Did anybody here grow up on this street in the 60's and 70's.

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Could be. What hundred did you grow up on, or near?

Its not me my dad did.Last name garvey

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Related to Denny Garvey?

He is my uncle my dad is steve

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Do you remember the McCarthy family? My husband and I own their old family home. Such nice architectural details to some of the homes on Manheim...

ill ask my dad

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I know this is ancient, but I just came across this BLOG. Mr. McCarthy was a real estate agent working out of his very nice home in the 100W block of Manheim. My brother and I rented our first apartment from him, in 1971, at 200 W Clapier (corner Wayne), above Brown's Barber Shop. After about a year, Brown bought the building and kicked us out. Mr. McCarthy found another place for us on W Winona, near Pulaski. This second place was distinguished by a large hole between the first and second floors where a former occupant of our apartment crashed through to the stoned hippies below.
At the corner of Wayne and Manheim there was a little Italian grocery that had the best lemon ice in the summer.
My friend Lucile lived across Manheim from McCarthy - I think she was one of his tenants, too.
Strange to be on Wayne now without the #53 trolley tracks. Right at Clapier and near Logan there were several breaks in the track, so every trolley would make loud crashes as it rolled by. We stopped hearing it after a while.
Early 70's was a time of turmoil for some in the neighborhood. Black people were moving in, some whites didn't like it. Adults got along, but the teens were often in battle for turf. The little rec center and playground on Wayne was usually off-limits to whites, an exception being when it was used as a polling place. Off Greene St there was a hill where everybody's kids went sledding.
One night I heard yelling and ran to the window overlooking the corner of Wayne and Clapier. Luigi, leader of a group of teens from Logan St was backing up Clapier, confronting him, yelling, cursing, waving a gun was a young man who lived on Clapier. He wanted to know what Luigi and his friends were doing at his girlfriend's house. Three or four of Luigi's friends were behind the gunman, yelling also, begging him not shoot. He shot, I ran to the phone, the police operator asked "what do you mean a shooting?" I held the phone up to the window - more shots. I looked and saw Luigi leaning against a tree, his friend not certain what to do, the shooter ran through some yards and over a fence. I ran downstairs to see if I could help (no urban survival sense - I still jump in to break up fights). Luigi was grazed in the side, the cops appeared quickly, so did the shooter's girlfriend. She started to cry, Luigi's friends yelled "get the n....." and pointed to where the shooter ran over the fence. Meantime, the other women (white) were hugging and consoling the girlfriend (black). What was really bad was that her house up to then had been a refuge for many of the neighborhood teens, regardless of race, where they could escape from the bad stuff for a time.
Other stuff - hangouts: Hecate's Circle often, World Control once in a while. All the shopping we needed was on Germantown and on Chelten, Klinger's Market at Greene & Logan if desperate (had a Korean name last time I was by). I worked at Louis Goldsmith, Inc. a men's clothing manufacturer at 20th and Erie. Lived like a king on $80 a week. Another time I'll tell you how Big Tony Cortigene made me join the clothing workers' union.
Moved away at the end of 72. Enough blather - what do you remember?

heh...


I bought that house on manheim street a few years ago. Sold it last year to a college kid that was renting it out. Funny.

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Thanks for the response--I thought my lil ol' post had been completely buried by now. I can only imagine how great the 100 block of Manheim (and other G-town streets) looked in its' heyday. Nowadays it is a little...tired.

I'm not a Philly native, and the demographic changes and race relations in the different neighborhoods are really interesting. People's experiences of Germantown (including mine) taught me a lot about that.

It was lovely to hear about the old neighborhood from someone who lived there--my husband and I actually sold our house and moved on since I posted the original blog!! But, I'll never forget Manheim!