City Fathers

A friend who grew up in Philadelphia was telling me how when he moved to Kansas City, he was amazed at people who were impressed at 100-year-old houses. Back in Philly, the threshold for 'old' was set a little further out.

As is born out by this statue on Broadway, it's not our fault, the Midwest/West is practically brand new. Alexander Majors (the left of the trio on the statue) died in 1900 after a long life that included the Pony Express and and a career as a shipping magnate running covered wagons from here to Denver and Salt Lake City. We didn't even have board sidewalks and dirt streets in Westport when Philly got old.