Gray's Alley - To Gatzmer Street / Tun/Ton Alley 1875-1910

Phila.Atlas Wards 2 through 20, 29, 31 - 1875

It would appear that references to Gray's Alley also refer to a later name change to Gatzmer Street around mid 19th century. Also extension of Gatzmer Street passed Water Street to waterfront via Tun/Ton Alley. Tun Alley as in Tun Tavern, Water Street and Tun Alley, 18th century. 

circa 1800

(above: Philadelphia and Her Merchants as consituted fifty to seventry years ago by Adam Ritter. 1860)

Bromley 1895 Map

Bromley 1910 Map


.

St. Joachim's Marde Gras Fair - Inquirer 20 Feb 1911 - Inquirer 28 Jan 1913 - Evening Ledger 29 Feb 1916

1911

1913

1916



.
.

Frankford Dummy Depot - 1907

Hennigar's Photo Studio and Ye Old Dummy Depot, 4700 Frankford Avenue.

.

End of Christmas Season Story (Jan. 6 Epiphany)

End of Christmas Season Story (Jan. 6 Epiphany)

We were in for some music practice the day or two after Christmas in 1968. After the practice, the head of the Music Department tells me he just got a call from the manager at the Northeast Diner across the intersection and wanted someone to play a few Christmas tunes for the customers. Sounded strange as my instrument was a Sousaphone. A couple music fellows help me with a music stand for my music and we get to the middle door of the diner and struggle to get the tuba instrument into the doors. Somebody saw an opening at the back of the diner with a big couch like seat against the window that served several tables in line with it.

We pulled out a table. I sat on the couch seat and someone put up the music stand and music in front of me and the then I let out some notes. Rather loud from a large instrument in a small space. Then some guy comes over yelling and wants to know what we were doing. I explained that we were from North Catholic and playing Christmas Carols. And I don't know if I ever say anything about the telephone call from the diner's manager requesting the music. I believe the shouting guy got me to my feet by pulling on the ring of my Sousaphone and I was on my feet and soon a was being pushed out the side door, me and my instrument out the door and into the sidewalk and or street. Apparently the shouting guy was the manager and he knew nothing about the North Catholic's Music department's little joke on me. 
Ha. Ha. 

Apparently, the Music Director had a reputation for big practical jokes. He a mile a music academic degrees, awards and credits going back to his days at Mastbaum technical High School, where I understood later he had the Rep of having more keys to the rooms in that school and teachers coming to him than the Janitor to get into their rooms etc. Something of a Hogan's Heros music student inmate running the Mastbaum public high school behind the scenes so to speak. Whatever. (how do you spell young Philly thug?)

The long and short of this after I was embarrassed to death by being thrown out of the Northeast Diner for trying to play Christmas Carols.

The two guys with me in the prank, one also played the Sousaphone and had begged for himself and not me to play the carols in the Northeast Diner. No go. I guess the Music Directer had me lined up as the mark in that scenario.

Anyway we return to the music room and the director says he got a message and had not talked to the diner manager directly etc. Plausible deniability? 

My colleague, the other Sousaphone player got permission to take a Sousaphone down the street and play Christmas tunes at the Elevated "El" station. This he did.

A week later, after Christmas vacation, Principal Corcoran came into the Music Room with a letter he had got from some concerned citizen about how my colleague with his Sousaphone and his playing carols at the train station was so in the spirit of North Catholic and the values that it taught to young men. Congratulations to your school etc.

Don't know about the politics of all this, but about a year later, my younger colleague got nominated and elected Class President for the next class after ours was about to graduate. A coincidence? 

Rum a Pum Pum - Bum. 

Harrowgate Tales - Excerpts

My latest on Kindle - Harrowgate Tales


Excerpts:


Parade in Kensington - Harrowgate Memorial Day Parade


...The biggest event annually in Harrowgate - Kensington was the Memorial Day Parade being that most parents of school aged children in the neighborhood and areas were veterans of WWII and Korea. Old males likely vets of WWI etc. I once marched in Memorial Day Parades in high school with the North(east) Catholic High marching band of which I played Sousaphone.

