But in 1971 there was an element of unexpected danger that was strange and weird even by South Philly standards – snakes.
In the wee hours of Sept. 7. 1971, new mother Midgalia Santiago, 18, was fast asleep in her rowhouse apartment on 7th Street near Snyder Avenue when she was suddenly awakened by a sharp pain in her foot.
Santiago had just been bitten on the foot by a cobra!
She was rushed to a nearby hospital and the unharmed baby was rushed outside. The cops and an SPCA employee with a dog noose gingerly entered the apartment and captured the cobra.
The victim survived, primarily because the bite was not too deep.
A couple of days later, a seven-foot Burmese python was found in another house on the same block.
And why was a deadly cobra and a python slithering around old row houses?
The answer was a recently closed pet shop on the block that specialized in exotic animals and birds. The owner claimed his shop had been broken into twice recently and it was the bandits who let loose the snakes.
Pet store owner Harry Bock lived nearby with his wife, six children, 500 armadillos (packed in boxes for shipment), 16 snakes, a gila monster and one alligator.
On the third floor was Bock’s personal pet – a young mountain lion.
According to press reports, the city had no law against owning dangerous animals and snakes. All the city could do was hit Bock with $100 cruelty to animals fine related to the mountain lion and the tightly packed armadillos.
We think this was the first and last time a “cruelty to armadillos” charges were filed by the city of Philadelphia.