[ Music ] >> When we were all a great deal younger, a neighborhood-friendly ballpark offered real grass, a hand-run scoreboard, and an intimate setting for not one, but two baseball teams.

Born in Hart Arch, the original fast food restaurants offered hungry patrons a wide choice of delicacies.

There was a time when movies were shown in theaters that featured gold-plated water fountains and marble stairways in addition to popcorn.

And who can forget the thrills and chills of riding the Alps and the delights of walking the Midway at old Willow Grove Park.

All of these places and many more defined the pleasures of life in the Delaware Valley in the first three quarters of the 20th century and they are all things that aren't there anymore.

Before the modern theme park were even dreamt of, the place to go for thrilling rides, exciting music, and visits to foreign lands was Willow Grove Park, the place where life was alive.

[music] You probably remember Willow Grove Park from childhood visits in the 50s and 60s.

But the park wasn't just in the amusement business.

It was created back in 1896 by the Union Traction Company, which was looking for a way to increase business for its trolley lines on the weekends.

It was an instant sensation, alternating the speed of the mountain scenic railway with the sylvan splendor of a man-made lake and the patriotic melodies of the John Philip Sousa band.

When Willow Grove Park was built it cost $500,000.

The electric fountain cost one-fifth of the $500,000, which when illuminated by the powerful electric lights produce effects of marvelous beauty.

Anita Smiley is a former school teacher turned amateur at Willow Grove Park historian.

Venice was a very popular amusement ride at Willow Grove Park.

You rode in a gondola and you never saw another gondola as you rode through Venice.

As you rode in your gondola and went under the bridge, a mechanical man tipped his hat to you.

And as you rode past the palace, a lady waved her handkerchief at you.

[music] John Philip Sousa and his band came to Willow Grove during the concert period of 1901.

They came every year to including 1926 except for 1911.

Sousa's last year at Willow Grove Park was during the summer of 1926.

It is noted that over 100,000 people were in Willow Grove Park that evening and the very last number he directed in Willow Grove was the Stars and Stripes Forever.

[music] [applause] Many people in this area have very fond memories of Willard Grove Park.

Some have met their future husband there.

Some have come on their first date for a rowboat ride on the lake.

And recently a little lady came up with tears in her eyes saying that she had met her husband at Willow Grove Park and just seeing those postcards reminded her of all those circumstances.

The late Harold Webster worked at the park for many years.

The basement of his home is a treasure trove of park memorabilia maintained by his wife Rita.

The Willow Grove Park trolley was one of my husband's very very favorite items that he's collected over the memorabilia of Willow Grove Park.

This trolley car was purchased by his uncle who purchased it in oh when it was first made in 1903 by Lionel and someone told me there's only about seven left in the world that are in the condition that this one is in and it is running.

Anyone who ever frequented Willow Grove Park I'm sure is very familiar with this sign.

Have your age guessed.

There were two particular things you did at this one stand.

You had your age guessed or you had your weight guessed.

The crowds around the stand were so great that everybody wanted to see how much you weighed so nobody bothered getting on the scale that much.

They all wanted their age guessed.

A day at Willow Grove Park wouldn't have been complete without a ride on the carousel.

Both young and old all loved the carousel.

The carousel you see here is a replica of the type that was used at the old Willow Grove Park and the music you play is your authentic carousel music.

[Music] Willow Grove Park in the northern suburbs and Woodside Park in West Philadelphia had one thing in common.

They were built and operated by the transportation companies to provide more reasons for riding the streetcars.

The Fairmount Park Transportation Company went into business in 1896.

They built Strawberry Mansion Bridge across the Schuylkill River.

That was built as part of the construction of the Fairmount Park trolley line.

It was very much a warm weather attraction, very much associated with Woodside Park.

For the first half of this century, Philadelphia was a trolley town.

By the 1920s, the city boasted a fleet of 2,000 streetcars, which rode on more than 550 miles of track.

In Center City, Market, Arch, Chestnut, and Walnut Streets, all were lined with trolley tracks, as well as every numbered street from front to 23rd.

In those days, streetcars were the last word in travel.

[music] The car that we're on was built immediately after World War II and was part of a sort of standard model of street car that was developed and produced for perhaps two dozen cities throughout the United States.

The cars came in many different models.

Some people may remember cars that were what are known as double-end with operating controls at both ends.

And either end could be the front or the rear.

