Offbeat Philly

06/05/2026

Set up and ready to go for Pride Pregame at The Celtic Cross! The vibes are already immaculate.

🌈

05/20/2026

05/02/2026

Before Instagram, before billboards — advertisers had words, and the results got interesting.
Wanamaker kept it bracingly direct telling you that he was the store for "Extra Good" clothes.
Hoofland's Bitters listed fourteen symptoms of creeping organ failure in a snazzy diamond shape.
And Dr. Towner, Dentist? Just: TEETH. $8 a set. Corner of Clark and Madison.

Constraints, it turns out, make for memorable advertising. What do you think — would any of these still work today? 👇

04/25/2026

There are people society just can't accept are truly gone. Artists. Icons. People who made us feel something.
And then there's John Adams, you know, the second president? The one known for being kind of a jerk?

And yet — in 1928, Samuel McCay wrote a book about him called "This Man Adams: The Man Who Never Died."

I am confused. I am concerned.

I will be reading it immediately.

04/01/2026

Philadelphia's 19th century papers covered Passover the way only 19th century papers could — with equal parts curiosity, chaos, and completely unrelated crime blotters.

03/24/2026

In 1927, Philadelphia cartoonist W.E. Hill published a full-page satirical cartoon mocking the "sinners" of Prohibition — not the drinkers, but the people who replaced alcohol with coffee addiction, home brew disasters, and aggressive buttermilk advocacy.

Nearly a century later, the specifics have changed the but the vibes have not.

Which one are you? 👇

03/19/2026

Happy belated pi day! 🥧

It is tempting to give the people of the past the benefit of the doubt when it comes to all manner of bad behavior. It is important to remember, though, there are always contemporaries who can see right from wrong.

Like this carrot meringue pie, which was clearly wrong.

Philadelphia Inquirer

03/09/2026

Before the FDA, before clinical trials, before WebMD — Philadelphia newspapers were doing the heavy lifting. These ads span 1793 to 1927 and represent roughly 130 years of confident, creative, occasionally alarming medical advice. The cure for diphtheria was at 18th and Market. Nervousness could be treated with Peruna (mostly alcohol, as it turns out). And somewhere, a film student's horror movie is waiting to be made about that Kensington burial ground ointment.
History is weird. Philadelphia history especially.
Philadelphia Inquirer

03/04/2026

The group photo face is older than you think.

02/16/2026

If you ever feel like a bad parent, remember that someone in 1927 tied their child to 21 kites with the express purpose of him flying through the air