Jumping Into Elfreth's Alley: Accidental Tourists

You’re home alone and you hear footstep downstairs. 
What do you do?

Do you dial 911 and grab you revolver? 
Do you lock yourself in a closet and cower in fear?

Well, if you live on Elfreth’s Alley, you just grin and chuckle. 

Then you go downstairs and explain to the tourists that this house isn’t a museum. It’s a private residence and you simply forgot to lock your door.

It happens frequently to residents of the quaint street that bills itself as the oldest continuously residential street in America.

One long-time resident recalls leaving her door wide-open while she took some purchase into her basement. “I heard footsteps in my kitchen and people talking," she recalls. “They were nice folks who simply thought it was a museum and walked in. They apologized. I told them it was my fault for not closing the door and offered them a cup of coffee. I like meeting people, That’s why I moved here.”

Bob Christophersen has not lived on Elfreth’s Alley in many years but says he loved his time there. “I had a Dutch door that I could leave half open. People might peek in and occasionally someone would walk into the house. I’d explained it was a private house and answer any question they might have.”

Tourists that jump up to peer into windows are known as “jumpers” to folks who live there.

“All the neighbors were very close and friendly,” adds Christophersen, who is the type of people-person who knows almost everyone in his condominium complex.

        "I remember a guide saying that Jeremiah Elfreth had several wives," Christophersen recalls.  "A tourist asked if he was a bigamist. The guide responded, 'No.  He was a Quaker.'"

Boies Penrose: Senator Eats More Than His Fair Share

He was a Harvard grad and a U.S. Senator for more than 20 years, and if Boies Penrose was alive today he would win the annual Wing Bowl with hardly a belch.

Before gluttony became a sport, Penrose was a champion eater. He stood about 6-foot-4 and hit 350-pounds as a senior master glutton. Several people recorded a typical Penrose breakfast: a dozen fried eggs, a dozen rolls, a one-pound slab of ham and a quart of coffee.

He loved oysters. The story is told how a customer in one of his favorite bars challenged Penrose to an oyster-eating contest. The challenger got sick and quit at about 35 oysters. Penrose decided to stop at 50.

It’s not clear whether the following story of Penrose’s eating prowess happened at banquet or fancy restaurant. It involved squabs (or similar fowl called rail birds).....

A large platter was delivered to the table with 26 birds arranged around a bowl of wild rice and another bowl of gravy. Penrose attacked the entire platter. He proceeded to eat every bird, all the rice and drink the gravy.

If this story of heroic gluttony seems exaggerated, it must be pointed out that several witnesses said the Senator could polish off an entire turkey.

William Penn Looks Towards The Red Light District OR is He Just Hanging Out?

When it was completed in 1901 many people hated City Hall and singled- out the statue of William Penn for particular scorn.

“The higher it’s placed the better it will be for the city’s art reputation,” wrote one newspaper. The writer added. “If it should be put down 500-feet in the bowels of the earth instead of in the air, it would be cause for rejoicing.” 

The Penn statue was problematic from the get-go. First, there was disagreement on how fat to make Penn. The first models of the statue by Alexander Milne Calder showed Penn plump and elderly but historians pointed out that Penn was in his 30s and quite fit when he founded Pennsylvania.

The historians also said Quaker plain dress was not mandatory during the era and Penn, who inherited big bucks, was a fancy dresser. So, the statue has Penn attired in an expensive ruffled shirt and fancy coat.

Then there was (and continues) criticism of how the statue faces. Calder reportedly wanted the statue looking south. Instead, Penn looks to the northeast. Officially, he faces Penn Treaty Park where he signed a treaty with local Indians.

Wise-guys said he is looking toward Philly’s red light district.

Generations of Philadelphia have made jokes about the placement of Billy Penn’s right hand, palm down. From a certain angle, the hand looks like Billy’s “Willy.”

One WEB story is headlined “The William Penn Wiener.” Another post is called the “Accidental Dong.” An old postcard depicts the “erotic” photo of the statue with the caption “Hanging out in Philly.”

Regarding which way Penn faces, a tourist recently came to the City Hall Visitors Center, positive that statute rotated – as if mounted on a lazy Susan.

City Hall took 30 years to complete. The cost estimate of $10 million, more than doubled in the end. Many citizens simply hated it.

The extremely ornate, statue-and- doo-dad infested structure was out of fashion by its 1901 completion. It was called “The Marble Monstrosity” and “The Marble Maw.” Others dubbed it “The Obstruction,” "The Nuisance,” “The Public Folly" or “The Marble Elephant.”

Today most Philadelphians love City Hall – and so do birds. But that’s
another story.