As you might imagine, in the days before the widespread use of automobiles, getting a group to and from a funeral was a bit involved, and especially getting to and from the cemetery.

So many transit systems, Philadelphia amongst them, provided a service where a special streetcar was fitted out for use by funerals.

The car had a large hatch in the side to allow placing the coffin inside the car, and then the car was run to the nearest point to the cemetery from the funeral home.

The car was known as the Hillside.

Following the Second World War, streetcar ridership began to decline all over the country.

Once automobiles became more available, gasoline was derationed.

Tucker has a theory about all of this, and it's nothing if not provocative.

There was a conspiracy to buy up useful rail transit properties and destroy them.

and that firm was known as the National City Lines Company.

They were owned by the General Motors Corporation, Firestone Tire and Rubber, and some oil companies, and took over the Philadelphia Transportation Company and sold almost as many assets as we still have today in the SEPTA system.

Several car houses and garages were closed, sold off a lot of vehicles, and so forth.

This was part of a nationwide program to reduce the availability of public transportation and thereby sell more automobiles.

There are still a few trolley lines operating in Philadelphia and they're kept rolling by a dedicated army of maintenance workers in depots all over the city like this one at 58th and Callahill streets in West Philadelphia.

Men like Bob Hughes and his staff are fond of the old PCC or president's cars just like the one we just rode on.

They're sturdy and reliable but have been phased out in recent years by the more streamlined LRV or light rail vehicle.

In fact, the last PCC car rolled out of the barn in September 1992 and into the memories of those who rode and worked on them for over 40 years.

Most of the area's old movie palaces have come down in recent years, but they were everywhere in the old days.

Center City had more than a chair of these temples of cinema.

Fox, Stanley, the Boyd, and many others.

But two theaters stood out in their day from all the rest.

The Mass Bomb and the Earl.

Most people spend their misspent youths in pool rooms.

I spent my misspent youth at the Earl Theatre.

And going to the Earl Theatre so that you were there when they opened the doors at 10 o'clock on Friday morning and could go in.

The movie started at 11 o'clock and at 1 o'clock on came the stage show.

Perhaps you had gone to see Cab Calloway and his band or Fletcher Henderson and his band or Tommy Dorsey or Benny Goodman or whatever.

Well the inside of the Earl Theatre was just almost beggars description and made great use of marble, lavish tapestries in the lounges and in the foyer.

There was just a feeling of opulence all the way through and this obtained even after the kids began to come in, the teenagers following the big band.

We had a kind of a feeling that it was a hallowed place in its way.

So nobody took any liberties with it and everybody respected it and it was indeed a most opulent place.

The Mastbaum theater how do you talk about the Mastbaum theater?

Well first of all it looked more like a Greek temple or a great museum than it looked like a theater.

At the front there were eight freestanding Doric columns and they flung themselves skyward and it just was a magnificent thing.

And one walked in, for example, into this huge lobby, the fountain lobby, which was the greeting place, the foyer, and everything just kind of circled around there as far as the first stage of your going into the theater was concerned.

There were two grand staircases that looked like something that Ziegfeld must have designed for one of his shows.

If you didn't want to walk up the staircases there were eight elevators that took you to eight different levels of the theater and there were 4,700 seats so you can see it was spread around pretty well.

The men's room and the ladies room I am told were just extensions of somebody's mansion.

But it was a great place except for one thing.

It never could make any money.

In addition to cost, post-war movie theaters faced challenges from television as well.

Worried moguls from the major studios decided to give moviegoers an experience they couldn't find at home.

Experiences like the widescreen CinemaScope.

[music] The wraparound Cinerama.

[music] And the ultimate gimmick, 3D.

Objects seemingly jumped out of the screen and into the laps of audiences who donned effective but not very stylish 3D glasses.

Producers and theater owners also got into the act, especially in promoting horror film.

They went as far as to hand out vomit bags to their unsuspecting patrons, just in case the chills became too intense.

The bags came complete with very important instructions.

Despite Hollywood's best efforts, movie attendance declined dramatically over the years.

In 1941, Philadelphia was home to 380 single-screen theaters, of which exactly five survive to this day.

The All Dean at 19th and Chestnut Streets is one of them, known today as Sam's Place.

Alan Goodkin remembers the All Dean's heyday.

He was a nusher, and in those days it was a job that was second in importance only to the managers.

That involved almost military training.

They assembled a staff of ushers for training about 60 or 65.

