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Customs, Culture and Traditions (2)
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City of Homes
At first, there were limitless forests, but then the city burned down. After that, the "Red" city has long been built of brick. Philadelphia's masonry future is unknown, but it won't be wood.
Right Angle Club: 2013
Reflections about the 91st year of the Club's existence. Delivered for the annual President's dinner at The Philadelphia Club, January 17, 2014.
George Ross Fisher, scribe.
Gas House, the Real Thing
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| Lou Durocher |
Gas House Gang is what Leo Durocher called the St. Louis Cardinals because of their scruffy appearance. One suspects he was really bragging about his once playing for the New York Yankees, a distinctly upscale background, in his view.
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| Gas House Gang |
But there really once were gas houses, and a somewhat used one still exists on the Foerderer estate, Glen Ford, open to the public (on request) in the tiny village of Torresdale. We have this information from Meg Sharp Walton, the director of the Glen Foerd Museum. Waltons have lived in the area since 1675, about a decade before William Penn arrived, so they ought to know about these things. According to her, the gas house supplied gas for the surrounding houses before the days of household electricity. Every Monday, the gas house burned something she knows not what, to produce gas.
What else would you call such a place, except a gas house?
Originally published: Friday, June 21, 2013; most-recently modified: Monday, May 20, 2019