Buried Alive in Center City

If you want an example of how things have changed for the better in Center City in recent years, let’s return to 1975 and what was happening at 12th and Walnut streets.

It’s hard to find an empty lot anywhere near that location today, but in 1975 there was an empty lot at that intersection. Whoever owned the empty lot was so desperate for cash, he rented it out for a Halloween stunt.

A man was “buried alive” there and his wife changed 50 cents to look down a tube and view “The Phantom of the Grave.”
 
No one learned the Phantom’s actual name. His alleged wife/money collector would only say he was “a businessman from Lancaster County.”

He emerged from his casket midnight on Halloween after 10 days.

He was fed through the tube which descended down from a fake tombstone. It was all under a tent.

The newspapers paid little attention to the stunt so we don’t know how much money either the Phantom or the lot owner earned for the show.

The Phantom provides a dramatic example of the value of prime Center City land in 1975 and 44 years later.

Opera Author’s Visit To America Deemed ‘Disastrous’

Pietro Mascagni

From the minute the “Great Maestro” and opera composer Pietro Mascagni started his American tour until he returned to Italy following a “nervous collapse”, fiasco followed fiasco. You might say the tour was a “Comic Opera.”

It was 1902 and Mascagni was quite famous for Cavalleria Rusticana, an opera featuring love, hate and murder. He was also an orchestra conductor.

He arrived in New York with his own orchestra, singers and chorus. Except there were not enough musicians and there were constant union problems with American musicians.

On the same ship that carried Mascagni was General William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army. This prompted a “battle of the bands”, with exuberant Italian-American bands on the dock competing with Salvation Army bands, belting out hymns.

In every city, Mascagni changed the advertised programs. So, those who bought tickets for a certain opera got either a different opera or the performance was totally cancelled.

His next stop was Philly, where 5,000 Italian immigrants gave the maestro an enthusiastic welcome at Broad Street Station. “The impetuous Latins swarmed about, embraced him fondly and shouted ‘Viva Mascagni,’” wrote the Inquirer.

Everywhere he went, Mascagni got a warm welcome and “good riddance” after a week.

That first evening at the Academy of Music – after a long wait - he conducted the orchestra and following a late reception the maestro went to his room in the nearby Walton Hotel. However, no one had made any sleeping arrangements for the musicians and singers. Some fell asleep in the green room but 30 to 40 others walked out to Broad Street at 2 a.m. Only one tavern was open but the owner and his sister managed to find places in rooming houses for the visitors.

Every performance started late. He changed the program three times in one day. One time there was a one-hour pause during the intermission.

He was going to introduce his latest opera, “Iris” in Philadelphia. People purchased tickets and were livid when it didn’t happen.

The Italian societies organized a banquet for Mascagni in South Philly. Everyone showed up but the guest on honor.

Audiences grew smaller. There was carping reviews by the critics.

A few days after he left town, newspapers ran a headline “Blows Out His Brains. Young Man Commits Suicide After Hearing Mascagni.” The 19-year-old Drexel student loved Rusticana and might have heard the maestro at the Academy of Music. He had his mother play his favorite section of the opera on her piano. He Immediately went into his bedroom and killed himself.

In Boston, Mascagni got into legal hassles with creditors and was briefly placed under arrest. The Italian ambassador was called into the fray.

At one point, his orchestra went on strike declaring it had not been paid. He fired different Americans managing the tour. He canceled engagements. At one point in Chicago, an American orchestra and Mascagni’s Italian orchestra both came to practice.

In Chicago, a former American manager charged Mascagni embezzled $5,000. Then his personal property was attached by constables for another alleged $126 debt. When he was arrested by the Chicago constables in front of friends, it was the last straw.

The next day a Chicago newspaper headline read: “Disastrous American Tour of Pietro Mascagni Cancelled.” The story said he collapsed after being released on bail “suffering from nervous exhaustion.”

The planned four-month tour of America ended in two-months.

My Nurse Navigator Recommended Crab Fries

Whether national or local advertising, when the words are examined they often make little sense or provide an example of pure bull crap.

Let us examine just a few nonsensical examples of local advertising.

