Crooked Quotes from ABSCAM and Beyond

ABSCAM Deal Going Down

Below is a small bouquet of quotes from Philly crooks, wise guys and scammers.

Congressman Michael “Ozzie” Myers, caught in the Abscam sting: 
“In business money talks and bullshit walks.”

State Senator LeAnne Washington, chewing out an underling:
“I am the fucking senator. I do what the fuck I want and ain’t nobody gonna change me.”

George X. Schwartz, city council president, caught in Abscam sting:
“We got five, six (city council) members. You tell me your birthday; I’ll give them to you for your birthday. ”

U.S. Senator Boies Penrose was never embarrassed to talk politics:
“I’ll take money from any man. You can’t run a party on nothing, and when you need money the place to get it is from them that have it.”

Chaka “Chip” Fatah Jr. convicted of $1.1 million in various fraudulent scams told the judge at sentencing:
“I didn’t know anything I did was a violation of the law.”

All-time scoundrel T. Milton Street, who refused to pay traffic tickets even when he worked for traffic court and owed $2,000 in unpaid tickets:
“Why the fuck should I pay?” Earlier he declared: “I had a choice . Either spend the money on tickets or elsewhere. I chose to spend it elsewhere.”

Connie Mack and the Hunchback of Philadelphia

Many people think that there is way too much political correctness nowadays. For instance, it’s not correct to say “midget” or dwarf.” “Little people” is the accepted term. But in 1915 everyone called Hughie McLoon a “hunchback dwarf” and nobody thought it was offensive.

Even more insensitive, Connie Mack hired little Hughie to be the mascot of the Philadelphia Athletics. Players actually rubbed his deformed back for good luck before stepping into the batter’s box.

Apparently gnomish Hughie brought the As very little luck. His two-year stint with the club, 1915-17, were among the team’s worst years.

Also, the teenager was a bit of a wise guy. However, his gig with the team made him a well-known character around town. During prohibition he hung around with some of the city’s bootleggers and gangsters.

Because he was so well-known it was front-page news when little Hughie was shot dead in Center City in 1928.

Perhaps, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut, but the murder seemed to spark more gangland killings.

Imagine what it would be like if the Philly Phanatic was gunned down in Center City, one writer penned. Well, Hughie was not as beloved as the furry Phanatic , but his murder did shock the city.

Archaeology in Philadelphia Can Be A Dirty Business

Probably no American city has had more archaeological digs than Philly.

The usual finds are mostly broken pottery, bottles, hand-made bricks and bones from 240 year-old pot roasts. 

But once in awhile there’s a surprise item - like ye early American pornography.

In a thick book entitled “The Buried Past” by Penn archaeologist John Cotter, he tells of a “carved phallic end of a wooden shaft” found in an old privy pit “near the East Wing of Independence Hall.”

You might also call it a wooden circumcised penis or more crudely yet, a dildo. Its use was most likely as a barrel stopper. And it probably gave the boys in the tavern a good chuckle.

Yes, our founding fathers liked a good smutty joke and most of them smoked clay pipes. The smokers often carried a pipe tamper. The diggers have found the top piece of two metal pipe tamper, also called finials, depicting a man and women making love in the standing position.

One was dug up near Carpenters Hall, the other on the 300 block of Cypress Street. Since the naked couple are making love under a tree some think they represent Adam and Eve. So the smoking pipe tool is not only smutty, it’s sacrilegious to boot.

Dumb Things Said By Philadelphia Tourists: Part Two

More to add to the growing collection:

“Is that the real Liberty Bell?”

Guides at Fort Mifflin, where a major Revolutionary War battle occurred, are frequently
asked, “Why did they build the fort so close to the airport?”

The City Hall tour office once got a question on William Penn’s statue. “Does it rotate?”
The tourist seemed sure the Penn statue seemed to move from day-to-day.

Philadelphia Surgeons Cutting It Close

This is a story about two surgeries and two surgeons. 

These unique tales come from the “Memoirs of William Williams Keen.”

Known as Dr. W.W. Keen. He was born in 1837 and died at age 95 in 1932. He lived to see some dramatic advances in medicine - such as the germ theory, as this first anecdote will show.

