walking William's beat, yesterday, in Spring Garden

Yesterday, while walking to a meeting of fellow Philadelphia lovers and writers (so happy to see so many beautiful faces) I took a moment to be with William, the Dangerous Neighbors character I simply could not let go who therefore stars in my new 1871 Philadelphia book, Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent. William lived on Carleton Street. He walked through territory that was once crowded and clonking with machine shops and rail yards. He rescued lost animals for a living.



This is a view of his world now, including Matthias Baldwin Park, a small snatch of land now given over the memory of one of Philadelphia's greatest entrepreneurs—the man whose rail machinery shops occupied many blocks of this neighborhood.