principal thoroughfare. Mr. Ward was the first to bill himself as "the Bowery Boy," and claims that title as his right.
A MIRROR man had a chat with Ward one day last week in his dressing-room at the Pleasure Palace. " I began my stage career, " he said, "at 'Fatty' Stewart's place in Philadelphia as a boy soprano. I sang there during the Centennial. In 1879 I joined a juvenile opera company playing Pinafore. I played in several juvenile companies after that, and then joined Burton Stanley, doing a sketch. I filled in some time as a black-face monologuist in the West, after which I came Fast and was engaged by Edward E. Rice for The Seven Ages.
"After a season with Dixey, I went with The Pearl of Pekin. When that company stranded I joined the Bennet-Moulton Opera company. I left that and joined Reeves' Faust company with which I remained two years.
"In New Orleans I met Otis Skinner, who was managing Margaret Mather. He gave me a position as assistant stage manager and carpenter, and I stayed with the company for some time. I next joined Dockstader's Minstrels, and spent my first successful season with them. The next season I went out with a troupe playing Love on Wheels. It was a bicycle play, and we rode from town to town on wheels. While I was with this company I got a telegram to go to Chicago to sing in Tuxedo, and as Love on Wheels was on the point of collapsing, I went. The following season I was with Cupid's Chariot, in which I introduced 'After the Ball.' I was the first singer to telegraph Charles K. Harris about the success of the song. " I spent a part of a season with Primrose and West's Monte Carlo, and the rest of it with their minstrels. "My first real success was made at the Imperial Music Hall, when I sang 'My Pearl's a Bowery Girl.' Taking the advice of Andrew Mack, I dressed in a juniper and cap, which I bought from a truck driver on the Bowery. I sang this song at the Imperial for six weeks with great success.
"Since then I have played vaudeville dates, and have also played special engagements with Davis and Keogh's companies." "You have composed some music, have you not?" asked the MIRROR Man, "Yes, I have composed a waltz called Crushed Violets,' and the following songs: 'The Band Played On,' 'True Love,' 'Picture M,' and 'Only a Bowery Boy.' The words of the last two were written by Gussie L. Davis. I have two new songs which I will publish soon—'I'll Make Dat Black Gal Mine,' words by Dave Reed, Jr.. and 'The Girl With the Naughty Wink,' words by Edgar S Iden."
The New York Music Company, of which Mr. Ward is manager, is publishing all except one of the popular song series now running in The New York World. He expects that some of them will attain great popularity.
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Sunday, August 4, 2019
H.M.S. Pinafore - North Broad Street Theatre - Inquirer 4 Aug 1879
NORTH BROAD STREET THEATRE
BROAD Street, above ARCH
Every Evening at 8 o'clock.
Saturday Matinee at 2 o'clock.
REVIVAL
in compliance with numerous requests of the
Comic Opera.
H. M. S. PINAFORE.
The Cast filled by the members of
MR J. S. CROSSY'S
AMERICAN COMIC OPERA COMPANY,
Who made the great run of
125 CONSECUTIVE PERFORMANCES
Last season in the same Opera
Reserved seats. 50 cents. 75 cents and $1.
Box Office open all day.
Note.—The cooling apparatus is now in perfect
working order, making the Theatre comfortable on
the warmest evening.
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Saturday, August 3, 2019
Martin Nixon - Paper Manufacturer - 1817-1888 - Obit - Inquirer 18 June 1888
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| Philadelphia and Popular Philadelphians 1891 |
Martin Nixon, a descendent of the original Rittenhouse family line of old paper makers on the Wissahickon.
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Friday, August 2, 2019
Thursday, August 1, 2019
1910 Trolley Strike - Mob Attacking Strike-Breaker - Harper's Weekly 5 Mar 1910
"The mob mauling a strike-breaker in the presence of policemen."
"Strife in the City of Love" - Harper's Weekly 5 Mar 1910
Trolley sign: 5th and Porter via Lehigh
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Burned Out Trolley Car - 1910 Trolley Strike - Harper's Weekly 5 Mar 1910
"Strife in the City of Love" - Harper's Weekly 5 Mar 1910
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