Other Times
100 Years Ago – 1921:
The handsome new 69th Street theatre, justly termed a monument to the new construction era into which Delaware County is entering, opened Friday night with people of all walks of life in Philadelphia and Delaware County attending. The building, erected at a cost of over $1 million, is situated at the junction of West Chester Pike and Garrett Road.
Fully 3,000 persons packed the auditorium, while at least 2,000more than to be turned away. Inside the occasion was opened with speechmaking, which aroused so much enthusiasm that the feature film, Gloria Swanson in “Under the Lash,” was quite late in starting.
75 Years Ago – 1946: The United Nations Site Committee is touring Delaware County today. Fresh from an enthusiastic appraisal of the Roxborough and Delmont Plateau sites inspected Tuesday, the UN representatives are giving the Lapidea-Paoli tract the once-over, which makes three possible sites in the Philadelphia area.
50 Years Ago – 1971:
If Frank Sinatra is a patient at Fitzgerald Mercy Hospital, then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover should take lessons from the hospital’s security force. The Daily Times received several telephones calls Friday and today from persons who claimed the retired singer was receiving cobalt treatments at the Darby hospital. He’s supposed to be suffering from cancer of the throat. One tipster said Sinatra was in Room 600 in the hospital’s new wing. She said Sinatra was being transported daily to a cancer treatment facility at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She said he returned to the hospital each night.
25 Years Ago – 1996:
Vandals apparently started a fire in some trash in a refrigerator unit of the shuttered former Fireside restaurant at 61Baltimore Pike, a Springfield fire official said. The incident occurred about 4:15 p.m. Friday. The debris fire created a lot of smoke, and there were no contents of any value inside the building. Springfield and Clifton Heights were at the scene.
10 Years Ago – 2011:
Middletown council won’t take action on plans to restore a large bank barn on the township-owned Smedley property until its future use in determined. The land is earmarked for open space preservation and limited recreation. The township has sought bids for partial demolition of the barn because, due to age and the weather, its roof has collapsed.