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The contemporary view here is from the stands that face the west side of Pollock Field.   

Since the late 1920s, the “E”-shaped Croydon, an eight-story apartment building with two four-story north and south wings, has formed a backdrop for the athletic field at 48th and Spruce streets. Facing S. 49th Street between Spruce and Locust, the Croydon has a checkered past. By the turn of the Millennium, the once-thriving 127-unit edifice stood shuttered, crumbling, and in tax arrears. Known in counter-cultural circles as “Paradise City,” the abandoned building attracted hobo-like squatters, some brandishing guard dogs, from around the country. In recent years, Orens Brothers Real Estate, Inc., a Center City firm, has renovated the once-decaying complex and offers upgraded 1- and 2-bedroom rental units. 

Pollock Field today at 48th & Spruce St. The view is east toward the Emanuel Church on 47th Street.

Baseball entrepreneur Ed Bolden, shown here in 1924, when he controlled the Eastern Colored League, which would collapse in 1928. Bolden would go on to form the Philadelphia Stars. The Stars joined the new Negro National League and played its 1933 and 1934 seasons at Passon Field, before moving to Penmar Park in West Philadelphia’s Parkside neighborhood. 

Harry Passon, a Russian-born baseball entrepreneur, was the exclusive booking agent for the athletic field he rented at the northwest corner of 48th and Spruce streets—Passon Field. Passon collected scheduling fees from the baseball teams that used the field, including his own Philadelphia Bacharachs and Ed Bolden’s Philadelphia Stars. 

In the 1930s, baseball entrepreneur Harry Passon, a Russian-born immigrant, profited by collecting fees from the Black professional and semi-professional baseball teams he scheduled to play on this field, which he rented, upgraded, and branded with his name. In the decades after the Second World War, the field was used by West Philadelphia High School. Located at 48th and Spruce streets, it is now called Pollock Field. The venue provides multiple opportunities for youth athletic participation. In this photo, the Tudor-Gothic towers of the building that was once home to West Philadelphia High School rise in the background along 48th Street. 

Girls from the William Cullen Bryant School show off cloths they made in the lastest schoolgirl fashions.  Note the black shoes worn by most of the girls (see girl on the left).  They are high-topped shoes that buttoned up using a special button hook.

Employment of Girls from Households of Cotton and Woolen Mill Workers, West End Mill Area

Employment of Girls from Households of Cotton and Woolen Mill Workers 1880