Philadelphia: The City of Brotherly Crooks

Maybe it’s because we live here and read the news, but it seems that given the opportunity, Philadelphians will always steal. Perhaps we are a City of Brotherly Crooks.

Some people pocket sugar and sweeteners off restaurant tables. Others steal a few thousand bucks from the treasury of kids’ soccer, baseball and hockey leagues or the PTA. Only a small percentage of stealing makes it into the news. But the stories are often astounding and/or amusing. Here’s a small sample.

If your library books are over-due the fine is 25 cents a day. And it was a cinch for library assistants to pocket the money, which can addup. An audit in 2010 found employees in three different branch libraries had walked off with a total of $9,000 in little more than one year.

A manager with the Philadelphia Housing Authority pleaded guilty to extorting $25,000 from contractors.  Her lawyer argued that practically everyone at PHA stole. The lawyer declared that her client learned to steal from her superiors. The work environment was “amoral with a prevailing atmosphere of corruption,” declared the lawyer.

Eight principals of Philadelphia schools were accused of mishandling a total of $50,000 in SEPTA tokens that were sold to the students. In one school, the shortage was $19,000. (This may not be surprising because Philly school principals are members of the Teamsters Union.)

Speaking of SEPTA, investigators often encounter 10 passengers on a bus involved in an accident. Then 15 people file law suits claiming injuries.

When a high ranking court administrator with 34 years on the job started having financial difficulties, she simply stole $78,000.

A lot of founders and administrators of Philly charter school have gone to jail. One guy pocketed $90,000 from the school’s scholarship fund.

Perhaps, just living in Philadelphia will turn a high-paid celebrity into a crook. Take long-time TV sports reporter, Don Tollefson. He hailed from California and earned big bucks in Philly at WPVI-TV and later, Fox TV. Everybody liked and trusted Don. So, more than 100 trusting fans paid big bucks for out-of- town sporting events. Don said part of the money would “go to charity.” Tollefson was convicted of stealing $340,000. The packages (tickets, transportation, accommodations) were 100 percent bogus. Tallefson blamed booz for his stealing.

Anita Guzzardi claimed addiction to gambling and shopping for stealing $900,000 from the Catholic Archdiocese. She was the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the church.

Another church person with the same addictions to gambling and high-living was Monsignor William Dombrow. He was administrator of a home for retired, elderly and ill priests. Donations and life insurance of dead priests etc, were diverted into the bank account of the crooked clergyman. Over nine years Dombrow stole more than half a million bucks.

The variety and number of medical-related scams is staggering. For example, Dr. Martin Spector illegally sold body parts. including entire human heads, fresh from the city morgue to distant medical schools.

Pill mills galore and several crooked ambulance squads thrived here. Endless methods of cheating insurance and the government. found a home in Philly.

Several chiropractors in Philly and the suburbs have gone to jail for bogus billing. One criminal network set up by a cheating chiropractor involved 70 people with “bad backs” and a crooked cop. They netted more than $600,000. Another group said to have scammed $10 million in phony billing had a chain of back-pain pain clinics.

Our favorite “chiropractor” scam man was Tahib Smith Ali who operated a center city office called Oasis Holistic Healing Village. Ali's middle name should be Chutzpah. By billing Blue Cross for $1.5 million in only 11 months, he set a national record. Even more interesting, Ali wasn’t a chiropractor. He had no medical training. By now his 6-year prison term is complete.

Speaking of chutzpah, a special award for greed and larceny should be awarded to Calvin Duncan who worked in the mail room of the city Water Department. Part of his job was purchasing office supplies. Over six years he spent $1.3 million of taxpayer’s money for ink and toner cartridges. Then he sold the stuff at a discount, to a buyer in Arkansas-- for a nice profit of $500,000, according to police.

Let us close this essay on a pleasant note by paying tribute to the imagination and hard work of two nice scam artists. They were parking lot attendants. One worked in a lot at 12th and Spring Garden streets. The other attended a lot on the Ben Franklin Parkway in front of the Art Museum. Both were polite and courteous. Both wore work uniforms. Both men collected $5 parking fees. Neither “attendant” turned the money over to anyone. Drivers mistakenly thought they were employees of some company. The “attendants” simply saw an opportunity for a little graft and took the job - since no one else was doing it.

HitchBot And The Balloon: Only In Philadelphia

We have put together two separate but related Philly tales in this post. Neither is funny….unless you have that sick sense of humor so common in the City of Brotherly Love..


HitchBot was a cute and clever social experiment in which hundreds of people in four countries displayed curiosity and human kindness to a robot.

Then news reported worldwide cemented Philadelphia’s image as a place filled with ignorant yahoos when the experiment ended in the robot’s destruction.