WPVI-TV declares “Stay tuned for our exclusive Accuweather Forecast.” 
Exclusive? Accuweather supplies forecast for broadcasters and businesses around the nation and world. There’s nothing “exclusive” when the company sends out weather reports to a thousand customers.

Chickie’s and Pete’s World Famous Crab Fries. 
World famous? This means people in Bulgaria and Indonesia know these crab fries. We doubt that nearby residents of Wilkes-Barre or Trenton ever heard of Chickie’s and Pete’s or their “famous” crab fries.

A television ad has an auto dealer proudly declaring “I’ve always been your dealer and you just didn’t know it!” He seems very proud – as if this is the most clever slogan ever uttered.
We know the various car dealerships we have used over 50 years, and this guy was never our dealer.

During its many fund drives, WHYY public radio often declares “By making a donation you become part of a community.”
Really? By giving to the Red Cross, do we become part of the Red Cross community? Community is a word that is so over-used, it has become meaningless.

Public utility ads by PECO proclaim: “The Future is ON!”  
You figure out this nugget of nonsense.

There is a hospital that says in ads that it provides you “A Nurse Navigator.” Sounds good but every hospitalization we experienced came with nurses that told us what to do and not do. What’s so different if you call the nurse a “navigator?”

Looking For Broad Street But The Sign Says Avenue Of The Arts

Philadelphia's once-famous bank

Nothing is more certain in Philly than change – name changes of streets, schools, banks, hospitals, neighborhoods etc.
Remember Beaver College? Columbia Avenue? PSFS Bank? 

Well. Beaver College is now Arcadia University.
Columbia Avenue is Cecil B. Moore Avenue.
PSFS, once Philadelphia's premier bank, became Meritor and then Mellon.

Perhaps, the name change champion is First Pennsylvania Bank which was consumed by PNB then CoreStates then First Union then Wachovia and finally Wells Fargo Bank.

About 1980, Grover Washington Jr. wrote a song called East River Drive. If he wrote the same tune today it would be Kelly Drive.

The most common name in this city is “Franklin.” More than a dozen places are named to honor Ben Franklin including a bridge and three streets. And while there is still a “Franklin Mills Boulevard,” there is no longer a Franklin Mills Shopping Mall. Now it’s Philadelphia Mills Mall.

This is rather hard to believe:
About 5,000 people submitted new names for the former Electric Factory which became North Second music venue (because it is on 7th Street). Guess the winner.

You are correct – another “Franklin.” It’s now the Franklin Music Hall.

Remember Philadelphia Textile College?
Not too long ago it became Philadelphia University.
And now it’s Jefferson University.
Standby for the next name change.

The University of the Arts has seen four name changes since its founding in 1876 as the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Arts.

Sometimes rich guys pay for a name change. So, Glassboro College became Rowan College in 1992 when inventor-engineer Henry Rowan – who did not attend Glasboro – donated $100 million to the former teachers training school.

Billionaire Stephen Schwarzman thought $25 million would get his alma mater Abington High School to suddenly become Schwarzman High. At first, the school board agreed, but a public outcry scotched the name change.

Neighborhood names come and go.
Southwark has given way to Queen Village and Pennsport.
Old neighborhood names die: Branchtown, Bricktown,
The Neck and Jewtown are gone.

Now we have to learn many recent names for old places such as Sharswood, Passayunk Crossing, Pelham, Ludlow and Hawthorne, just to name a few.

Soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Evening Bulletin asked readers to suggest names for the war. The British were just calling it “The War.” The Bulletin got scores of ideas and 15,000 citizens wrote directly to the War Department with names. Without thinking a lot about it, President Franklin Roosevelt just called it the Second World War - the name that stuck.

Want to Film Urban Decay? We Welcome You With Open Arms

It seems that Philadelphia reached its lowest point in the early 1990s.

Industry was totally dead. 
Mayor Rendell was wrestling with a $250 million deficit and the lowest bond rating of any big city.

But what really symbolized the decay and decline of the city was the filming here in 1995 of the dystopian film, Twelve Monkeys.

Director Terry Gilliam (of Monty Python fame) said, “We went to Philadelphia looking for rotting America. It turned out to be the perfect place. I loved the feeling of sadness and melancholy.”

