Drew Trachtenberg and his father Edward
outside of their 12th Street home in 1958
in different neighborhoods, whether it was South
Philly or Kensington. They came from many differ-
ent neighborhoods as single people prior to getting
married.” The neighbors, according to former 12th Street
resident Steve Trachtenberg, were relatively homoge-
neous in age and religious and cultural backgrounds.

The commonalities laid the groundwork for the kids
and parents to grow close.

“There was going to be interaction from the begin-
ning, from 2-year-old birthday parties up to bar
mitzvahs ‘X’ number of years later,” Trachtenberg
explained. “The result was that associations, for
whatever sociological reasons, were formed, and
they just happened to be particularly close. Whether
or not the war brought them together, the Jewish
background brought them together, the common age
brackets, the common socioeconomic brackets — it
wound up producing a series of people ... who sought
and got the company of the rest of the street.”
Fisher remembers playing hopscotch and jump
rope with the other neighborhood children. She
recalls a mother in the neighborhood who was musi-
cal and wrote an annual Chanukah show, giving
each child a small part, and fondly remembers the
annual Memorial Day picnic at what is now Breyer
Woods. Cohen still remembers her neighborhood
talent show performance of “I’m Gonna Wash That
Man Right Outa My Hair” from the Broadway show
“South Pacific.”
In their childhood naivete — as well as in the
street’s culture of not speaking ill of others — Cohen
and Fisher were raised to believe that any differences
among the street’s children were inconsequential.

“Growing up, in our house we never talked about
anybody,” Fisher said. “I didn’t know who was old,
who was young. I didn’t know who was rich, who was
poor. Everybody was the same. It was like a family.”
What surprised the surviving 12th Street residents
most about the neighborhood connections was that
all the parents got along, particularly the men.

“The parents had an unusual association,”
Trachtenberg said. “The men played cards every
Friday night, alternating between the homes. The
woman played their card game; they were playing
once or twice a week. The street, as a whole, did
things together.”
The adults maintained a newsletter “60-12 Club,”
which included weather forecasts, letters to the editor
and results, with photos, of the street’s Halloween
party and costume contest. Men took their wives on
Drew (standing) and Steve Trachtenberg outside
of the 12th Street home in 1959
vacation to Grossinger's or Concord in the spring.

On Shabbat, though families belonged to different
synagogues, many would walk substantial distances
to attend services together.

On the High Holidays, extended family would
move in; the neighbors would still have personal
connections with others’ aunts, uncles, cousins and
grandmothers, who would cook the Rosh Hashanah
meals for each household.

“The whole street smelled like brisket one time,”
Fisher said.

In hindsight, however, Fisher and Cohen did notice
some financial differences among the families that
were not clear to them when they were children.

While some households had a new Cadillac parked
in their driveways, others had old cars.

“I’m safe in saying that nobody knew or cared
enough,” Trachtenberg said. “It just was the way
it was.”
Though the former residents of 12th Street unan-
imously remember their time in the neighborhood
fondly despite socioeconomic differences, they were
not untouched by tragedy or troubles.

The polio epidemic of 1952 pervaded the summers
of Cohen and Fisher, who attended sleepaway camp
at Kittatinny. One year, the campers had to stay on
the campgrounds for 10 extra days; a 14-year-old girl
from the neighborhood had died of the virus.

The sisters knew of a couple in the neighborhood
who would argue with one another. In one instance,
Fisher and Cohen’s next-door neighbor became upset
with them one summer day when Cohen was 6. With
the windows and screens in all the homes open, the
woman sprayed her hose into Fisher and Cohen’s
living room window.

“That was like the worst thing I ever remember,”
Fisher said.

However, the neighborhood children, though
their memories are self-admittedly softened by time,
endured real hardship.

Fisher and Cohen’s mother died young at age 50.

Steve Trachtenberg and his brother Drew lost their
father when Drew was 4.

Though they remember the sadness of the losses,
Fisher, Cohen and Trachtenberg also remember how
the families lifted each other up in times of devastation.

“My mother was a very strong person internally.

She had a strong sense of family,” Trachtenberg said.

“Everybody recognized she was as capable as any-
body would be at handling the loss. The amount of
support that she got from the neighbors throughout
The children of 12th Street from 60-12 Club, the
street’s newsletter
that period of time was just extraordinary.”
“Nobody was alone in their troubles,” Fisher added.

Though tight-knit for about two decades, the
golden era of 12th Street came to an end in the 1960s,
when the children of the neighborhood left for col-
lege, though many ended up staying in the city and
continued to keep in touch over the years.

The parents, more financially comfortable and with
emptier houses, relocated to the suburbs, with many
families moving to Wyncote.

The conclusion to the cohort’s time in the neigh-
borhood felt natural, with everyone going their sepa-
rate ways, though the time left a lasting mark on the
residents. “I never mourned in any way or grieved at all about
the passage of 12th Street. I never did,” Cohen said. “I
always felt that it had endowed me with tremendous
strength and warmth and understanding and caring
and just relationships that seasoned during my whole
life ... It was my foundation.”
Those two decades on 12th Street remain even
more anomalous because of the period in which
they existed.

Today, Trachtenberg said, the grandchildren
of the residents want to attend college outside of
Philadelphia and Pennsylvania.

“Nobody stays in one place anymore,” he said.

As young people move around more to seek out
economic opportunity, there’s less of a chance of a
group of people, especially majority Jewish, settling
into a neighborhood and collectively raising their
children there. Recreating the environment of 12th
Street is near impossible, Trachtenberg believes.

For now, the 12th Street of the 1940s and 1950s
will likely remain as a memory for the few dozen
who lived in the idyllic neighborhood. Though Sept.

10 will likely be one of the last times a large group of
former residents meets in person, the reunion attend-
ees can take solace in sharing stories, knowing they
didn’t take their upbringings for granted.

“Even the 8-year-olds and 12-year-olds were aware,
at some level, of the fact that not everybody was
going to a Chanukah party at some restaurant that
was attended by virtually everybody on the street,”
Trachtenberg said. “And not everybody was going
to have a street where all the parents went to the
Poconos for a weekend during the summer.”
“We had a sense of the uniqueness then that was a
valuable part of the memory,” he added. JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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