Above is a souvenir photo of young ladies out for a night on the town on at the Cove. On March 19th, 1943, Palumbo opened The Cove, a dinner and cocktail spot, in the former Crane showroom at Locust and 13th Streets. Club and the famous Click! on Market Street near 16th. In the 1940s Frank owned a string of successful clubs in Center City: Ciro’s, The 20th Century Tavern, the C.R. Perhaps the biggest and most famous Philadelphia club entrepreneur was Frank Palumbo, who had begun his career at his grandfather’s eponymous Palumbo’s on 9th and Catharine Streets in South Philadelphia. Beyond the lot is the commercial complex that houses Woody’s today.ġ940s Philadelphia was home to a vibrant music and nightclub scene entertainers knew they had to make it in Philly to succeed on the national circuit.
Just north of the showroom is the six story Gramercy Building, which had been built in 1915, and next to that, across Chancellor St., is a lot where the Chancellor Hotel would be built.
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The large, old Free Library building is across the street to the east, where a parking lot sits today. In the Dallin Aerial Survey photo, left, from 1927, the Crane Showroom is the long, low, bright, sanitary white building left of center near the bottom. The one here at 13th and Locust Streets just happened to be oddly graceless and out of proportion to the surrounding buildings. To showcase their products, they opened showrooms all over the country, with the largest in Atlantic City. In the 1920s, they became one of the first American manufacturers of decorator lines of matching bathroom fixtures toilet, sink and tub ensembles like the ones pictured above. had begun in the 19th century, producing plumbing supplies, valves and pipefittings. The reason for the low, boxy shape is that the building was designed by Ralph Bencker, who also designed Horn & Hardart Automats, as a commercial showroom for plumbing fixtures. In 1926, both 13 Locust Street were razed and the current simple deco building was put up. How it got there, no one seemed to know, but a note on the back of the photo at the Library Company says that it was planted by Alexander Hamilton! Photos through the 1920s show an anomalous pine tree shading the sidewalk on the 13th Street side of the building, see photo, above, left. This Society, “composed entirely of women who are descended in their own right from some ancestor of worthy life,” now has its home at 1630 Latimer Street, near Rittenhouse Square. Crawford Arnold, 1301 Locust Street, on the northwest corner, to plan for the organization of the Pennsylvania Society of the Colonial Dames of America. In 1891, a number of respectable ladies assembled at the residence of Mrs. It was an upper middle class neighborhood, inhabited by doctors, businessmen and lawyers. The corner began urban life in the late 1840s as part of a block of typical Philadelphia rowhouses built on the north side of Locust Street between 13th and Juniper Streets. It’s an amazing and ironically amusing transformation from the nest of hustler and strip bars that called the space home for so many years.
Across 13th street from the parking lot I discussed last time stands the enigmatic building that now houses N est, a pre-school “early enrichment center” with a playspace, coffee lounge and kids’ hair salon the ultimate family friendly space, right in the heart of the Gayborhood at 1301 Locust St.