And we did the military training, marched up and down the stairs, marched to our posts, exchanged flashlights in a military manner as you would a rifle or a guard on duty.

The flashlight was held, not grasped, it was held slightly in a wand position with the button up so that you could flash the light.

When you escorted them to the row in which they were seated, you would indicate by the flashlight the row entrance.

You were never permitted to shine the flashlight above the tops of a man's shoe or above the top of a lady's ankle for decorum sake.

Most of the patrons that came into the theater were well dressed, well behaved, evenings, coats and ties, ladies in their furs and jewelry, and every evening was a real gallant occasion.

Today when you want to traverse the Delaware River, one of these is the way to go.

But there was a time not so long ago, before the days of the suspension bridges, that ferry boats were as thick on the river as buses are on Market Street today.

In fact, when another ferry was launched, it was a major disaster.

[theme music] [boat motor] Ferries haven't completely disappeared on the Delaware.

Tourists visiting the New Jersey State Aquarium at Camden can get a taste of the ferry experience.

But the only working ferry on the river today plies the waters between the Philadelphia Navy Yard and National Park, New Jersey.

It's a private service for use by Navy Yard workers, and it's piloted by Captain Gene Smith.

Along for the ride on this trip were members of the Steamship Historical Society, and they had some yarns to spin about the old days on the river.

One of the great pleasures of my young life was to take the big yellow trolley down to the ferry, on the loop, get off and walk into that huge cavernous building which served the railroad as well, and we paid our nickel, got on the ferry in great anticipation as the crew released the hooks on the end of the boat and you could hear the bell on the... the engine began to turn and whistle tooted and off you went for this very short trip across the river.

[boat engine] At that time Philadelphia was not noted for the quality of its drinking water and there was a water fountain in the ferry in the philadelphia ferry house and it smelled and tasted like the intake pipe went right through the floor into the river.

It was really pure.

You had to be pretty thirsty.

I can remember riding a ferry when I was a kid in the first place I always headed for.

The deckhands weren't looking around.

I used to head right for the center structure which led you down into the engine room.

Yes.

And I was always fascinated with a steam engine and still am today.

If it's still steam that's right where I head.

Heck with the wheelhouse.

I go to the engine room.

And once you got down there they let you walk around if you made it down and nobody stopped you beforehand.

One of the great pleasures a little boy could have would get on a ferry when you had big ice flows and the ferry boat would hit those ice flows and grind and make a lot of noise and that was a real thrill.

That would happen once in a while when you have enough ice to come down and the flows would be maybe two foot thick, three foot thick.

Yes, they used to do that, but it never stopped them.

The completion of the Ben Franklin Bridge in 1926 signaled a 26-year march to oblivion for the commercial ferries.

In 1952, the last of the ferries took its final voyage on the Delaware.

I remember it being a fairly cold, windy night.

Somebody asked me what the mood was, and I since came to the conclusion it was kind of like an Irish wake where there was celebration going on, but without getting too dramatic about it.

There was a overshadowing.

It was the fact that sadness at losing a, I guess an old friend you'd say.

I was on that last trip and I hung off the back rail as far as I could hang in the middle of the back rail so I'd be the last body across the river.

Somebody else got their name in the paper, but I was the last body.

As Norm says, it was a sad, sweet kind of a moment.

[MUSIC PLAYING] You remember Horn and Hardart, the stainless steel keeper of culinary delights, the coin-operated window dispenser.

For a meager few coins, you were entitled to choose from a wide selection of delicacies.

Everything from delicious cherry pie, hot dogs, to macaroni and cheese.

Horn and Hardart's automats meant less work for mother.

As I recall, for three nickels, which you would put into the old slots and then move the crank, was two nickels for a plate of pot of baked beans and it was one nickel for a cup of coffee or a soft drink and you just sat there and re-fortified yourself on baked beans and say Coca-Cola.

Joseph V Horn and Frank Hardart founded their restaurant chain in 1888 and installed the first automatic America in 1902 at this location currently the home of a drugstore.

By the 1920s Horn and Hardart was so firmly established both in Philadelphia and New York that it entered the worlds of art and of cinema.

One of the tangential attractions of a Horn & Hardart was the lady who made chains in the middle of every establishment.

She was known as a nickel thrower because of the grime that was on these nickels and they kept tossing them out hour after hour with only a five minute break, I think every sixty minutes.

They picked up all of this grime from these nickels and they were the worst sight as you ever saw.

