The Ultimate Philly Face-Off
WHO’S THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME?
You know how it goes. You’re at Dirty Frank’s, minding your own business, when some moron starts spouting off about how he looooves Tastykake’s Peanut Butter Kandy Kakes. Next thing you know, somebody else is extolling Coconut Juniors, another sugarhead is promoting Butterscotch Krimpets, the loser at the end of the bar is pulling for Oatmeal Raisin Snak Bars (bleh!), and the ensuing fistfight spills out into the street.
Well, no more. We hired the Global Strategy Group polling firm to take the city’s most heated arguments to you, the people, so you could declare the winners. And we asked local mavens — TV pundit Gail Shister, sportsmouth Stephen A. Smith, dive bar owner Avram Hornik — for their all-time-best picks. Here are the results. Why do we have a feeling the real fighting is about to begin?
MASCOT: THE ST. JOE’S HAWK VS. THE PHILLIE PHANATIC
The Hawk: The hardest-working bird in sports, who turned 50 last year, was named the nation’s top mascot by Sports Illustrated.
The Phanatic: He’s big, he’s green, he’s in the Baseball and the Mascot Halls of Fame. Oh, and Tommy Lasorda recently trashed him on his blog.
WINNER: THE PHANATIC, 80 PERCENT TO 13 PERCENT. Hey, Hawk, keep flapping. As coach Phil Martelli said when you and the Temple Owl went to the mat and got hauled off by security, “The Hawk don’t do shtick.”
MAYOR: FRANK RIZZO VS. ED RENDELL
Rizzo: Loved-yet-feared ex-police commissioner who swore he’d “make Attila the Hun look like a faggot”; once photographed in black tie with a nightstick tucked into his cummerbund.
Rendell: Charisma-soaked glutton and sports freak whose relentless cheerleading dragged the city back from the precipice.
WINNER: RENDELL, 63 PERCENT TO 20 PERCENT. Hey, Guv, support looks solid hereabouts for November. Wish we could say the same for the rest of the state.
TASTYKAKE : BUTTERSCOTCH KRIMPET VS. PEANUT BUTTER KANDY KAKE
Krimpet: That not-too-sweet, spongy cake. The cool ergonomic shape. The icing that sticks to the wrapper, demanding tongue-removal.
Kandy Kake: Smooth chocolate robing that cracks open to reveal a hidden heart of peanut butter atop a disc of yellow cake.
WINNER: THE KRIMPET, 48 PERCENT TO 35 PERCENT. How can you not love a snack food that shows you where to put your fingers?
CULINARY CONTRIBUTION: SCRAPPLE VS. CHEESESTEAK
Scrapple: Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast catchall that’s best sliced not-too-thin and fried super-crisp, then served with plenty of ketchup.
Cheesesteak: Our oft-imitated, never-surpassed civic sandwich, wit’ Whiz and fried onions.
WINNER: THE CHEESESTEAK, 83 PERCENT TO 13 PERCENT. We don’t get it. Who doesn’t love pork livers, hearts, skin and tongue?
BOY BAND: THE ROOTS VS. BOYZ II MEN
The Roots: Raw, real, on-the-edge impromptu. Adored by critics, dripping with integrity.
Boyz II Men: Smooth, suave successors to the Temps and Four Tops. The best-selling R&B group of all time.
WINNER: BOYZ II MEN, 41 PERCENT TO 16 PERCENT. Don’t you people know that Boyz II Men helped birth *NSYNC, the Backstreet Boys and 98 Degrees — and thus is at least partially responsible for Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica?
BOY BAND (OLDIES): HALL & OATES VS. THE HOOTERS
Hall & Oates: Hottie Daryl Hall, “Sara Smile,” and the mandolin, too!
The Hooters: Hottie Eric Bazilian, “All You Zombies,” and the mandolin, too!
WINNER: HALL & OATES, 48 PERCENT TO 25 PERCENT. A quibble: Is it really a “band” if nobody can figure out what Oates does?
ANCHORMAN: JOHN FACENDA VS. JIM GARDNER
Facenda: He tucked Philadelphians into bed from 1952 — the year the term “anchorman” was invented — to 1973; the voice of NFL Films for two decades.
Gardner: The Darth Vader of the Delaware Valley: Beneath the affability, he’s aloof, inscrutable, and very tightly wound.
WINNER: GARDNER, 63 PERCENT TO 24 PERCENT. The man’s a force of nature; his Action News has been at the top of the ratings since dinosaurs roamed.
RADIOMOUTH: JERRY BLAVAT VS. HOWARD ESKIN
Blavat: Sixty-five and still rockin’, with a new gig on ’XPN. Way back when, the Geator (above, left) threw a hop for yon teens — and the whole country came.
