Could Bachelor’s Hall Be The Downfall Of Sugarhouse?
You know what is AWESOME? When you’re digging around the old place, and you find something you never knew you had. Like a DVD, or a cool scarf, or some book you thought you lost over two moves ago. OR, in the case of Sugarhouse, where there’s been archaeological digs going on for over a year now in the hopes that history itself could save us from this shithole, Bachelor’s Hall. Fox29 reports that local builder and historian Torben Jenk believes he’s found the foundation of Bachelor’s Hall, and that the fun is only just beginning; because of course, Sugarhouse is saying that it’s not the real thing, that it’s some other foundation over a hundred years old that is, um, less historical. But what exactly is/was Bachelor’s Hall? When we saw the Fox report describe it as “a place for fellowship and pleasure for high-heeled, high thinkers of the early 1700s,” our first thought was, why, we’ve been looking for a place like this all our lives! Googling does not produce much, but what it does is telling. In The Annals Of Philadelphia, And Pennsylvania, In The Olden Time, the place is described thusly:
Bachelor’s Hall was in Kensington, but at Bachelor’s Hall the people attended, and a few were enabled to believe the good word of their God. The street now called Beach Street, then nearest the Delaware, and north of Gunner’s Run, was formerly called Hall Street; and we conjecture that Bachelor’s Hall was situated on the square now bounded south by Poplar Street, north by Shackamaxon Street, east by Beach Street, and west by Allen Street.
Yep, that sounds about right — and it also sounds like Bachelor’s Hall was a place where dandies could gather mostly out of the shadow of norms, save for a few bible thumpers, not unlike the present-day Johnny Brenda’s/hipsters/Circle of Hope dynamic just down the road. Which automatically would make it part of our immediate intellectual history. So we say unto Sugarhouse and all who doubt: This sounds like the real thing, brah. So dig, baby, dig!
MyFoxPhilly: On The Other Hand, We’re Sure That These Ancient Dandies Would Be Mesmerized By Dollar Slots