So when I think of Horn and Hardart I think of the nickel throwers and I think of the statuesque lady and I try not to think of her hands I used to do a nickel throwing in my time and it I never cared for it but you would get they would put money down and you would just flip off five nickels at a time for a quarter and they gave you 50 cents you'd go into the next slot and throw another five nickels and by the end of the day oh your hands would be absolutely filthy from the the nickels they were so black and I only did it a few times and I hated it completely all the restaurants seem to attract a certain kind of people you had Kensington and Allegheny a working group of people you had 15th and market across from City Hall where you had the lawyers politicians and you also had all the gangsters and the gangsters were their best customers because it was a nice place for them to meet the waitresses loved them because they were great tippers and they took care of themselves I mean nobody touched anybody in those places.

Then there was another area which was 11th Street which was the street walkers paradise and they would come in and they had their own table in the restaurant every night I mean this is just some of the crazy things that I remember from Horn and Hardart.

You know there was a whole section at 818 Chestnut which was the original and these were jewelers from Jewelers Row and would be nothing for them to spill a bag of diamonds on the table and they sat around the table and haggled over what did their business so they were they came in very handy in their day for the public or the artists.

The original automatic 818 chestnut closed in 1968 with others following soon after.

With them went a style of service and cuisine that you just don't see anymore.

[music] If you had to make a list of favorite childhood memories, one of them might be the first time you set foot in Connie Mack Stadium and marveled at the sight of an emerald green playing field and an outfield wall festooned with advertising posters.

The stadium, originally known as Shibe Park, hosted the American League Athletics and later the National League Phillies from 1909 through 1970.

The NFL Eagles also called it home and played the 1948 championship game there.

Shibe Park also hosted political conventions and other events in its 62-year lifetime.

It was the nation's first concrete and steel ballpark, built for the princely sum of $1 million.

For all of that, Shibe Park fit neatly into the fabric of its North Philadelphia neighborhood.

That's a fact that architect and planner Leon Clemmer should know all too well.

His grandfather, Joseph Steele, built the place.

It was a community.

It was a community of Shibe Park.

The players, the groundskeepers, everybody knew everybody.

They walked to the park, they played together, they went to the same...the churches were right around the community.

This is the great thing about the way the industrial Philadelphia was.

It was the same as any big industrial building.

It was a place of work, was a place of play, and people congregated around it.

The people that worked there lived there.

When they coined the term friendly confines they meant Wrigley Field in Chicago, but they could have had Shibe Park in mind.

The sight lines were excellent in Shibe Park.

No matter where you sat in the main seats, main stadium, you had tremendous sight lines.

You could see that ball field.

It was built for baseball.

Dave Ruth used to break windows on 20th Street with some of his home rugs and would launch some of his shots over the roofs.

The neighborhood setting was so cozy that relief pitchers would sometimes drop by the local tap room in uniform for a spot of liquid refreshment during slow ball games.

In the late 20s and early 30s when the A's sported some memorable World Series teams, neighbors across the right field wall on 20th Street capitalized on the demand for Series tickets by building bleachers on their roofs and admitting fans for half price.

They'd send their children to local vendors to buy hot dogs for a nickel and resell them to their rooftop fans for a dime.

Business boomed for these neighborhood entrepreneurs until 1935 when stadium co-owner John Shibe decided he couldn't endure the competition anymore.

He erected a 38-foot addition to the right field fence, blocking the view from across 20th Street.

The rooftop bleachers were put out of business.

The Phillies' greatest success in their Connie Mack Stadium years came during the era of the WizKids of the late '40s and early '50s.

A charter member of the WizKids was Richie Ashburn, who achieved fame with the Phillies first as a player and later as a broadcaster.

I'll tell you what impressed me about Connie Mack Stadium the first time I walked into it was the number of people.

There were about 35,000 people there.

It was a sell out.

I had never seen that many people in one spot before.

I mean the awesome size of it and the noise of all those people.

I grew up in the Nebraska population around 1,000.

Just the noise and the size and the beautiful playing field was very impressive to me.

That's one of the most, that was one of the best moments I think in my major league career really was that first day in Connie Mack Stadium.

I was a center fielder of course.

It was a perfect outfield for a center fielder.

It was huge.

Center field covered a lot of ground so I had a lot of room to roam and once again the grass out there was just manicured.

You could charge a ball without fear of a bad hop.