One performance I personally remember was in a parade that was in Port Richmond, we were bused to different locations that day in a P.T.C. chartered bus. There I saw two amazing things. An old man of about ninety, skinny and tall and wearing what looked like a Boy Scout Uniform with some medals and looking through thick as the bottom of a Coke bottle lenses of his eyeglasses. This old guy was an actual Veteran of the Spanish American War. Small world. There too, this is the late 60's, I saw my English teacher from freshman year who at that time was a seminarian studying to be a priest, teaching on a year long sabbatical of sorts, teaching in our high school for a year, after finishing four years of college in the seminary before continuing with an additional four years of seminary training after this year of teaching. It was after all a teaching religious order and his salary from the archdiocese doubt went to support the order. 

He was no longer in a black cassock but in a white tee shirt, shorts and sandals. She was also with what must have been his girlfriend. He saw me during a break from marching and said hello with no other explanation other than to say hello and ask how Junior year was going etc. I guess he left the seminary for one reason, reasons or another etc. ...


The Long Dark Corridor

...I guess that the religious order had decided to maintain the property until it could be evaluated whether to sell it - use it, convert it etc. I think that maybe about fifteen priests and seminarians used the grand estate as a second faculty house - to relieve overcrowding in the primary faculty house – and commuting by car back and forth to the high school. 

In retrospect I connect some dots (possibly in total error) and perhaps it was the gay section of the original faculty house that went into separate quarters at this white elephant mansion.

Oh this speculation breaks down into two categories: good gays, abstaining from gay sex religious and the bad gays - actually occasionally practicing their natural instincts -

There is not much to this story except for connecting dots and wondering. In the middle of that sophomore year, a young, dynamic, charismatic seminarian teacher died in a car crash coming back from some long distance weekend duties - deacon at some parish etc. I remember his picture in the newspaper and the official speculation that he had fallen asleep at the wheel of his car in this "single vehicle collision" - And then my biology teacher, I liked him, died during the summer break.

I suppose I would not be writing this today except that in the next school year, my junior year, a very prissy but not unlikable priest blurted out something in class. Father Tom, a history teacher, said something like a veiled admission regarding the sudden tragic death of Father Ed, the biology teacher. He said something like "wrapping oneself around a highway pillar was indeed a suspicious thing to happen" while talking to the class one day, I think his comments went over many students heads... 

Chapter Two - The Long Dark Corridor

...But I got the A+++.  Been there.  Done that.  Time to move on. Etc. 

I decided then and there. I would drop his course. So much of what he had fed this class so far was his own personal bullshit full of his ambitious plan to one day run the school system downtown which he in fact did one day. I have since read many things about cults and brainwashing and such and “E.” would have made a great Jim Jones in the secular world etc. IMHO. 

I also as I have written this blog for many years have to wonder how ambitious church lady types with penises, how they rise to the top of their professions being perhaps tops and not giving a shit about who gets ground into sausage along the way, especially children.

I also have  to wonder how “E.” built his great education system as the archdiocese, one by one, shut down their inner city schools and high schools.  That glory sometimes is a story, a press release, as the world and or institution dies from attrition.  

Will the last person in the Archdiocese Education Office at “222” kindly turn off the lights as they leave the building forever. 

I also have to wonder how many times how the elites of the Education Department rubbed elbows with the Elites of the hierarchy at board meetings or gatherings over cocktails and how polite church talk and education talk never got mixed with the very real talk of child abuse and criminal cover up emanating from the Cardinal’s penthouse office suite on the top floor above?...

Philly High School Possibly Named in Tribute to Father Coughlin and His Approval of German Actions at Kristallnacht

I had to wonder when I randomly ran into this looking at some other matter, what happened to the local girl's high school in Philly, when its name got changed from its original designation of "Northeast Catholic High School for Girls" to "Little Flower High School". Something and things along the timeline from October 1938 when building permits were issued in the original designated name to dedication on August 27th 1939, five days before the invasion of Poland and the beginning of war in Europe.

