On most weekday mornings, many of us get into our automobiles or board public transportation and head off to our places of employment. In Philadelphia, thousands of people commute an hour or more by automobile or public transportation. My drive from home to the office is approximately 45 minutes. I know people who spend at least two hours commuting to work and another two hours commuting home at the end of their workday. An accident or some traffic issue could add more time to the commute. Those who take public transportation or “bum a ride” with a fellow commuter have several options for killing time; they can read a newspaper; catch up on mail and paperwork; or they can get some “shuteye.”
For someone like me, however, these options are not available. So, like other drivers, I listen to music or news on satellite radio and I catch up with friends and business associates on my mobile telephone. One thing I find interesting to do is to observe the wonderful sights that are stark reminders of neighborhoods of the past. The cobblestone streets along Germantown Avenue in old Germantown are an example of how things used to be. The small neighborhood parks that spring up almost anywhere seem quite unique. Then there are the homes along Wister Street, Logan Street and Baynton Street on the east side of Germantown Avenue that give us clues as to what neighborhood life was like during the fifties and sixties. You know the type of homes that I am referencing; big stone homes, with craftsmanship that could only come from skilled craftsmen. These are homes that in spite of apparent decay still have character and with a little tender loving care could be what they were in the past.
Each morning I search, as I drive through this area, to find something unique. I recently observed something we do not often see today. I saw an elderly lady a few feet out in the street with a broom in her hands, just sweeping. It was obvious to me that she had swept her porch and sidewalk, before sweeping the street near her curb. Cleaning our neighborhoods was a common sight, particularly on Saturday mornings, back in the day.
There is no way you could have grown up in one of our Philadelphia neighborhoods in the past with its row homes without an image of neighbors cleaning the marble steps that were characteristic of these homes. If you recall, there were at least four marble steps that were separated from a neighbor’s marble steps by a diagonal marble slab. You often saw adults and sometimes children, on their knees with a scrub brush in hand and a container of Ajax cleanser, scrubbing the white marble steps. The cleaning of these steps was a ritual followed each and every Saturday morning. The marble steps were hosed or washed down by throwing the bucket of dirty, cleanser-filled water over them. This was immediately followed by a bucket of clean water. Everyone seemed to get a big kick and a great deal of satisfaction from the sparkling white steps. During my era, these marble steps were everywhere. What we see today, however, are often marble steps painted over, usually with grey or white paint. These painted steps do not mirror the sparkling marble steps characteristic of many row homes back in the day.
While I vaguely recall marble steps while growing up in the 4500 block of Fairmount Avenue, we did not have such steps at our semi-detached home in the 600 block of 43rd Street. Like the homes in which many of you grew up, these had porches. The ritual was a bit different, but the objective was still the same; we had to have clean and well-presented homes. All residents of the neighborhood, whether they owned or rented their homes, took pride in the maintenance of those homes. So the cleaning of the marble steps was replaced by sweeping our porches and then either hosing them or washing the porches by throwing buckets of clean water on them, just as we did with the marble steps. You not only washed down the floor, but you also washed the porch furniture. Some of you can relate to the swings, gliders and rockers that were found on most porches in the past. You might also relate to the painting of the wooden porch floors that were characteristic of most homes. Even if you had a cement porch floor, it was still painted. The job did not stop with washing down the marble steps or porches. The sweeping as well as the washing continued down to the pavements. You may recall that cleaning pavements, in particular brick pavements, was very meticulous and time-consuming. Remember that there was no “Round-up” or other weed killers back then. So, it was often the job of children to sit down on the brick or concrete sidewalks and manually pull weeds out of the cracks. I recall my father cutting down on weeds by sprinkling rock salt on the cracks. Some people tried soapy water as a grass and weed killer. Of course, the cleaning of sidewalks continued with hosing them down. Just like the lady I referenced in the beginning of this column, sweeping and washing down the street in front of one’s home was something that we just did; it was expected. While it is not practiced much today, you might recall that some people went beyond what was expected by sweeping down the street of their entire block, back in the day.
We furthered our efforts to keep our neighborhoods clean with the assistance of the water trucks from our Streets Department. You cannot be from back in the day without an image of a water truck traveling down the middle of the streets spraying water on each side. To a youngster, this was exciting; for adults it was an integral part of cleaning the neighborhood streets. While the water trucks came first, street sweepers followed behind with large wide pushbrooms to sweep up debris. Obviously, such tasks were costly and the water trucks were an expensive piece of equipment. However, they played a significant role in maintaining the pride we showed in our neighborhoods.
Even when the water trucks did not come down our streets, I recall that a city worker would open fire hydrants, using one of those special wrenches, to flush our streets. After the water had dried, it was not unusual to see residents with a small can of white paint, repainting their addresses on the curb. If you just think about times that you have struggled recently to locate the address of a home, it was easy to locate most homes back in the day because of these painted addresses on curbs.
Did you participate in washing windows in the past? Now, this is one neighborhood and home improvement chore that I totally disliked. No matter how hard I tried to get the windows clean without leaving streaks, I knew that my father or mother would find something wrong upon careful inspection. After all, we did not have Windex, back in the day. For the most part, we used old newspaper and a washing solution of ammonia for this task. I cannot tell you the last time I saw anyone washing windows, so any image of someone washing windows is definitely from back in the day.
What about trimming hedges or raking leaves? How about something as basic as picking up paper or trash that we constantly observe today littering our streets? Remember how trash was neatly placed at curbside in the past? No, there was no recycling, but garbage was placed in a separate container. Do you recall how residents would utilize old tires to be placed at curbside for use as planters? Can you recall a time, back in the day, when trash was burned at curbside?
Given the less than winter-like weather we have had lately, it seems an ideal time to commit to starting a process to rehabilitate or sustain the greatness of our neighborhoods by returning to those good old, clean up, paint up and fix up activities; the kind of neighborhood projects most of us rallied to support, back in the day.
Alonzo Kittrels can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or The Philadelphia Tribune, Back In The Day, 520 S. 16th St., Philadelphia, PA 19146.