Keen attended Jefferson Medical School where he studied under the nation’s greatest surgeon, Dr. Samuel Gross, whose books on military surgery were used by both sides in the Civil War.


One evening in 1862 Gross asked student Keen to assist in removing a damaged piece of bone in the calf area of an old soldier wounded 50 years ago. Just the fact that Gross would operate on the old man’s home sofa, tells us something about the lack of knowledge of cleanliness and infection.

Even worse, Keen tells us: “as was often his custom Dr. Gross whetted his knife on his boot.”

By 1887, thanks to Joseph Lister, a great deal was known about cleanliness and germs and Keen was on his way to becoming Philly’s top surgeon. He was one of the world’s first surgeons to remove a brain tumor.

Of course, Keen did not whet his scalpel on his boot. He didn’t even use a scalpel.

He proudly writes that the brain tumor was exactly where he predicted. But it was large (7 1/2inches), so Keen had to remove additional bone.

“My heart sank within me at the prospect of only attempting its removal. But no other course was possible, so I passed my little finger around its margin and peeled it out as easily as one scoops a hard-boiled egg out of its shell with a spoon.”

Keen writes that only two or three brain tumors of this size had ever been removed at the time. He tells us the patient was alive and healthy 28 years later.

So, there it is: two of the greatest surgeon of their times - one honed a scalpel on his boot, and the other removed a tumor with his fingernail.

Artist Isaiah Zagar Remembers: A Crime of Real Passion on South Street

Over the decades, a lot of weird things have happened on South Street. But the story artist Isaiah Zagar tells sounds like something a short story writer would invent.

Zagar and his wife, Julia, were among the starving artists that brought South street back to life in the late 1960s and 1970s.

“It was in the late ‘60s,” Zagar says. “There was a bread baker – he had learned baking in prison – on South between 3rd and 4th street".

“Living above the baker in the second floor apartment was a young woman – an artist and designer,” says Zagar.

Zagar says her apartment was invaded in the pre-dawn hours by a burglar who came through a window. His entrance woke the woman.

Here’s where the story gets hard to believe. Instead of robbing the woman, the two made passionate love. In fact, it was the first act in an affair that Zagar claims lasted about two years.

“He hung around until the baby was born,” says Zagar. Yes the cat burglar and the artist produced a love child.

Well, that’s Zagar’s story and the creator of the wonderfully creative South Street Magic Garden sticks by it.

The Slings And Arrows of Philly Politicians

Dilworth, Rizzo and Street: No Holds Barred

A few politicians manage to insult – sometimes destroy - their political opponents with humor. 

Here are a few examples from Philly politics.

In the mayoral race in 1955 Democrat Richardson Dilworth used this humorous description of GOP opponent Thacher Longstreth: “A big good-natured human replica of a Saint Bernard puppy. The only drawback being he doesn’t have a keg of brandy hanging from his neck.”

During a debate between Frank Rizzo and GOP challenger Tom Foglietta, Rizzo declared: “If you had any sense, you could take a reading of this crowd here today and go home and slit your throat.”

Running for mayor for the first time in 1947 Democrat Richardson Dilworth had “kind words” for incumbent Mayor Bernard Samuels; “Barney Samuels is a nice little guy, I don’t mean he wouldn’t cut your balls off, but he was always a nice little guy.”

Philadelphia’s all-time champion rascal, T. Milton Street, attacked incumbent Mayor Michael Nutter: “What I want you guys (press) to do when you get home is stop at an electric store and get you a one-watt light bulb. And go into a room and plug it in. Turn out all the lights, and you’re going to see how bright (Nutter) is.”

The Politics of Cheesesteaks

Here’s the burning question: provolone, cheese whiz or American?

We are narrowing down the comments among hundreds (maybe a thousand) ignited by a Youtube video entitled “Top 10 Reasons Not to Live in Philadelphia.”

The devilish video by a guy called “Briggs” aroused more violent passions then the last 60 seconds of a tied Eagles-Cowboy game.

We won’t list Briggs’ ten nasty blasts at Philly, but he certainly got tons of feedback by declaring Philly pizza is lousy.

Some agreed but most said Briggs wouldn’t know a good pizza from a hockey puck. Somehow the comments turned to cheese steaks, which sparked a really hot debate among locals and visitors.