There was already in place a tradition of West Catholic High for Boys first followed by West Catholic High for Girls. Only four blocks apart near University City in west Philly.

Little Flower as the compliment female school to Northeast Catholic High School for Boys was three miles apart. (The Northeast still the edge of the burbs and farms in pre-War Philadelphia County).

The working name on Little Flower may have been N.E.C.H. for girls but looking at the timeline I have to wonder about Dennis Dougherty and his still standing fatwa on the Ethnic Group the "ran Hollywood" still in place forbidding all Catholics in the AD of Philly from attending the cinema which he never rescinded. (Thank the Catholic Gawd that the good cardinal had a movie projection setup to view Hollywood movies in private in his 45-61 room (depending on estimates) mansion of his quaint home base surrounded by 10 acres on City Line Ave. in Philly. )

October the building permits:

And then Kristallnacht in November 9-10 and America's most powerful media voice of Father Charles Coughlin getting more racist to up his ratings the closer Europe crept toward War.

Charles E Coughlin

For years, Coughlin had publicly derided “international bankers,” a phrase that most of his listeners understood to mean Jewish bankers. In the days and weeks after Kristallnacht, Coughlin defended the state-sponsored violence of the Nazi regime, arguing that Kristallnacht was justified as retaliation for Jewish persecution of Christians. He explained to his listeners on November 20, 1938 that the “communistic government of Russia,” “the Lenins and Trotskys…atheistic Jews and Gentiles” had murdered more than 20 million Christians and had stolen “40 billion [dollars]…of Christian property.”

In a series of articles published in Social Justice during 1938, Coughlin lambasted “Jewish” financiers and their control over world politics, culminating with a story recounting his own version of the infamous 20th Century forgery, the so-called Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which purported to be minutes of meetings of Jewish leaders as they plotted to take over the world.

As Europe crept toward War. 

Philadelphia Inquirer 28 Aug 1939

On same page as LF dedication photo below.

Following two major radio stations in NYC, dropping Coughlin's broadcasts after his praise of Kristallnacht, followed by protests making the national papers of pro-Coughlin supporters outside NY radio staions, somewhere in that timeline between beginning of Construction of Northeast Catholic High School for Girls in October 1938 and the Dedication of Little Flower High School for Girls in August 1939, Cardinal Dougherty did a name change on the high school, perhaps out of sympathetic views shared with the American Papal Nuncio Cicognani and Father Charles Coughlin the head of the Radio League of the Little Flower, and his shrine in Michigan to Saint Therese of Lisiveux, a recently canonized 24 year old ? "Doctor of the Church". 

Coincidence or devotion.

Wikipedia Commons

Shrine of the Little Flower Basilica

Charles Coughlin

Philadelphia Inquirer 28 Aug 1939

It is possible that Cardinal Dougherty was indeed devoted to the worship of the Little Flower saint but more likely he had to hedge a bet or a loan to Coughlin to build his cash cow shrine in Michigan, with the radio transmissions drying up with contributions. Better to have a local Wink. Nod. Michigan shrine reminder in Philly to back up offshore tax free loans to Royal Oak?

Claude H. Alexander - 1894-1978 - Mechanic - Irish Immigrant - Philadelphia Area Photographer

I ran into, backed into,  this photographer's negative collection at the Philly Library collection. 


Then looking around the Internet to document an address on one of the photos I found a bio of a guy with a similar name and the connection in both presentations is the tractor photo(s). 

No bio on the Philly Library stuff. Nothing really published as an obit either on the Internet, my means of research etc.

And interesting bio on one of my favorite subjects, Irish Immigrants, and their contribution to American culture. And since this is an American Doughboy. I liked the story. 


Flag Honors Irish Immigrant


A photo by Claude H. Alexander of the model of "The Homecoming" memorial of the original in Cambridge England, of sculptor Dr.  R. Tait McKenzie @Penn, no doubt at one time on display in Philly?

