My Old Apartment Bldg. (Day 56)

This was the view from where I had a job today.

About a year after I started court reporting, Fred and I moved into an apartment in Center City Philadelphia. It was at 1500 Locust Street. It was a high rise building, and our apartment was on the 40th floor. We had a great view of South Philadelphia, including the Drake Tower, which is on Spruce Street. The Drake always fascinated me. At the very top was a round glass enclosed area, and I always wondered what was in there.

At that time the agency I was working for had their office at the Warwick Hotel, two blocks from our apartment. I passed a big church every day going to and from the office, and there was always an old homeless man hanging out on one corner of the church. He had something wrong with one of his hands. I gave him change or a dollar almost every time I saw him. I didn't see a homeless man; I saw a grandfatherly gentleman with a kind face.

Bonwit Teller was a department store that I used to enjoy going to. In fact, I bought the earrings I wore at my wedding there. Now there's a store called Daffy's there. I've never stopped in.

The Bellevue Hotel is on Broad Street, and in July 1976 it was where the American Legion held its convention where so many member got sick with a type of pneumonia which was later known as Legionnaires Disease. If I remember right, the Bellevue was still closed down when I moved to Philly in 1986. It has since reopened, and there's a great food court in the lower level, as well as a Williams-Sonoma (which I love) and some other cool shops.