Harrowgate Park, Kensington Philadelphia - Tioga El Station

Tioga Street EL Station - Entrance Harrowgate Park

War Memorial - "To Honor Those Who Served"

Harrowgate Park
                                                                                                                                                                         GoogleMaps

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Diner - "O" Street and Erie Avenue - Philadelphia - circa 1970s - Northeast Diner

Intersection "O"St and Erie Ave, Phila, Car lot, Site of former Diner (top right) (Bing Maps)

Been looking for photos of a Diner that used to sit at the intersection of "O" and Erie Avenues in Northeast Philly in the 1960's and 70's next to old Penn Fruit. Nothing but a used car sales lot now. 

Finally have proof that my memory at least was correct.  I do not or cannot remember if this Diner had a name but in the back of my brain, the name Northeast Diner comes to mind?

4/10/13 - An addition to the story of the "Northeast Diner" and a Philly Sports story about Jack Friel and the '68 North Catholic Varsity Basketball team that took too long to eat breakfast there :

http://www.tedsilary.com/jackfriel.htm


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Frankford Arsenal - Tacony Street - Philadelphia - 1940 - Gearing Up for War

                                                                                                                                                              Hagley Digital Archives -1940

A snipet of Frankford Arsenal along Tacony Street from Bridge Stree (top left) to Kennedy Street (bottom right), James Street in rear (top right).

I have to think that in 1940 when this photo was taken, the U.S. was sending a lot of war aid to Britain. Hence the need to tear down the houses on James Street for daytime parking. 

Tacony Street Houses torn down around 1960 to make way for I-95 across from Arsenal. 


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Bank of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia - Benjamin Latrobe - 1801-1867

Bank of Pennsylvania Phila., Second St Above Walnut, Front

Floorplan - 56 x 156 - Marble Facades Front and Back,
Painted Brick on Sides

2nd Floor

Rear

Demolition - 1867 

View - 1960

View - 2000

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Old Pennsylvania Bank Philadelphia - 1867 - 134 South Second Street

Old Pennsylvania Bank - 134 S Second St., Phila. - 1867

Now a parking lot between the Customs Building and City Tavern.

                                                                                                                                                                       PhilaGeoHistory1910

                                                                                                                                                                        PhilaGeoHistory 1862

http://www.brynmawr.edu/iconog/mrn/m11.jpg

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Automobile Repairing A Specialty - 1912

Market and 17th Street - Philadelphia - 1930

Source: http://digital.library.temple.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p15037coll5/id/458/rec/2


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1890 Map South Shore Staten Island - Swampland

If Philly is New York's "Sixth Borough" here is a

1890 map of all the South Shore of Staten Island

Swampland - of the forgotten "fifth borough" of NYC

Ocean Front Land now under water -

Railway, now MTA line

running north to south,

built as far east as possible 

on solid ground in1890.

Waln Grove Mansion - Frankford - Philadelphia - 1886

City Atlas of Philadelphia, Vol. 3, 23rd Ward, 1876 - Plate B

Tacony Public Bath House - Tacony and Levick Streets - 1916

Firemen's Water Hose Display - 1850 - Philadelphia

Wedding Dress 1902 - Philadelphia

Do you Recognize this School Building – Looking for Issac Schlichter’s House Philadelphia

This is follow up research material to my Gordon-Schlichter Wedding piece.  Out of curiosity and other research on material on a novel I want to write, I ran into follow up to the wedding piece. And it is not a very happy trail.

The groom James Lindsay Gordon died in 1904 at his residence of 

1903 lot map

15 W 17 Street in NYC.  Apparently he and Emily Adele had one child Edith Churchill Gordon born in 1900.  That leaves a widow and a four year old child in a five year marriage.  Then following the little out there mostly on the Gordon family genealogical sites, Emily Adele dies in 1908.

Which leaves the question, who raised Edith? The Schlichter grandparents and or friends and or family of the Gordons?

James was a brother of a famous lawyer, prolific writer and poet in the form of his older brother Armistead Churchill Gordon. The Armisteads and the Churchills are no doubt founding father names in Virginia history.  The Churchill name may be related to the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill but it is closer in fact to the Kentucky Churchills as in Churchill Downs.

More on Edith shortly.

The photo above is an unidentified archive item. At first I thought it a good candidate for the Barton School on Frankford Avenue and Buckius Street in “Goosetown” or quasi-Harrowgate overlapping with Frankford in Philly.

Of course, it is three stories and not two as described in sporadic literature produced over the years by the Board of Education bureaucracy.  That they added a third story between 1860 and 1905 is possible but it is only speculation on my part at this point in time.  Something about the photo says that it might just be the old Barton School.  

1891

If so, then the house to the left of the photo would be the first Schlichter residence before the rope baron bought the school in 1905, knocked it down and then proceeded to build a large residence or mansion after a lifetime of pinching pennies and rewarding a lifetime of achievement and a rags to riches story with the Schlichter Rope Mill.  That mill, one of two mills, also figures briefly in my novella Fresh Kills.

1910

Enlarging the simple Quaker like farmhouse residence to that of some grand Queen Anne like residence would fit the time frame of having a daughter and grandchild moving back in and along with many famous and distinguished Southern relatives coming to visit James Lindsay Gordon’s only child Edith Churchill Gordon.

As for Edith, the next time she shows up is as the middle wife, number two of three, of a playboy husband Harry Hays Morgan Jr.. Harry had a rather lackluster career as a Hollywood extra in movies, no doubt hanging around for the next Beverly Hills Party to attend.  His career ends in 1948, the same date noted as Edith Churchill Morgan’s year of death.

Gloria left, Thelma right 

Edith depending on the timeline, was one time sister in law of her husband Harry’s some might say notorious twin sisters Thelma and Gloria.  Thelma as the Viscountess Furness was Edward VIII’s last major mistress before Thelma introduced him to Wallis Simpson.  We all know where that went.

Gloria Morgan married Reggie Vanderbilt and was involved in the big custody battle over little miss rich kid Gloria Vanderbilt, the latter Jeans Queen and mother of CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

Oh the rich and famous.

My email address is located on the blog title page.  Please feel free to write in regards to any thing, photos, research sources, related to the Schlichters of Philadelphia, James Lindsay Gordon, Edith Churchill Gordon or the Barton School.  

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Philadelphia - 1876 in Illustrations