Eskin: Fur-and-beard-festooned WIP glad-hander (above, reeling) who loves to flaunt his knowledge.
WINNER: BLAVAT, 39 PERCENT TO 20 PERCENT. Just who are these one in five Philadelphians who actually voted for Eskin?
SPORTS TEAM: THE ’74 FLYERS VS. THE ’80 PHILLIES
The Flyers: With Dave “The Hammer” Schultz (above, left) as goon-in-chief, the Broad Street Bullies defeated the Boston Bruins to bring a city dying for heroes the first of two consecutive Stanley Cups.
The Phillies: Larry Bowa (above, grinning), Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton, Pete Rose and the rest of the Boys of Summer finally brought the pennant to the Vet, after 98 years.
WINNER: THE PHILS, 55 PERCENT TO 30 PERCENT. And if we just had some goddamned pitching, maybe we could bring that baby home again.
SITCOM ACTOR: BILL COSBY VS. WILL SMITH
Cosby: The avuncular avatar, his Cliff Huxtable made America aware there was a black middle class.
Smith: The Fresh Prince took his West Philly ’tude to Bel Air before taking Hollywood by storm.
WINNER: THE COS, 50 PERCENT TO 42 PERCENT. Hey, hey, hey! Not even the pudding-pitching and public harangues — not to mention the groping allegations — can tarnish his image.
SONG: “PHILADELPHIA FREEDOM” VS. THE ACTION NEWS THEME
“Philadelphia Freedom”: Elton John’s impossibly catchy and lyrically incomprehensible Bicentennial anthem.
Action News Theme Song: “Move closer to your world, my friend. … ” What, you didn’t know there were words?
WINNER: “PHILADELPHIA FREEDOM,” 53 PERCENT TO 31 PERCENT. You know what that means, right? Thirty-one percent of you really can’t stand Elton John.
WEATHERPERSON: CECILY TYNAN VS. JIM O’BRIEN
Tynan: Perky Action News meteorologist, Philly Mag cover girl, marathoner and duathlete, and new mom.
O’Brien: Larger-than-life Action News forecaster whose smiley suns and frowny clouds dressed us from 1971 until his 1983 skydiving death.
WINNER: O’BRIEN, 49 PERCENT TO 39 PERCENT. Hey, Cec, you just got thumped by a dead guy.
BACON: EDMUND VS. KEVIN
Edmund: Crotchety city planner who gave us Penn Center, Market East, Penn’s Landing, Independence Mall, Society Hill, and Kevin.
Kevin: Affable movie star who gave us Diner, Footloose, Flatliners, A Few Good Men, Apollo 13, Mystic River and The Woodsman — along with Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
WINNER: KEVIN, 67 PERCENT TO 18 PERCENT. Duh. Didn’t we just say Edmund gave us Penn’s Landing?
ACTRESS: GRACE KELLY VS. BLYTHE DANNER
Kelly: East Falls ice princess and Hitchcockian muse who made the improbable leap to real live royalty.
Danner: A four-decade career on stage and screen; last year alone, she was up for three Emmys. (She won for Will & Grace). Not to mention, she’s Gwyneth’s mom.
WINNER: GRACE, 75 PERCENT TO 11 PERCENT. She’s our princess, and nothing can change that — not Caroline’s successive husbands, Stephanie’s scandals, or Albert’s out-of-wedlock multicultural son. (And here we thought he was gay.)
ACTOR: RICHARD GERE VS. JACK KLUGMAN
Gere: So cute in Pretty Woman with Julia.
Klugman: So cute in The Odd Couple with Tony.
WINNER: GERE, 54 PERCENT TO 35 PERCENT. That’s right. Quincy got spanked by a guy whose middle name is — no kidding — Tiffany.
CHICK SINGER: MARIAN ANDERSON VS. BILLIE HOLIDAY
Anderson: The first black to solo with the New York Metropolitan Opera, she sang “God Bless America” in a 1939 Easter concert at the Lincoln Memorial at the invitation of Eleanor Roosevelt, after the DAR refused to let her perform at Constitution Hall.
Holiday: Teen hooker and junkie whose tumultuous life and early death can’t detract from her eerie power on such songs as “Foolin’ Myself,” “God Bless the Child” and “Strange Fruit.”
WINNER: HOLIDAY, 56 PERCENT TO 27 PERCENT. What can we say? This just isn’t an opera town.
GUY SINGER: MARIO LANZA VS. CHUBBY CHECKER
Lanza: Deemed worthy to play the great Caruso in Hollywood’s 1951 hit The Great Caruso; Maria Callas said he had “the greatest tenor voice I’ve ever heard.”
