On The DL

A Summer Stroll: Philadelphia's Broad Street

by Mickey Jou

Thu., May 31, 5:30 p.m., free, Wagner Free Institute of Science, 1700 W. Montgomery Ave., 215-763-6529, www.wagnerfreeinstitute.org

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Old City, a slum? Broad Street, lined with churches? Yup, this was Philadelphia 100 years ago. With 4,000 picture postcards and a wealth of knowledge collected over the last 40 years, Robert Skaler, a forensic architect and author of Philadelphia's Broad Street: North and South, takes willing travelers on a slideshow trip down memory lane — starting south of City Hall and ending at Olney Avenue.

At the turn of the last century, Broad Street (so named for being the widest street in town) was a promenade where people would drive in their carriages and their Sunday best to see and be seen. "The streets were wider [then], the houses were huge, there were churches on almost every other block, and there were two opera houses [the Grand Opera House and the Met]," says Skaler. Opulent mansions dotted Broad north of Market Street, which were built by the nouveau riche who were ostracized by the old-money crowd living south of Market.

Many of these impressive buildings throughout the city have since been demolished. "In the '50s and '60s, people hated Victorian stuff. They tore down blocks and blocks of this stuff," says Skaler, who is also the former president of the Philadelphia Victorian Society. "Most people have no idea of what their neighborhoods used to look like. A lot of kids think that their neighborhoods were always crime-ridden, but it wasn't and it doesn't have to be that way."