Did the city film office think this statement was a compliment?
However, the city was so desperate it jumped at the “honor” of a Hollywood film being shot here.

Gilliam shot at several locations in the “rotting” old city, including City Hall. Unbelievably, the city allowed City Hall and the street outside to be transformed into a nightmare landscape of decay.
Phony vines were glued to the east side of City Hall to make it look abandoned and decaying. Trash was sprinkled on the street. Rusted hulks of burned-out cars were placed on the sidewalk and street.

Of course traffic was rerouted during filming. Anything that Hollywood wants, it gets in this city.

Other locales of decay and squalor included Eastern State Penitentiary, the deserted Met at Broad and Poplar and the High School for the Performing Arts.

Incidentally, the phony vines glued to City Hall left long-lasting marks. 

Again-and-again the city has rolled-over, stopped traffic, eliminated parking – anything film-makers ask, they get.

Feeling Blue? Have a Little Hug from New Brewery

Beer maven Don Russell starts a recent post on his “Joe Sixpack” blog with this question: ”Would you drink blue beer?

“Blue – as in the color of Windex. 
As in a color you wouldn’t put in your mouth unless you are the sort of idiot who participates in the "Tide Pod Challenge.”

Russell said about 100 “Uber Beer Geeks” were lined up for the opening of a new brewery in a Hatfield warehouse. Imprint Beer Co. had created the blue beer along with several other exotic brews.

Russell mentions a “black stout made with Double Stuf Oreos” and a "scarlet gose with passion fruit and hibiscus petals.”

We’ll try to define gose later but first the cringe-worthy blue beer called “Little Hugs.”

If you have small children you might know that Hugs is a drink which comes in eight-ounce barrel-shaped plastic bottles that Russell calls ‘kitty juice.”

The new brewery used 800 bottles of blue raspberry flavored Little Hugs which is made with the same sweetener as Splenda and tarylmethane food coloring. The beer is only three percent alcohol.

Having described it, the intrepid Russell had to drink a mug for his readers.
He wrote three short sentences:

“It’s sweet with a slightly tart finish. I did not spit it out. It did not turn my tongue blue.”

The owner of Imprint beer told Russell the blue beer was a gimmick to “build excitement.”

Apparently, any new and creative brewery will attract beer geeks from miles around just as foodies flock to the latest Albanian or Yemeni restaurant.

This summer the hot beer among the beer avant-garde is a salty, sour German brew called gose. A lot of coriander and salt goes into this brew.

Can liverwurst-rutabaga beer be next?

We’ll end this with a memory that does back eight or nine years...

Eating lunch in a bar on South Street that listed at least 50 bottled beers from many countries, we asked the bartender which was the biggest seller. He didn’t hesitate – Budweiser.

- more from Don's Philly Beer World Blog

Philadelphia Asks: Can You Find The Valley?

So, where is the valley?
 
Webster tells us that a valley “is an elongated depression of the earth surface usually between ranges of hills or mountains. 

So, where is the Delaware Valley?

Over the past 70 years or so everyone has been conditioned to call the Greater Philadelphia Area “the Delaware Valley.” But there is no valley hereabouts.

Not having a real valley hasn’t stopped countless organization and businesses from using “Delaware Valley” in their names. There’s the Delaware Valley Friends School and a Delaware Valley Raptor Center, Delaware Valley Urology Center and on-and-on.

There’s even a Delaware Valley University, high in ”the hills” of Doylestown.

Some blame (or credit) the Philadelphia Inquirer for spreading this geographical place name in the 1950s.

It’s too late now to do anything about this inaccurate phase. Everyone uses it.

So we propose a theme song or anthem for the Delaware Valley. It’s an old song that most of us sang in elementary school. It goes like this:

Down in the valley; the valley so low
Hang your head over. Hear the wind blow.

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 Auto Dealer Promises Car That Won't Use Gas

We previously wrote about the late advertising genius Les Waas, creator of the just-for-fun Procrastinators Club, who had many stories from a very long career.

Most of his ads and 600 jingles were created in his own fertile mind, but this time a client had his own “brilliant idea.”

“The client was University Ford in South Philly,” Waas recalled in an interview that made its way to Youtube. The idea was to sell a new car for $999 with “power options extra.” 