The photo that a friend J Rowe sent to me from the Philly Library collection by email was of a Gas Station 1930s, no address, which if you grew up at Frankford and Glenwood Aves. would by the image of 3742 Frankford Ave in backgound have to be a local icon of in its day, 1950s-60s repurposed as Cass's Restaurant, more like a greasy spoon and or corner luncheonette. 

Frankford and Glenwood Aves. or 3744 Frankford Ave. with old George L Horn Public School in background (left)

Address - 3744 Frankford Avenue - Frankford and Glenwood Aves - Harrowgate 

Famous Philly Lesbian Witch Hunt / Murder Trial in 1937-1938

Famous Philly Lesbian Witch Hunt / Murder Trial in 1937-1938

A Public Show Trial - Scripted like something straight out of the “The Children’s Hour” – 1938 “Murder Case” with local GOP politicians more concerned about people’s private sex lives rather than trying how to determine the facts surrounding the death of a child in a city run summer camp. 

How little things have (not/) changed in America in 80 years? 

Tale of MoyamensingPrison - X - (Cont'd 1 - Inquirer 28 Nov 1937)

Tale of MoyamensingPrison - X - (Cont'd 4 - Inquirer 19 Nov 1938)

.

Double Monument - John T Thompson 1840/1891 - Thomas J Powers 1845/1900 - Hillside Cemetery Montgomery County Pa.

Troy NY Daily Times 19 Aug 1891

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=132974213&PIpi=105482301

.

Big Republican Meeting - Odd Fellow's Hall Frankford - 1888

Present Day

Come Home Cardinal Pell – the Authorities Want to Talk to You

Cardinal Pell hiding out in Rome, playing the I am too sick to travel card to avoid testifying in abuse cases in OZ. Kind of like Philly’s Cardinal Bevilacqua’s I am too sick to stand trial deal legal defense?

. 

A Comment Re: Archbishop Chaput on his Efforts to Suppress Child Abuse Reform in Harrisburg (Comment in NCR)

http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/strange-disconnect-between-pope-francis-words-and-actions-about-sex-abuse#comment-2284183048

skiadvocat • 5 days ago

It becomes more difficult with each passing day
here in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to remain civil and respectful
in one’s comments regarding the local RCC leadership, their statements,
conduct and decision-making, past and present, relative to the abuse,
destruction and devastation visited on child and young adult clergy
abuse victims. Deliberate and deceitful obfuscation and
hypocrisy……..Chaput asks “what more do they want us to do?”

He’s a learned, mature and educated man and he most assuredly “knows”
what must be done to protect our children now and in the future. He
also “knows” what must be done in Harrisburg to give past victims a
voice, legal access and redress (ALL CHILD VICTIMS here in the
Commonwealth of PA, regardless of the venue of the alleged
abuse…..public or private, religious or secular, in the home or in the
community). It doesn’t work, it doesn’t sell, and it is unconvincing when a
man such as Charles Chaput feigns ignorance on what steps needed to be
taken to address the protection of ALL of our children.

He has NO RIGHT to stand in the way of the protection of other
children in the Commonwealth of PA even if he wishes to defend his
institution, leadership and its finances from legitimate legal action
from victims and families that have suffered so terribly. Get out of
Harrisburg, get out of Marsico’s office and LET THE PEOPLE have an
opportunity to hear what the legislative proposals are about and what
they can do for our children. How dare you, your leadership or anyone
else, elected in Harrisburg or elsewhere, subvert and/or hijack our
system of representative democracy.

The last several clergy abuse matters under YOUR watch, Archbishop
Chaput, are clearly demonstrative of your style of leadership relative
to the dangers to children in archdiocesan facilities throughout the
region. Very little information re the allegations, risks in place in
parishes for extended periods before notification of parents and
families, and little if any information (facts, details, outcomes)
regarding the disposition of the cases. What more can be done? Such a
statement cannot be from ignorance, that we know. I believe it is from
arrogance and a smugness that says “how dare the parishioners here in
Philadelphia question my conduct, decision-making and actions in these
issues?”

