Historic Philadelphia

landscaping were complete. It rained on 107
days of the Exposition’s 184 day run.
The Sesqui-Centennial Exposition covered
some thousand acres from Packer Avenue to
the Navy Yard between Eleventh and
Twentieth Streets. An eighty-foot-high Liberty
Bell straddled Broad Street at the entrance,
covered with twenty-six thousand white
fifteen-watt light bulbs. There were seven
major buildings for the serious exhibits, seven
pavilions of foreign countries (thirty-six other
countries were in exhibit buildings) and many
lesser buildings. There was an exhibition of
“the progress of the Negro race in industry, art
and science.”
High Street, a supposed representation of
downtown Colonial Philadelphia, lined up
cheesily authentic replicas of twenty historic
structures, where a town crier and other folks
wandered about in hit-or-miss attempts at
colonial garb.
The Gladway, an amusement area, assembled
eighteen restaurants, many soft drink and
hot dog stands, carrousels and amusement
rides, a spectacular fire-fighting show with
horse drawn engines and a cast of 150, Tunisian
and Chinese villages featuring exotic dancing
girls, and much more, all lined by a series of
canals that visitors cruised in gondolas piloted
by singing gondoliers imported from Venice.
✧
Top, left: A map of the main section of
the Sesqui-Centennial Exposition grounds.
For reference, the First Union Center
and Spectrum now stand on the site of
the stadium.
COURTESY OF THE URBAN ARCHIVES, TEMPLE UNIVERSITY.
Top, right: Promotional stickers from the
Sesqui-Centennial.
COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR.
Below: A Venetian gondolier plied the
waters of South Philadelphia while
serenading a visitor to the 1926 Sesqui-
Centennial Exposition.
COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR.
CHAPTER V
105