sort of O/T: Saturday trip to the Free Library of Philadelphia

[Joe Bausch]

On Saturday afternoon at the Free Library (19th and Race) I will be joined by Mike Cirba and Geoff Walsh in our quest for more info about early Philly area golf course history.  I'm inviting any and all my Philly area GCAers to come by and experience the search process.  Some of our brides/future brides will be coming along and doing museum stuff (it is nearby), then joining us at a new wine bar that the former sommelier at Savona just opened up.  My wife and I sort of know this young fellow Filiberto Magnati and I think it will be a great time.  Respond here, or in a private e-mail, if you want to join in some or all of the activities.

Here is what Michael Klein in the Inky wrote recently about Filiberto's place:

In a deal with Savona alumnus Filiberto Magnati, Tricarino has turned Valentino on the Square, just south of Rittenhouse Square, into Di Vino Wine Bar (267 S. 19th St., 215-545-0441), which has a liquor license, an Old World, old-time feel and solicitous service. The back room has a supper-club look: white piano and oversize booths. Menu from Michael Kirk, also a Savona alum, includes salads and small plates, such as Buffalo-style sweetbreads, pink peppercorn-crusted bluefin tuna, pan-seared skate wing, charcuterie, and smoked potato gnocchi. Everything is under $20. Wine list includes dozens by the glass. It's open nightly.

[mike_malone]

 My wife and I saw the Gees Bend Quilt exhibition last weekend at the art museum. It is worth a trip.

[john_stiles]

Joe,

What is it like in Philadelphia libraries ?

Is it still looking through microfilm reels like at Univ. of Tennessee ?

I was suprised when I went to Aiken County (South Carolina) about a month ago.   All the local newspapers (going back to late 1890s or so) are digitized and you can use their search engine. You have to be on the local server, ie at the library, which is fine.   

I've enjoyed the LA84 & USGA digital libraries but never thought I would find that in Aiken County.

Are Philly newspaper archives all digitized ?

John

[Joe Bausch]

John,

Very little of the Philly newspapers are digitized right now.  So at the Free Library it is using the microfilm readers, and the FLofP (Central library site) has some old newspapers on microfilm that pretty much no other library has anywhere.

However, slowly but surely the old papers are starting to be digitized.  I'll predict that within 5 years just about all old newspapers will be searchable online. 

[Dan Boerger]

Joe - You and others that deal with microfilm have my undying respect. Unless the machines have changed (and I'm hoping they did), I can still feel my stomach turning at how dizzy that task made me. -Dan

[Phil_the_Author]

Joe,

As you know, I'm jealous and wish that I could be with you guys!

[Joe Bausch]

Joe,

As you know, I'm jealous and wish that I could be with you guys!

At the Free Library or at Di Vino?   

[Phil_the_Author]

BOTH!

[BCrosby]

Joe - You mean to tell us you have been finding all this stuff by way of manually spooling through microfilm?

Next time I'm in Philly, let me buy you a couple of drinks. You've earned them.

Bob

[Mike_Cirba]

Bob,

The search for the truth of golf course architecture knows no bounds in Philadelphia.

That is the real Philadelphia Syndrome. 

btw..what a bunch of nerds we are.    Taking our wives/fiances on hot dates searching through old, musty newsreel.   

No wonder they're so hot for us! 

[BCrosby]

Mike -

Just between you and me, my wife and I would love something like that, though she would wander off to research non-gca things. So she'd be a bit of a discipline problem.

About a year ago she and I spent most of a Saturday at the Emory U. archives. I was digging for stuff on Jones and Keeler and she was looking for stuff on infant mortality rates the the South during Reconstruction (don't ask).

Being a big spender, I bought us both lunch at the library cafeteria and a beer later at a nearby student bar. A wonderful day.

Bob

[Joe Bausch]

Joe - You mean to tell us you have been finding all this stuff by way of manually spooling through microfilm?

Next time I'm in Philly, let me buy you a couple of drinks. You've earned them.

Bob

Yes, the majority of what I've found has been by looking at microfilm.

I do have access to an electronic version of the Philadelphia Inquirer before 1922, so that helps.

[Dan Herrmann]

What a conundrum.  Free Library of Philly versus USGA Golf House verus The Smithsonian (Dulles airport) Air and Space Museum.   It's good to live in Philly!

[Joe Bausch]

Our GCA gathering at the Free Library was a wonderful day today.  I arrived early in the afternoon and was followed soon thereafter by Geoff Walsh and we dove into the early 1923 edition of the Evening Public Ledger.  No real big news there, just reconfirmation that Ashbourne was a Willie Park, as I had indicated weeks ago.

A little while later Mike Cirba showed and he was interested in even earlier material from 1910-11 and I suggested he start checking the Philadelphia Press, a prominent early newspaper that I've not yet really explored.  He might have run into an interesting tidbit about a local course that could be revealed in due time (big, I mean really big time grin!).

Then Kyle Harris called to say he'd finished up a round down in Maryland at Beechtree and wondered if he could join our search.  Of course we welcomed him and we found lots of other interesting tidbits until the library closed at 5 PM.  We gathered the significant others and headed out for Da Vino's Wine Bar, a short walk from the library at Rittenhouse Square.  Here is a little photo at the Logan Circle, not long before it began to snow:



We had an absolutely fantastic meal and selection of wines at Filiberto Magnati's place.  I really wish more of the Philly area GCA.com'ers could have joined us.  It was a wonderful afternoon and evening.