It is always appropriate to end a presentation on a positive note and
theme. I want to “thank you” Archbishop Chaput for allowing many, many
people in the region and beyond, both Catholic and non-Catholic, to
come to know and love the special, unique, faithful, prayerful and
compassionate nature of two very remarkable catholic women in this area.
You know who they are; if not, then it is your loss that you do not
know the depth, sincerity and beauty of their commitment to the Catholic
faith. Yes, Archbishop, I am referring to Margie Winters and Andrea
Vettori. I have read several of the statements and letters offered in
the media by these two genuine Catholic women since the Waldron Mercy*
issue in the summertime. I just can’t remember reading any finer
expressions of one’s Catholic faith, commitment, sensitivity, caring and
compassion for those in our community, especially the children. Ms.
Vettori’s letter to Pope Francis should be read by every parishioner in
the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, exemplifying how her faith and love of
Our Lord literally fills her life and the work she does.

Archbishop Chaput, unless you have not noticed yet, you are no longer
in Denver. Citizens in the Delaware Valley, Catholic and non-Catholic,
will never rest until all of our children are protected in the best way
possible from the risks and dangers of sexual predation as well as the
highest level of legal access and redress for those who should be
victimized by such evil and criminal acts. Quite simply, either join us
in these efforts or please, or just get out of the way and stop using
PARISHIONERS’ contributions and donations to fight against the
protection of ALL the children of the Commonwealth of PA.

Michael Skiendzielewski
Captain (retired)
Philadelphia Police Dept.

* http://articles.philly.com/2015-09-25/news/66887988_1_wedding-cake-separate-contraceptive-coverage-catholic-opposition

General John F Reynolds - Casualty of Gettysburg - Statue - City Hall Philadelphia - 1884

Broad Street Station in background.


.

Abp. Chaput’s Submissive Docile Obedient Celibate Homosexual Workshop At Pope Party September Philadelphia or the “New Homophiles”

"A Christian Dirce", by Henryk Siemieradzki.

(Public Domain)

There is something evil-ly sickening-ly cynical about  Abp. Charles Chaput who comes into the Philly AD to clean up the clean up of the Hierarchy Buggery Mess and announces changes and school and church closings in the inner city and imprimaturs it with the term that he is not doing this – that is the doing of a “Blue Commission” this or a “Blue Commission” that to justify the break-up, sale, and consolidation of securities through the sale of real estate for the greater glory of God, Chaput’s campaign for a red hat and oh yeah, the people (little people – very little people of God) in the once late great archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Gay Catholics Will Be Silenced DuringPope Francis' Philadelphia Visit

Homosexuals can attend a Catholic family congress in Philadelphia during Pope Francis' U.S. visit this year but won't be allowed to use it to attack Church teachings, the city's archbishop said on Thursday. "We don't want to provide a platform at the meeting for people to lobby for positions contrary to the life of our Church," said Archbishop Charles Chaput. 

The Catholic Church teaches homosexuality is not sinful but homosexual acts are. "We are not providing that kind of lobbying opportunity," he told a news conference presenting the September 22-27 congress known as the World Meeting of Families. Gay Catholic groups and families headed by gay Catholics had asked for an official presence at the gathering to present their view that homosexuals should be fully welcomed in the Church.  

The pope will attend the last two days of the Philadelphia meeting at the end of a trip that will take him to Cuba as well as New York and Washington. About 15,000 people from around the world are expected to attend the family congress to hear lectures and take part in workshops on family issues before the pope arrives to close the gathering.  

"We hope that everyone feels welcome and certainly people who have experienced same-sex attraction are welcome like everyone else," Chaput said.  

Bishop John McIntyre, also of Philadelphia, said the only event dedicated to gay issues at the congress will be one by Ron Belgau, a celibate gay Catholic and founder of the Spiritual Friendship Initiative. Belgau blogs and lectures about how Catholic gays can live by the Church's teaching.  

