The intersection of Frankford and Cottman avenues in Mayfair is shown today. PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA
The United States was in the depth of the Great Depression when the Northeast Times debuted in 1934.
Prices were low, but so were incomes. Average yearly pay was $1,368, with bus drivers making a few bucks more than that. Steel workers earned a lot less — $423. An airline pilot took home eight grand, just $663 less than a U.S. congressman. The U.S. population was 120 million, and almost 5 million American families received welfare payments. In Philadelphia, the unemployment rate was almost 25 percent, according to the Philly History Blog.
There were 75 murders in Philadelphia in 1934, down significantly from 1933’s 124, according to the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology.
Eighty years ago, onions and apples cost 3 cents per pound, butter was 28 cents a pound, and a loaf of bread was 5 cents. A pound of hamburger cost a dime, and a pound of potatoes was a penny. Leg of lamb and beef rib roast both cost 22 cents per pound. Gasoline was 10 cents per gallon; a Ford fan belt cost 12 cents. A Studebaker truck went for $625. Cigarettes were 15 cents per pack, and a cigarette holder was a dollar. A purse cost a buck; a wallet set you back a deuce.
Those with the cash to go shopping went to Frankford or Kensington, and if they had any money left over for a treat, they stopped by the Mayfair Diner, which looked like a train car at its Ryan and Frankford location.
In 1934, rent on a three-room apartment averaged $15 a month, and the average cost of a new house was $5,970.
That same year, much of Northeast Philadelphia was dominated by large estates and outlying farms. Nearest neighbors could be a few miles away.
Mystery novelist Agatha Christie published Murder on the Orient Express in 1934. In May of that year, Will Rogers hosted the sixth Academy Awards. Cavalcade was named best picture.
Radio was the family entertainment in the 1930s, and people listened to Captain Midnight, The Lux Theatre and The Shadow.
The Sears building that dominated the Lower Northeast skyline until 1994 was already 14 years old in 1934. Frankford High School, founded in 1910, was almost a quarter-century old in 1934. Whitman’s Chocolates, which had been a Philadelphia institution since 1843, was closing in on a century. The Roosevelt Boulevard plant was shut down in 1993.
Not a decade had passed after the paper’s founding that an old mansion at Arrott and Leiper streets became a branch of the YWCA. It continued to serve the community as The Frankford Community Y after the YWCA folded in the 1990s, but it was closed in 2009.
And since 1934, such familiar spots as Normandy Square, Korvette’s and Bob’s Big Boy as well as Playland, Boulevard Pools, the Mayfair, the Merben, the Tyson, the Crest and the Orleans became Northeast landmarks only to become fading memories. The Budd Co.’s Red Lion Road property became a golf course that was supposed to become a large distribution center for an international drug company, but didn’t. It’s vacant now.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was in his first term in 1934. Adolf Hitler became both the German chancellor and president in one office that year. Also in power in 1934 were Italy’s Benito Mussolini and the USSR’s Joseph Stalin. The most infamous American criminals — Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson — all were shot and killed that year.
In sports, Sultan of Swat Babe Ruth hit his 700th homer in midseason, but was 0 for 3 in his last at-bat as a New York Yankee in 1934. That same year, the Yanks acquired Joe DiMaggio, and Lou Gehrig played his 1,500th straight game in pinstripes. The Philadelphia Phillies scored 11 runs in one inning to beat Cincinnati 18–0 on July 14. Not even one month later, the Phillies fell to the New York Giants, 21–4, in a game in which Mel Ott scored six runs.
The average cost of a ticket to a pro baseball game was $1.25. The St. Louis Cardinals, who won the NL pennant behind Dizzy Dean’s 30th victory in 1934, beat the Detroit Tigers in seven games to win the 31st World Series.The Italians beat the Czechs to win soccer’s World Cup.
Eagles fans, especially those who saw their Birds lose to Green Bay 53–20 on Nov. 16, 2014, might be bucked to learn their team had a mighty 64–0 victory against the Cincinnati Reds football team in 1934.
And as the years rolled by:
• Frances Burke, a Mayfair resident, was crowned Miss America in 1940.
• The Times in 1941 serialized Kitty Foyle, the Story of a Frankford Girl Who Won America’s Heart. It later became a movie starring Ginger Rogers.
• In the 1940s, the paper used to run comics.
• During the era of bobby socks and saddle shoes in the 1950s, much of the Northeast north of Cottman Avenue still had so few homes that many people referred to it as “the country.”
• Trackless buses replaced trolleys along Frankford Avenue in 1955, and that same year, an underpass of Oxford Avenue was built on the Roosevelt Boulevard. An underpass of Pennypack Circle was constructed in 1964.
• The bulldozers came to “the country” in the 1960s and were followed by homes, many made with red brick.
• Hurricane Donna ripped through the area in September of that year.
• In 1961, planned developments such as Parkwood Manor and Walton Park were built. In 1962, construction started in Modena Park, Crestwood, Rambler Park, Scotchwood and Millbrook. The cost of land in the Northeast, which was $1,030 an acre in 1942, was $13,300 in 1962. By then, most of present-day Northeast Philly was in place.
• S. Klein On the Square was completed at the Boulevard and Cottman Avenue in 1965.
• The Northeast Times tried to fight off the music world’s “British Invasion” in 1965 with entertainment columnist Stewart Ettinger leading an editorial crusade against the Beatles. Well, you know how that worked out. ••
A look back: The intersection of Frankford and Cottman avenues in Mayfair is shown in the 1930s. PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA
