NAME THAT LOCATION! Part Deux Answers
Time's up. Here are the answers to part two of ECP's "Name that Location" quiz, based on photos from the Jacob Stelman collection at the Athenaeum:
Click on the images below to see what they look like today.
1
Yes, Pep Boys is a ubiquitous presence on the local landscape, which makes this 1945 photo tough to identify. It stood at the northwest corner of Broad and Buttonwood Streets. As you can see from my poor follow-up photo, the site today is flanked by the State Office Building on the right, and the School District of Philadelphia building on the left (formerly the Inquirer's printing plant).
2
Dr. Algase hung up his dentist drills a long time ago. His 19th-century vintage Algase Building sat at 901 Market Street, currently the site of The Gallery.
3
Cobblestones, a side alley with an old car, and what looks like a rainy day combine to present another old-timey look to this Stelman image of Kelly's Oyster House. It was located at 12 North 9th Street, just north of the Algase Building, offering me another Gallery angle to shoot. I guess back in 1959 those full-course dinners starting at $1.35, and lobster feasts for $3.25 were the norm!
4
This 1954 photo of the Viking Theatre, on the southeast corner of 19th and Chestnut Streets, caught it at the beginning of the second phase of its life. It opened in 1921 as the Aldine, predating the nearby Boyd by seven years. In the 1960s, it was known as Cinema 19, and finally as the twin Sam's Place. Today, pharmaceuticals have trumped Hollywood, giving Center City yet another drug store. (And just what will become of the Boyd?)
5
This 1947 image of the old Broad Street Trust Company shows one of its prime Center City locations at... if you said Broad Street, think again. It's actually the southwest corner of 15th and Market Streets, site of today's Centre Square, Clothespin and all. (And if I say so myself, it's one of my better shots.)
6
From a taste of Polynesia in 1961, today we have the corporate look at City Avenue and Monument Road. And of course, that was the old Marriott Hotel in the background of the site. Think that wasn't a cool place to be back way back when? Well, I can remember having a bite with my fiancé there in the early 70s, only to look up and see Muhammad Ali enjoying a meal in a nearby booth. Ah, those were the days...
7 (Extra Credit)
Alas, no one has been able to help with the location of that beautiful Linton's shot that Jacob Stelman got. If you do, let me know, and you'll get a nice prize...
NAME THAT LOCATION! Part 1 Answers
Okay, as promised, here are the answers to part one of our "Name That Location" quiz, based on photos from the Jacob Stelman collection of old Philadelphia commercial photographs, on view at the Athenaeum:
Click on the images below to enlarge
1
The John Ellis and Bros. Coffees and Teas building was in fact located at 9 South 16th Street, the current site of the west building of Centre Square. You'll note that I have not quite solved the challenge of capturing today's site and its verticality quite as well as Stelman did the Coffee Building on a more modest scale. I tried, BTW, to include the old Girard Trust Bank Building (seen on the upper left of Stelman's photo) which is now the Ritz Carlton Hotel.
2
The Eisenhower headquarters building is currently the site of Holt's cigars at 1522 Walnut Street, directly across from Le Bec Fin. I still haven't determined the name of the restaurant Stelman was perched in front of as he snapped this shot. I was hoping to include my image in the window of Holt's the way Stelman did, but to no avail.
3
The Arrow Clothing Store was located in the Reading Terminal, now the site of the Pennsylvania Convention Center. (We cheated and cropped off the left side of the Stelman photo, which would have given its location away).
4
Bond Bread store stood on the east corner of 15th and Ranstead Streets, currently the site of the snazzy new Residences at the Ritz Carlton. The new structure is gleaming and handsome, but there's just something about a building topped by a giant loaf of bread...
5
Believe it or not, Dewey's Famous stood at the intersection of 17th and Walnut Streets, today one of Philadelphia's toniest intersections. The old photo still somehow looks like the boardwalk to me.
6
This photo is no doubt recognizable to anyone 35 years old or over: it's 17th and JFK Boulevard, now the home of Philadelphia's tallest tower, the Comcast Center. Again, a difficult task to match the verticality of today's intersection with the horizontal nature of the old photo. You see a sliver of the old Transportation Building on the left, and Suburban Station on the right. And the old name of JFK Boulevard: Pennsylvania Boulevard, which was renamed after President Kennedy's assassination.
And our winner: a gentleman who identified himself merely as "Another Ed." He was pretty close on all of them, except for the Dewey's Famous, which he placed at Broad and Race. Kudos to Ed for noticing the Snellenburg's reflection in the Arrow Store sign, and for remembering Pennsylvania Boulevard. Ed will receive an Ed Cunningham documentary three-pack. I know, I promised to post part two of "Name That Location" this week, but I'm a little backed up. I promise to get to that soon.
View more of Ed's pieces in our Archive »
|