It was probably the best outfield for a center fielder in the league at that time.

Our groundskeeper used to build up the line a little, the third base foul line a little bit for me.

So the bunt that went down that line wouldn't roll foul.

And some people would think that's cheating.

I'll tell you what it was.

It was equal time because when I went on the road, they did just the opposite.

They built the line so it tapered so the ball would roll foul.

For all of the Wiz kids, their most exciting experience at County Mac Stadium was the 1950 World Series against the powerhouse New York Yankees.

It was a great thrill because there hadn't been a pennant won in Philadelphia since 1915.

And of course in 1950, that was 35 years later, it was certainly the highlight of all our careers.

And we were young.

We were called the Whiz Kids and we were all young.

I was only I think 22 years old then.

And one of the oldest guys would have been Dal Ennis who may have been 25 or 26.

We, it was disappointing in that we lost four games in a row to the Yankees.

Our club was really beat up.

We won the National League pennant in Brooklyn on the last day of the season.

Now the Yankees in the American League had clinched their pennant I think about two or three weeks ahead of the time.

So they were strong and well rested and chomping at the bit raring to go.

We didn't get blown out of those games.

We lost the first game 1-0.

We lost the second game 2-1 in 10 innings when Joe DiMaggio beat Robin Roberts with a home run in the 10th inning.

We lost the third game 3-2 and I think the last game that we lost in Yankee Stadium, I believe the score was 5-3, I should remember that but I don't.

But it was a great thrill but it was very disappointing and I think the greatest disappointment of all was the fact that we never won again.

Ultimately it was the transportation that killed that site.

You remember as well as I do you would park you would have some little guy come up and say I watch your car.

Yes.

You give me five dollars.

It was a real con job.

If you didn't pay it your car was it was a terrible thing but they didn't have enough parking.

That's why it was moved.

It was the transportation that made the site originally.

It's a funny analogous that one thing made it and then the same thing killed it.

Connie Mack Stadium opened its doors for the last time on October 1st, 1970, with the Phillies entertaining the Montreal Expos.

Thousands of fans began lining up hours beforehand, and they had more than the game on their minds.

And I think the reaction by the fans, not after the game, after the game, but even during the game, it started maybe the sixth or seventh inning.

You know, people said, "Hey, I'd like to get a souvenir out of here."

By the sixth inning of the game, the sounds of ad hoc demolition could be heard all over the stadium.

And when the Phillies finally won the game in the bottom of the 10th inning, all you know what broke loose.

All of a sudden, everybody is ripping the seats apart.

And they knew where we were, way up there on top was the safest place to be right then.

And I thought, well, what are they going to do about this?

I mean, the place is being literally torn apart right before our eyes.

And I thought, these people are crazy.

And then I looked down and saw my two sons down there ripping off a seat.

And I believe it or not, I still have that seat.

Let's take another look at that play on instant replay.

It takes four seconds from the moment the winning run is scored for the kid to get his mitts on home plate in a futile bid for the ultimate souvenir.

You'll see how quickly he realizes that the plate is firmly secured in the dirt and decides to grab the next item that isn't nailed down.

By the time it was all over, souvenir hunters had taken seats, bats, gloves, baseballs, the sod, snack tins from concession stands, even toilets and sinks from the restrooms.

It was an inglorious farewell for a grand old park.

And even sadder day was to come for old Shibe Park.

In August 1971, vandals broke into the stadium and set a small fire just for the thrill of it.

The blaze spread and claimed much of the steel support, the roof, and the decks along third base.

Connie Mack Stadium, once hailed as the largest and most perfectly appointed baseball grounds in the world, had become a derelict, fit for habitation only by rats.

The wrecking ball finally put it out of its misery in 1976.

Today the site has found new life as the home of the 5,000 seat Deliverance Evangelistic Church, a temple of faith where once stood a temple of sport.

In the old days when you went down the shore the place to go was Atlantic City, one of the most glamorous resorts on the East Coast.

It boasted a beautiful beach, lively boardwalk and elegant hotels.

And the show place of Atlantic City was the Steel Pier, the vaudeville center of the boardwalk.

In its heyday, the Steel Pier hosted some of the biggest names in show business, along with exciting daredevil acts.

If you frequented the Steel Pier, from the 40s to the 60s, your host was probably a man whose vocal skills would later make him well known to a generation of sports fans.

He's Gene Hart, the voice of the Flyers.