Two Canadian social scientists set up the experiment in human-robot interaction. Like Apple’s Siri, HitchBot was programmed to speak and answer questions but it could not move.

It sat by the side of the road like a hitch-hiker. A driver would have to lift it into his or her car. A GPS device kept track of its travels. “Please pick me up and put me in your car,” said the robot. It travelled all over Canada, Holland and Germany delighting bemused motorists.

After traveling 18 days and 6,700 miles with Canadian drivers and racking up similar mileage with friendly Dutch and German motorists, the experiment came to the USA in August 2015.

HitchBot started in Boston with the goal of reaching San Francisco. It made it only as far as Philadelphia where it was attacked and demolished by unknown knuckleheads.

One wise guy predicted it would be “shot and tossed into a ditch in America.” It was a pretty good prediction.

HitchBot was found smashed and inoperable in Old City. Its carcass was returned to its Canadian creators.

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Another similar “only in Philadelphia” sad and shameful story involved a gala hot-air balloon flight. It happened in the summer of 1990, and as the Daily News reporter phased it: “It was the city’s first recorded balloon mugging.”

A dozen balloons set off from the Benjamin Franklin Parkway headed to South Jersey, but the winds were all wrong. The Ray-O- Vac sponsored balloon floated into North Philly and landed in a weedy, trash-filled lot at 7th and Oxford.

The female pilot waved happily to the large crowd attracted to the strange sight of a balloon landing in their neighborhood.

“It hit the ground and everybody bum rushed them,” said one witness. Another witness said, “They just started taking shit.” The mob got away with expensive binoculars, cameras and a two-way radio.

No one was hurt, but it’s a sure bet that the shaken pilot returned home to Wisconsin, vowing never again to fly or land in Philly.

Don Russell Remembers: The Great Football Holding Test

Don Russell, veteran reporter, editor and beer expert, says journalism has been a mostly fun career. One Daily News story stands out in his memory “because it captures the fun, the inanity, the joy of working for a big city tabloid"

“It was September 1997, and the Eagles were meandering toward a losing season,” Russell recalls.

“Among the worst losses was the one against Dallas when Tom Hutton mishandled a snap on a gimme, last minute goal that would have won the game,” Russell explains. (The Cowboys won 21-20) He says it wasn’t a bad snap; Hutton simply just goofed-up holding the football for the kicker.

Russell says every sports fan in the city agonized over the loss. “How hard can it be to hold a f-- king football,” an editor said the next morning and a light bulb popped in Russell’s mind. “I don’t know. Let’s find out.”

Russell found a football, a piece of green outdoor carpet to simulate fake turf, and someone in the sports department convinced LaSalle College to send over their place-kicker.

The reporter, a photographer and the kicker set up the experiment in City Hall Courtyard and soon attracted a crowd. Volunteers in the crowd held the football for the few seconds it took for the kicker to make a clean kick. And sure enough, no one – not even a female Dutch tourist who had never seen a football – had any problem handing the pigskin.

Russell heard a familiar voice behind him asking what he was doing. It was City Councilman Rick Mariano. “I told him and he said ‘let me try.’ Just to prove it was easy, he one-handed the snap and held it in place without loosening his tie,” says the reporter.

Then Mariano (who later went to jail) said he wanted to kick one. “Here, hold this.” Mariano said,  handing the surprised reporter his holstered handgun. Russell said the councilman booted the ball squarely. But Mariano said it was not long enough, “I was trying to kick into Rendell’s window.” 

How hard is it to hold a football? “As Easy as One, Two, Three,” declared a Daily News headline the following day.

A Nutty Joke About Philadelphia

Here’s a little riddle that was popular with high school boys several decades ago...

Question: 
What’s long and thin and between two nuts?

Answer: 
Sansom Street – between Walnut and Chestnut

Philadelphia Mayor Story: Nutter On Street

In a televised interview, former Mayor Michael Nutter was asked about the transition from Philadelphia mayor to private citizen. In his usual rambling way of speaking, Nutter talked about being constantly chauffeured by a police driver during his eight years as mayor and for several months after he left office.

Nutter said he gave a lecture at Columbia University in Manhattan and was anxious to catch a 5 p.m. train to Philadelphia, and summoned a ridesharing vehicle.

“I jumped into the wrong vehicle,” Nutter recalled. “We’re a few blocks away when the driver gets a call asking where he is at. He realizes he has the wrong passenger. He tells me to get out. I get out. Call my driver. He asks where I was. I had no idea, and there were no street signs. You know how long those New York avenues are?” 

It was then Nutter was struck by the harsh fact that he was no longer a mayor with a police driver.
“I was just another guy standing in the street,”