The power option was a motor.

“I thought it was funny,” says Waas who wrote the newspaper ad. He can’t remember the year, but the next day he says there was a line at the Ford dealer that stretched around the block.

Scores of customers waited to get their bargain auto. The first folks admitted to the showroom soon learned it was a cruel hoax and the word spread to the others in line.

When Ford heard about the trick, it pulled the franchise and the dealer was out of business.

A North Philly Tour Of Duty

They were the bravest of the brave.

They had seen combat in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. 

But they had never seen anything like Philadelphia’s “Badlands.”

About 120 Congressional Medal of Honor recipients held their annual meeting in Philly in September 1995.  There were many pleasant activities: banquets, Phillies games, visiting historic sites.

But because some were very involved in fighting the drug epidemic, an optional tour was offered of the drug-infested North Philly area known as “The Badlands.”

An Inquirer reporter went along. The headline on the story was: “Honor Heroes See a War Right Here”

Joe Jackson, who had risked his life in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, had visited drug areas elsewhere, said, “North Philly is the worst I’ve seen. I wouldn’t come up here by myself.”

“It looks like Vietnam after Tet,” said Maj. Gen. Patrick Brady.

Perhaps the best quote came from Col. Lloyd “Scooter” Burke, who single-handed had charged and destroyed three enemy bunkers in Korea and later served in Vietnam. When asked how he would compare Vietnam to the Badlands, Burke said. “Well, there are no trees here.”

The old war heroes all wore hardhats on the tour. 

Walter Ehlers, a hero of D-Day and a man who single-handedly knocked out German machine gun nests said, “I’m ready to go back to the hotel and go to bed.”

Well, It's Better Than 'The City that Bombed Itself'

A Fitting Slogan for Philly?
“Not As Bad As Philadelphians Say It Is”

Suppose you work for the ministry of tourism of Iceland and must create a catchy slogan to promote your nation. How about: “Come to Iceland and Freeze Your Ass Off.”

Or you have the same challenge for Brazil.
Here’s a good slogan: “You Will Love Brazil – If You Don’t Get Mugged.”
 
We doubt that such negative slogans would fly in either nation, but this is Philadelphia where a huge billboard on the Schuylkill Expressway once told those entering the city: “Philadelphia Is Not As Bad As Philadelphians Say It Is.”
 
The very large billboard went up in 1970 and was created and paid for by the city Chamber of Commerce. We can imagine tourists trying to make a U-turn on the Expressway after reading the message.

It did create a lot of talk – not only in Philly but in many out-of-town newspapers.

The slogan flowed from the creative mind of ad man Elliott Curson, who is currently still plugging away at his Rittenhouse Square ad agency. “Well it (the slogan) does keep coming up. It’s not forgotten,” he says.

Another slogan Curson once floated: “Philadelphia It’s Half-Way Between New York and Washington and It’s Waiting for You.”

Philadelphia had hit its nadir in the 1970s: bad sports teams, population loss, high crime, Blue laws, few good places to eat. So, the slogan might have been accurate, if not effective.

We’re not sure what the city slogan is these days.

But thank goodness a suggestion never caught on following the MOVE
disaster in 1985: “The City that Bombed Itself”

Philadelphians Mean Peace

How mean and ornery are Philadelphians?
 
So mean and tough that even the PACIFISTS are two-fisted brawlers.

Want proof?
A headline in the Philadelphia Record on May 31, 1934 read:
Policeman Felled by Young Pacifists In Mid-City Fight.
 
The story explained about “50 pacifists celebrating Youth Day Against War and Fascism were parading at 11th and Market and throwing circulars in violation of a city ordinance against littering.”
 
Patrolman John O’Donnell stepped in to stop the littering and was promptly socked in the jaw starting a melee that lasted 15 action-packed minutes and prompted a riot call which brought two police wagons and more cops to the scene.

“Even that wasn’t enough to quell the rioters,” said the news story. “Two more loads of reinforcements” were called into the battle.

It ended with 19 arrests and officer O’Donnell suffering cuts and a swollen jaw – proving that Philly pacifists are a separate breed.

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.

**********************************************************

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.