[Mike_Cirba]

Joe,

It was an excellent day followed by an exceptional meal and some fabulous wines.   I'd highly recommend Di Vino to anyone travelling into the city.

As far as the research and architectural findings, I'm thinking that some of that GCA Kryptonite might be best kept in that lead box you're carrying for right now.   It would probably reignite a bigger explosion on here than plutonium 239.   

[Tom Naccarato]

Logan Circle....I used to hang out down there begging for money while on a four-wheeled flat cart, acting like I had lost my legs when I stepped on a land mine in Sang Bang or was it, Dang Gong. I can't remember.

Ah, the memories.....

   

[Kyle Harris]

From left to right above:

Joe Bausch, Mike Cirba and myself.

[Joe Bausch]

Soon the more, uhh, interesting of our finds from yesterday will be posted.  But once that one goes up this thread goes to hell in a hand basket. 

In the article I mentioned above from the February 22, 1923 edition of the Evening Public Ledger is reconfirmation that the now NLE Ashbourne CC was about to start construction and Willie Park, Jr. is the architect.  For years it was believed that Frank Meehan was the architect, which is understandable, IMO, based upon the following.

Later in that article it is told that Meehan would be constructing the course.  The article then states the following:

In the past Philadelphia clubs have had to seek bids from outside corporations when they wanted an old course revamped or a new one built.  But in the future they will be able to have the work done by a home concern.  Francis B. Warner, secretary and treasurer of the Golf Association of Philadelphia, who made a fine job of it in building the new course of the Philadelphia Cricket Club, near Edge Hill, Frank Meehan, nurseryman and golf enthusiast, and several other local golfers have formed the Golf Engineering and Service Company and are prepared to heal a sick green or lay out a brand new course at a moment's notice.

My guess is that as this group gained more experience building courses, they moved into the design phase as well.  For example, a few weeks back I ran into this October 31, 1927 article in the Public Ledger describing the upcoming Valley Brook CC in Jersey (this is now Pennsauken) where the architect is Frank Meehan:



There are other courses that are thought to have been designed by Meehan and Warner right about the same time frame, for instance, Paxon Hollow.  But I haven't been able to confirm that.  Yet.  But I should have something soon.

[John_Cullum]

So why do they call it the Free Library. I don't ever recall having to pay admission to any library I've been to

[Steve_ Shaffer]

John,

Early libraries in the US required payment of a subscription fee and were private:


"When librarians from throughout the nation met in Philadelphia in 1876 to found the American Library Association, the Quaker City boasted numerous private, subscription libraries, but no free, public library like those established in many American cities during the preceding decades. After the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania regulated municipal libraries in 1887, Dr. William Pepper, a physician, educator, and the provost of the University of Pennsylvania, launched an effort to establish a free library in Philadelphia. "

http://libwww.freelibrary.org/75th/founding.htm?page=his

[Mark Bourgeois]

Logan Circle....I used to hang out down there begging for money while on a four-wheeled flat cart, acting like I had lost my legs when I stepped on a land mine in Sang Bang or was it, Dang Gong. I can't remember.

Ah, the memories.....

   

When they brought you in you was crying like a...

[John_Cullum]

John,

Early libraries in the US required payment of a subscription fee and were private:


"When librarians from throughout the nation met in Philadelphia in 1876 to found the American Library Association, the Quaker City boasted numerous private, subscription libraries, but no free, public library like those established in many American cities during the preceding decades. After the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania regulated municipal libraries in 1887, Dr. William Pepper, a physician, educator, and the provost of the University of Pennsylvania, launched an effort to establish a free library in Philadelphia. "

http://libwww.freelibrary.org/75th/founding.htm?page=his

Thanks Steve. I could've done the research, but I knew somebody would be all too happy to share. I was guessing it was named after some guy whose last name was Free. I grew up with a kid named Fleming Free, and his sister Maryanne

[D_Malley]

Joe are you saying above that Francis Warner and Franklin Meehan were they builders of the tillinghast designed golf course at phila cricket?

[Joe Bausch]

Joe are you saying above that Francis Warner and Franklin Meehan were they builders of the tillinghast designed golf course at phila cricket?

I have another article indicating Warner was the man that built Tilly's Philly Cricket Club course.  I'll have to double check to see if Meehan was also involved at Cricket Club.  It would not surprise me if he was.

[Joe Bausch]

John,

Early libraries in the US required payment of a subscription fee and were private:


"When librarians from throughout the nation met in Philadelphia in 1876 to found the American Library Association, the Quaker City boasted numerous private, subscription libraries, but no free, public library like those established in many American cities during the preceding decades. After the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania regulated municipal libraries in 1887, Dr. William Pepper, a physician, educator, and the provost of the University of Pennsylvania, launched an effort to establish a free library in Philadelphia. "

http://libwww.freelibrary.org/75th/founding.htm?page=his

Thanks Steve. I could've done the research, but I knew somebody would be all too happy to share. I was guessing it was named after some guy whose last name was Free. I grew up with a kid named Fleming Free, and his sister Maryanne

In Philadelphia there has been and will only be one Free:  World B. Free of the Sixers!