Not only that, but he's also married to the lady who rode the diving horse.

So my life was New York school in the winter and then to Atlantic City from Memorial Day to Labor Day on Steel Pier.

As I matured and got out of the service I started doing other jobs on the pier.

I instead of being a child fake Hawaiian diver I became a stagehand, I became a gun holder for a lion tamer, became a comedy diver assistant stage manager to my father and that career went on until the pier's demise so we've had pretty much of a 40-year situation in fact my ultimate end was going from the fake Hawaiian diver and the son of the stage manager to the announcer of the water show and I think technically that was the first work that I did as a broadcaster of sorts and of course the other thing was my wife came up from Florida in in the late 50s as the diver of the famed Steel Pier diving horse and that's where we met.

After my freshman year in college I got an audition so I came up went up to the top of the tower on the horse and that was my audition and got the job.

It was still cold out it was early spring I was scared to death.

So it does take more than anything courage just to do it.

But the act itself I never thought was that difficult.

What you have to do is just simply get on the horse and hang on tightly and go along for the ride.

But it was up to the horse.

A lot of people think that we either shoved them off, they had electrical charge or something like that.

Not so.

They simply went up there and when they wanted to go they went.

Now when the horse got up you began to realize as an emcee that they had a little idiosyncrasies you know the horse he'd look out to see look down do things like this right you know so if you could say it you'd say how are things out at the ocean the horse would go like this how are things at the boardwalk everything going okay you all set and people love that because you know the idiosyncrasies but always for all of the years that the Steel Pier water show was there that was the closing act and it was the act for which many people came to see that was our life it was a tough job because you work every day and the show is it's almost how you remember they on weekdays they were two four eight and ten then on Saturday nights you do it so you would do two four eight nine thirty and eleven and then on Sundays you would do two three thirty five eight and ten so we did five five we did thirty shows a week and then that night between the eight o'clock show and our 1030 show we go into the ballroom and stand right up at the stage and look up at Tex Benneke or Glenn Miller or Gene Krupa or Carmen Cavallaro I mean every band that was known came in I remember one time when I saw Betty Grable come in in a white fur coat because Harry James was there.

Well television came in and television obviously would pay more for one show on Ed Sullivan or the Kate Smith show or the Sid Caesar show than you could make for 30 shows Atlantic City so the the concept of Steel Pier became passé.

In fact I she knows we don't even go on the boardwalk where we can see Steel Pier.

It aggravates us you know the and say do you remember what it used to be.

But the important thing out of it all is if it had not been for Steel Pier we certainly would never have met.

So not only do we enjoy them and savor the fine memories of those that time but we realized that it was fate and here we are because of Steel Pier.

There's another area of town that is looking to recapture its past glory.

From the 40s through the 60s, Kentucky Avenue between Atlantic and Arctic was jumping 24 hours a day with the sounds of jazz and rhythm and blues and the aromas of barbecue.

Patty Harris remembers those days when she danced in Larry Steele's Smart Affairs at the focal point of Kentucky Avenue, the Club Harlem.

We were called the Beige Beauts and the Beige Beaux.

Always more girls than fellas.

There's always four fellas and maybe, I would say roughly about 20 girls.

And we would do two shows a night, three on Saturday night, Sunday morning.

We had that wonderful breakfast show that started at 6 a.m.

And a lot of celebrities from all over the city would come in, you know, like Frank Sinatra and work with people like Jackie Wilson, Roy Hamilton, Marvin Gaye.

And the list just goes on and on.

The people would be lined up from Atlantic Avenue, waiting to get in to see these shows.

And even though it was a black review, the audience was primarily white.

And the whole street was ablaze.

We started rehearsing in June, the show would open in July, and we worked to September.

All these things were just really wonderful times.

The costumes, the hats, the girls, and the food out here on Kentucky Avenue, going to the fishery, Sapp's for ribs and Jerrys for ribs and up to Miss Johnson's for soul food.

It was just wonderful.

And then you'd eat and then you'd go to the beach and you'd have beach parties or just sleep.

So, I mean, I think after working all night, you're too, really too hyped up to go home and sleep.

So you go on the beach and party a little bit more and just, you're there for a while.

Kentucky Avenue may well swing again if Yvonne Doggett's Kentucky Avenue Renaissance has anything to do with it.

The Renaissance was held early June.

I thought that perhaps we could recreate that which went on here in Kentucky Avenue.