Drinking In Philadelphia: The Tongue-Twister

An old test to tell if a Philadelphian was inebriated was to make him say “First Assistant City Solicitor” without getting his tongue tangled!

Always Late Or Never: Les Waas and The Philadelphia Procrastinators Club

During the boring Eisenhower years and the dreadfully serious years of Vietnam and Watergate, some Philadelphians created a club just to lighten things up. 

The Procrastinators Club existed just for laughs. It made a virtue of the human foible of putting things off as long as possible. It was the brainchild of advertising man Les Waas.

Formed in 1956 with Waas as president, the club postponed putting off election of new officers forever. “We haven’t gotten around to holding our 1957 election yet,” Waas explained in 1974.

Perhaps, the most amusing project of the Procrastinators was a trip to London to picket the Whitechapel Bell Foundry to protest a defective bell sold to Philadelphia in 1752 – the Liberty Bell.
About 40 members. took the 1976 trip. Naturally, one member missed, the flight and forgot his passport. The firm which cast the bell more than 224 years earlier blamed the defective bell on “careless handling by the colonials after its arrival in Philadelphia.”.

The club sponsored a bus trip to New York’s World Fair the year after it closed. Only two buildings were open to the public. "We avoided the long lines,” boasted Waas.

They ate lunch at 6 p.m.

They marched against the War of 1812 while others were marching against the war in Vietnam.

The winter ski trip to the Poconos was held in August.
And its 4th of July picnic was held in January, indoors at the Latin Casino night club.
Picnickers arrived in shorts and bathing suits, sat on artificial turf while waiters served cold hot dogs and hamburgers.

A free club membership was awarded in 1974 to a Penn student for returning a book to the library that had been taken out by someone in 1905.

Philadelphia Judges: From Bad to Worse to Worst

A thick book can be written about all the terrible judges Philly has produced...

Take, for instance, ex-cop Shamus (often called shameless) McCafferty who somehow
was elected to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. He voluntarily left the high court after 234 pornographic e-mails and dirty jokes were found on his state-owned computer. His wife, who also was a lawyer, and worked for her husband, chalked up $1.2 million in finders’ fees by referring lucrative law cases to other law firms.


Then there was Judge Bernard Avellino who reduced rape charges down to 30 days in jail because the victim was so ugly. If fact, he called her “coyote ugly . . . no man would want to
rape her.”

But no judge was quite as ridiculously unqualified and shameless as former traffic court judge as Willie Singletary.

Traffic court judges do not need a law degree and are usually loyal party hacks. No one knows why Willie ran for the job, especially since he owed $11,000 in unpaid traffic tickets and had a suspended driver’s license. Oh yeah, he owed thousands in unpaid child support.

And another thing, Willie solicited money from a motorcycle club for his election, by reminding them that if elected, he could fix their tickets.

Willie was probably elected because a drawing placed his name at the top of the ballot. 

It’s hard to believe, but Willie’s “Willy” got him tossed off traffic court. Willie was so proud of his erect “Willy” that he took photos of it and showed it to a female court employee. “Like that? Do, you like that?” the proud jurist reportedly asked the shocked woman. She went to police and soon Singletary was in hot water. The state Judicial Conduct Board investigated the matter.

In a written report, that provided much humorous material for comedian John Oliver and newspapers, the board wrote: “We hold that a judge who grooms his penis for photography” did it on purpose not accidentially, as Willie asserted.

Willie, who is also hallelujah-shouting, Bible-thumping preacher, was in much deeper trouble. Along with the other Philadelphia Traffic Court judges he was under FBI scrutiny for ticket fixing. He brought a flock of his religious followers to federal court but his pious preaching could not save him from a two-year prison sentence for lying to the FBI.

Paoli Train Trick: The Old Maids of Philadelphia's Main Line

All long-time residents of Philadelphia’s Main Line know that “old maids never wed and have babies, period.”

The phase is a little trick to remember the stations on the Paoli local train. So 'Old' stands for Overbrook and 'Maids' for Merion etc

The original station stops were Overbrook, Merion, Narberth, Wynnewood, Ardmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr and Paoli.

Easy to remember when you know that:
Old Maids, Never, Wed And Have Babies, Period.