In the course of the last couple weeks of my new job, I’ve had the opportunity to walk down streets I hadn’t before frequented. One street takes me by the Divine Tracy Hotel. It’s funny that I had never been by there before last week, because there was a time when my grandfather, in partnership with his brother and another friend, owned that building. They sold it to Father Divine in the late 1950’s. My mom has two outstanding recollections about her family’s relationship with that building and it’s sale.

First was that Father Divine was a teetotaler, and so made my grandfather and his partners remove all traces of liquor from the building, including all the barware. For years, the house my mom grew up in, had boxes of glasses from the Tracy bar.

Second was that Father Divine paid for the building in change. We’ve guessed it probably cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $40,000, and he remitted that entire sum in pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters, because that’s how his parishioners contributed to his ministry. My mom remembers her father sitting in the living room, rolling coins, because all this happened in the days before change counting machines.

I don’t think that my grandfather would have ever anticipated that I’d be living in Philly all these years later, and the Divine Tracy would become part of my daily backdrop.

Related posts:

1. The Divine Tracy has closed
2. On April 26th, the TLA become Fillmore Philadelphia
3. Fall Semester
4. SEPTA Strike: Day 4. Do you know how much 5% is?
5. Insecure Living