You recreate the ambiance, the sights, the sounds, and the smells of this particular street that meant so much to not just the black community but all groups in the community.

Grace's Little Belmont has been closed for 17 years and now it opened for the festival.

When you walked in there it was as if it had never closed.

There was a band on the bandstand playing and they were playing April in Paris because that's what was playing in the organ of the big stage here at the Club Harlem.

I was happy to note at the end when the numbers came in that we had over 10,000 people a day and they came from the Delaware Valley.

They came from Washington DC, from Philadelphia, from New York, but what I would love to encourage as we restore Atlantic City, we don't lose the feeling and the heart and the passion of our community.

It's slow.

Everything is slow, it seems, when you really want it.

But if it's really good, it will happen.

Will the Steel Pier at Kentucky Avenue be reborn in a rejuvenated Atlantic City?

Maybe, if memories are translated into action.

Today, Market Street East looks a lot different than it did as few as 10 years ago.

It's still the department store hub of Center City, but not like the old days, when the street was lined with stores like Strawbridge's and Wanamaker's, which are still there, and Stellenberg's, Gimbel's, and Frank and Cedar's, which are not.

Probably the most visually memorable of all the bygone Market Street stores was the Lit Brothers on Market Street between 7th and 8th.

Thanks to Mellon Bank, which rescued it from the Wreckers' Wall in 1984, Lit's still stands as the home of Mellon's operations center.

Actually, Lit's isn't one building.

It's a group of several different structures that the Lit family either purchased or built starting in 1893.

The result is a giant gingerbread cake of a structure.

The city's largest remaining cluster of 19th century iron and stone fronted commercial buildings.

And if you looked a little more closely at the corners of the building at 7th and 8th streets, you'd notice a slogan which may prove a bit puzzling to modern day passers-by.

Hats trimmed free of charge.

We thought we'd ask a few of those passers-by just what that means.

I guess it just means to cut your head or make an old head look new.

I don't know.

Guys, want to help me out here?

Hats trimmed.

I don't think I've ever heard that saying.

When you buy a hat in the old days, I think it was just women.

And they would like mold the hat and like shape it to the individual's head.

Maybe.

For those of you who may be mystified still, let an expert demonstrate how it's done.

Lit Brothers had an excellent millinery department.

And they had something that none of the other stores had, and that was the customer would come in and pick out her hat and then also be able to choose her trimming.

I'm taking this ribbon and pleating it in to a rosette type of thing which you can see.

And then I'm going to put it right here on the hat.

It's like everything else, it's an art.

Anything that's a little bit different, you have to have training for it.

We used to use the suede trimmings and also all kinds of feathers.

Veiling was very popular in those days.

They would take the hat and drape it so that the veil would come down nose length, which was very attractive looking in those days.

I see a comeback in millinery because I notice in all the fashion shows this year, practically every model is wearing a hat.

So that looks like a possibility of introducing our ladies back to wearing a hat, which is very feminine to finish off your outfit, I think.

[chime] Now that's hat trimming.

Lit Brothers went out of business in 1977, and Gimbel's, another major market street chain, followed soon after.

Gimbel's won't be remembered for the splendor of its store at 8th and Market.

What gave Gimbel's its claim to immortality, at least for two generations of kids, was its sponsorship of the annual Thanksgiving Day parade, starting in 1920.

Every year, until the store's closing, the parade would wind its way east on the parkway, around City Hall, and east on Market Street to the store.

The grand finale featured the arrival of Santa Claus, who would receive the keys to the city, and then ascend a fire truck ladder into the fourth floor of Gimbal.

It just wasn't Christmas in Philadelphia until Santa Claus did his thing.

I was a Philadelphia fireman stationed at Tenth and Cherry and it was the custom that a fireman would be Santa Claus in the Gimbel's Day Parade because ladder 23 that was stationed in the firehouse was the ladder that Santa Claus would climb up to get into the old Gimbel's building and the battalion chief said that I was the fattest guy there and that I would fit right into it and that's how it all began for me.

The Santa Claus floats were not of great quality.

They were tied together with clothesline.

They had little casters on the bottom and it was just like a pallet that the sled was mounted on and you would hold on for dear life.

In the event that the Santa Claus would fall off the sleigh, the parade could continue and the back of Santa Claus would go on.

It was like the show must go on, you know, that kind of thing.

You go through the parade and you would wave the entire lamp.