McIntyre said Belgau "will talk about his own coming to terms with his sexual orientation and the manner in which he embraced the teachings of the Church" and his mother will also speak. 

Something also sickeningly evilly from a gutter snipe bureaucrat like Chaput, son of an illegal French Canadian immigrant btw, and son of a native American mother with native born American status to come into the white world of east coast Philadelphia and wave a magic hand by “Chief Outta-Town” and tell Gays they have no place at the table at the world meeting of families. No place - not even to sweep the tourist made trash – like the untouchables of India - of a week-long activities and lectures by real Catholics obedient to their Church and not the Church of Gays who have no real church so to speak.

How does you define families and or a family Charles? Dad needed a green card and I got out at 13 to go to junior seminary to escape my ideal “family” experience? (A kid’s gotta eat – ya know.)

Reading some the of insane suedo social science that Celibate Loyal Catholic Homosexual “Spirityual Friendship” Ron Belgau is about to be unleashed at the Pope Fair or World Meeting of the “Family” reminds me of some throwback to trying to un-homosexual oneself into heterosexuality a la “doctor” Marcus Bachmann, macho man behind the genius and Christian backbone of lunatic fringe GOP goddess Michele Bachmann.

Ron Belgau is all over the place of the orthodox catholic and Christian blogosphere, trying to secure a niche and secure a steady income base from many non-profit tax dodge religious entities and preaching how only obedient celibate Gays can dare for any hope of a pat on the head from their local overseer bishop or have the slightest chance of Jesus’ salvation – he only died for some – don’t you know.

In this article below he blames the Abolition of Marriage not on gay marriage but no-fault civil divorce over the decades. That children don’t need parents or caregivers, that they need a mother (female) and a father (male). And that an abused mother along with a drunken physically abusive father is on paper the perfect Catholic or Christian growing grounds for children.

 The Abolition of Marriage

U have wonder if Ron will be given a real classroom or lecture hall in Philly to explain what holy Queers should be like or if cynical Chaput houses his sideshow in a tent, a freak peepshow, along the Benjamin Parkway in Philly. Lol

In another forum Crisis, Ron’s friends write articles of 90% praise and 10% critique of Belgau’s philosophy/propaganda. And then the following week or so Ron responds to the critique in this so called Plato like dialogue with his cronies also looking for lifetime employment preaching what gets the most gelt from the bishop masters of the Catholic treasury not of grace but of cash.

The most recent article in Crisis is by somebody about Nero as Patrol Saint of Gay Marriage. And like all homophobe’s denial of self, quoting the Roman historian Suetonius mentioning things about dirty little body parts and the acts of Nero’s castrated boyfriend/wife/lover in almost soft core porno fashion, the other half’s sexual activities are what bother conservative libertarians most about these gay types etc. 

I am getting the vapors thinking of Ron Belgau’s retort in the same magazine to illustrate how the author is right about the abominable sexual position stuff of Nero and Company and how to cure it with “celibate homosexual friendship in Christ”. (Puke!)

Saint Nero – Patron of Gay Marriage

That Ron Belgau does mention the loss of his Spiritual Friend Julie Rodgers in a twitter mention who had to resign her Celibate Homosexual counseling job recently at Wheaton College who probably reached a personal maturity and realization about her own Homosexuality and had to shrink from the delusional world in which she had existed for a decade or so, as one time co-founder of this Ron Belgau movement regarding “spiritual friendship”.

 Wheaton’s ‘celibate gay’ counselor resigns

That any Gay person on the fence about natural humanity and manufactured spirituality to park one’s psyche would have to enjoy emotional confusion or delusional uncertainty and over all general head game abuse to follow the Ron Belgau’s Catholic propaganda (Bullshit) that Chaput is dumping down his dirt shute to any crazies looking for respect at the World Meeting of Families or Pope Fair in Philly in late September.

.