There were many “deep thinkers” who wrote clever comments such as “The whiz is great.” And “Whiz rocks the cheese world.” Another declared “If it’s not whiz, it’s not a Philly cheese streak.”

But an out-of- town visitor who mostly liked the city wrote: “What really shocked me was that a true Philadelphia cheese steak was topped with Cheese Whiz! If you ever thought of using Cheese Whiz in Chicago, we’ll throw you into Lake Michigan.”

A guy from Boston jumped in to say they have a similar sandwich called a “steak bomb” and it always contains American cheese. This idea was backed by a writer who said, “I have a cheese steak cart and I only use American.” Still another commenter declared, “The standard is definitely American.”

However, another commenter said, “Just be sure it’s provolone not the yellow whiz".
This post got 20 thumbs up from others.

We’ll give the last word to a female commenter: “I’m from South Philly and never had whiz, and the idea of ‘wit’ and ‘witout’ is foreign to me.”

There might be an important lesson in the cheese steak debate. Ever since Trump got the GOP nomination and the presidency, families have been torn apart. People yell. They call each other “stupid” and bitterly cut family ties over politics.

Our suggestion is quickly changing the topic from politics to cheese steaks.

Yes, Uncle Phil may like provolone and Cousin Larry might say whiz is the best. But, at least, they won’t shout and cut family ties over this debate.

Philadelphia Film Legend Stages Silent Train Crash

The year was 1914 and Philadelphia-based movie mogul Siegmund “Pop” Lubin was about to stage his most spectacular, most costly scene ever.

It would show how far he had come since his primitive efforts when moving pictures were brand new in 1895.

Lubin’s first films lasted a few minutes. One featured a horse eating hay. Then there were his little daughters dancing. Another had the Lubin kids having a pillow fight.

Once in the early days he gathered some friends and strangers on the roof of a Center City building. They pretended to cheer while two guys pretended to re-enacted a recent boxing match. It could have the worse boxing movie ever filmed.

The years had passed. Lubin’s silent films had gotten longer and better. He hired real actors, real directors, opened a studio in North Philly and real big studio called Betzwoood in Montgomery County where real western cowboys were imported to gallop on real horses.

By 1914 he had settled lawsuits brought by Thomas Edison. And now he was spending $25,000 (or so he said) on a single scene. He had purchased two old train locomotives and several old passenger cars. The plan was to have the locomotives going full-speed on the same tracks and crash into each other.

The scene was staged on tracks in Central Pennsylvania. An enormous crowd had gathered at a safe distance to witness the thunderous crash.

It was graphically described by a reporter for the Altoona newspaper:
“With whistles shrieking, throttles wide open and steaming hissing from noisy cylinders, two locomotives hauling trains on the tracks of the Pittsburgh and Susquehanna Railroad rushed to a point where they met in a terrific head-on collision before the eyes of thousands of spectators . . .”

It was a spectacular crash, indeed. Lubin positioned cameras at every angle to insure the scene was captured. In fact, the two huge locomotives seemed to rear up into the air before falling on their sides. All the empty cars were smashed.

Lubin used the head-on smash-up in at least five films, perhaps a dozen.

No one was inside the train cars but actors in swaying railroad cars pretended to be victims of the mighty crash.

Lubin might have shot 1,000 films but only a few survived. Several are in the National Archives. Under the on-line site “Betzwood Movie Archive” you can watch a handful of Lubin films, including "A Partner To Providence", which includes the thunderous but silent locomotive collision scene.

WATCH THE FILM!

Bad Weather Is No Handicap For Philly Golfers

Here’s a true story that has become legendary among local TV people.

Retired TV news reporter Mike Strug says it happened sometime in the 1970s when he was working as the weekend anchor for Channel 6.

Sports reporter George Strait had just concluded his segment by reporting on the PGA tournament underway in the balmy South.

“Then came the expected banter between us,” Strug recalls. “I said something like ‘It’s still too cold and snowy in Philly for local golfers to get out.’”

Strait reminded Strug that their colleague, Lou Pappas, played golf in the worst weather.

Strug says, “Well, how can he play in the snow?” 

“Well, Lou’s got purple balls,” Strait explained.