And the Gimbel's Parade would end at Gimbel's.

The queen of the parade would be there and she would give the key for the city to Santa Claus to open up the holidays.

And when all that publicity stuff was done, Santa Claus would put a bag of toys on his back and he would climb up the ladder.

And this is something that very few people will ever be able to vision what I've seen.

I would go up a half a dozen rungs on the ladder, turn around and look over Market Street in any given direction and it was covered with people.

From down as far as 7th Street at one end, at the other end as far up as probably 10th or 11th, it was nothing but people.

I purchased for my own personal use a pair of Santa Claus glasses like the old Ben Franklin kind.

And this one year I happened to forget to take the glasses with me when I left the house.

And the makeup man said just wear the ones you have on which are very similar to what I'm wearing now.

He said they'll look perfectly fine.

Not thinking that these glasses were photo gray glasses.

We got to the end of the parade and they're photographing and all of a sudden they're asking why Santa Claus is wearing sunglasses.

Never thinking that I was wearing photo gray glasses.

Well, that was my last year as doing Santa Claus because I really don't believe that Commissioner Rizzo appreciated Santa Claus wearing sunglasses and I feel it that that was one of the reasons that I kind of lost my job to be Santa Claus and to be Santa Claus for a long time it was one of the highlights of my life really.

[music] Every week, a group of sales people, secretaries, bankers and housewives gather at the Aztec Club on Delaware Avenue to do the Bristol Stump, the Twist and the 81.

They're a few of the dances they used to do as teenagers at Wagner's Ballroom in North Philadelphia.

And the man spinning the discs at the Aztec today, just as he did at Wagner's 30 years ago, is the Geater with the Heater.

The boss with the hot sauce, Jerry Blavat.

In 1962 at 5810 Old York Road, there was a ballroom known as Wagner's.

And up until 1962, this place was probably the hottest ballroom in America for adult dancing.

But then in 1962, something happened.

We went in there with some of these kids that you see here today.

And for nine years straight, Wagner's Ballroom became the hottest teenage dance hall in America with 2,000 kids every Sunday afternoon.

These beyond teens, as we say, when they were kids, they were called yon teenagers, met, fell in love at Wagner's Ballroom at Broad and Olney.

It was the place that people could go.

If you didn't have a lot of money, you could always go to the dance and have a ball for hours.

And there were tons of kids there.

You didn't even have to know anybody.

You could just go there and jump in and get in a line, dance, and have a ball.

We met in Nice Town.

And I talked her into going to Wagner's with me.

She said, "No, I can't go there."

I said, "Come on, go with me."

We went there, fell in love with the people, and it's history.

We used to dance so much from the beginning to the end that we all used to get soaking wet and sweat and mirrors around Wagner's ballroom would steam up.

And people would say, "Well, when we walk outside, is it raining?"

"No, it's not raining.

We're just having a ball and having a wonderful time."

We would name all of these wonderful dances that these kids came up with from the spot that they were dancing.

At that time, it was Wagner's Ballroom, so we called it the Wagner Walk, or the Chebu Walk, or the Riviera Roll, or the Jerry Strut.

Jerry, that was also a way that kids dealt with competition.

Instead of having fights, they danced it out.

They, you know, this one was better than that one and they would dance it out right on the boardwalk whether it was down the shore or on the corner or at the dance halls.

That's how they competed with one another rather than with fists.

They did it with the dance techniques.

That was also another way that the girls and guys got together because sometimes the guys would make up a dance but they didn't want a bunch of guys going out there by themselves.

That wasn't done in those days so they needed girls to go out with them so we would meet and get together and do it with them.

So one of the requirements to really meet a guy had to be a good dancer folks.

If he could listen if he couldn't dance there was no romance and I must tell you something I think we have to go back to those days because I think that kids today need a Wagner's Ballroom and more than need they themselves are looking for the Camerata to meet new kids other than the neighborhood kids and see the way other kids live.

You became their friends and you saw the way that they lived in those days.

[music] Ready?

[music] I tell you something, you're really a terrific TV audience, I mean that sincerely.

Let's give them a big hand, a big hand over here for these people.

[applause] Thank you, thank you very, very, very much.

[music] We put this program together because there's nothing more fun than remembering the old days, and because there's no place in the country richer in happy memories than the Delaware Valley.

We're sorry that those things aren't there anymore, but we're glad that we were around to enjoy them when they were.

This is Bill Campbell.

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