Other times
100 Years Ago – 1918: Superintendent of Public Safety T. Woodward Trainer announced that the Gamewell fire box at 15th and Walnut streets, which has been out of commission for several weeks, is again in service. The box had to be sent to the factory for repairs.
75 Years Ago – 1943: Three hundred fifty residents of Green Ridge, a new community in Aston Township, face disfranchisement because they failed to receive notice of the registration date, W.B. MacHenry, a spokesman for the group said today. Registration for the September primary and the November general election were held in the township on July 7, with the registrants sitting a Grange Hall, Village Green, and Buckley’s store in Chester Heights. MacHenry charged that the only notice placed near Green Ridge, a private housing development for war workers, was a placard at the Grange Hall, which is a mile and half from the settlement.
50 Years Ago – 1968: Lionel Hampton used to play club dates in Chester during World War II. The Chester club – he couldn’t remember its name – “closed long ago,” he said. Hampton, his vibes and band came back to Delaware County Monday night to open the county’s newest and biggest nightclub, the Continental Safari. The club is on Baltimore Pike near Route 202 at Painters Crossroads. Hampton, a vibraphonist, drummer and pianist was a member of the first integrated jazz group with Benny Goodman in the 1930s, and is currently music director for NY Gov. Rockefeller’s Republican presidential primary campaign.
25 Years Ago – 1993: Rep. Curt Weldon (R-7) said he hopes to win $20 million in federal start-up costs for plan that would allow five shipyards around the nation to seal up and dismantle mothballed Naval vessels, selling the scrapped metal to American steel producers. The Aston Republican is touting the proposal primarily as a method of maintaining the workforce employed at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, which was slated by the Base Closure and Realignment Commission for closure by 1996.
10 Years Ago – 2008: U.S. Rep. Joseph Sestak, D-7 of Edgmont, presented a $500,000 check to Upper Darby officials for the township’s revitalization of Market Street. Phase One of The Market Street Gateway Project began in 2003 and focused on pedestrian and vehicular traffic improvements. The new funds will go toward Phase Two of the project, improving and building structures in the Market Street area, dubbed “The Gateway to Delaware County” by project coordinators.