Chubby: South Philly dance-hit artist and American Bandstand mainstay whose 1960 recording of “The Twist” ignited a craze.
WINNER: CHUBBY, 52 PERCENT TO 35 PERCENT. The man gave us a dance even white people could do.
JAZZMAN: JOHN COLTRANE VS. GROVER WASHINGTON JR.
Coltrane: Tenor sax pioneer, prolific session artist with Dizzy, Miles, Thelonious, Charlie Parker. Nat Hentoff once described his playing as “speaking in tongues.”
Grover: Platinum-selling saxophonist, father of “smooth jazz,” two-time Grammy winner, fervent Sixers fan.
WINNER: GROVER, 47 PERCENT TO 29 PERCENT. Oh, sure. Coltrane gave us A Love Supreme. Grover gave us Kenny G.
RAPPER: SCHOOLLY D. VS. BEANIE SIGEL
Schoolly: For better or worse, his raw urban narratives — “PSK,” “I Don’t Like Rock and Roll” — helped make “gangsta” a household word.
Sigel: Pitchfork’s review of The B. Coming, released last March while he was in the clink, called him “a virtuoso of lonely, bitter despair.”
WINNER: BEANIE, 19 PERCENT TO 11 PERCENT. But both lost out in our poll to the option “Neither.” No wonder Beanie’s paranoid.
DIVA: PATTI LABELLE VS. CARSON KRESSLEY
LaBelle: Savvy, stylin’ R&B legend and multi-Grammy winner whose biggest hit, 1974’s “Lady Marmalade,” was a chart-topper again in 2001 for Philly gal Pink and friends.
Kressley: Queer Eye icon who made homosexuality homey; the former frat boy at Gettysburg (Gettysburg!) is nationally ranked as an equestrian.
WINNER: MAM’SELLE LABELLE, 75 PERCENT TO 10 PERCENT. And a good thing, since our über-diva would have pitched a fit if she hadn’t won.
TV SHOW: AMERICAN BANDSTAND VS. THIRTYSOMETHING
American Bandstand: Sex, frugs and rock ’n’ roll; its run from 1952 to 1987 saw America’s switchover from radio to TV and the first recognition by advertisers that the nation’s teenagers had dough to blow.
Thirtysomething: Celebration of yuppiedom, running from 1987 through ’91, that the New York Times called “as close to the level of an art form as weekly television ever gets.”
WINNER: AMERICAN BANDSTAND, 60 PERCENT TO 25 PERCENT. Philadelphians know Dick Clark insisted the show be racially integrated at a time when little else in America was.
SKYSCRAPER: THE PSFS BUILDING VS. ONE LIBERTY PLACE
PSFS: It shocked staid Philly in 1932 with its sleek modernism; the first U.S. skyscraper in the International style; named the “Building of the Century” by the Philadelphia chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
Liberty Place: It shocked staid Philly in 1987 with its 61 stories; this Willard Rouse project shattered the “gentlemen’s agreement” among city developers not to build higher than the 548 feet of Billy Penn’s hat.
WINNER: LIBERTY PLACE, 59 PERCENT TO 29 PERCENT. What we really want in a skyscraper, it seems, is a great food court.
PHILLIE: MIKE SCHMIDT VS. RICHIE ASHBURN
Schmitty: The most elegant third baseman ever to play the game, he led the Phils to the post-season six times between 1976 and 1983, won 10 Gold Gloves, and conveniently peaked in 1980, hitting .381 as the team won its only World Series.
Whitey: Rookie of the Year in 1948; five-time All Star, two-time batting title winner, he regularly led the league in fielding percentage — and called games from the booth with Harry Kalas for 27 years.
WINNER: SCHMITTY, 55 PERCENT TO 27 PERCENT. In his prime, he prompted Pete Rose to say, “To have his body, I’d trade him mine and my wife’s, and I’d throw in some cash.”
SIXER: JULIUS ERVING VS. ALLEN IVERSON
Dr. J: One of only three pro players to score more than 30,000 points, he was an 11-time NBA All Star, All-Star MVP in ’77 and ’83, and NBA MVP in ’81. His jersey was retired by both the Nets and the Sixers, whom he led to the NBA championship in 1983.
A.I.: The Sixers’ first-round draft pick in 1996, he was Rookie of the Year after scoring 40 or more points in five straight games. Regularly leads the league in points, minutes played and steals; six-time All-Star starter; two-time All-Star Game MVP. The shortest player ever to win the NBA MVP.
WINNER: DR. J., 71 PERCENT TO 18 PERCENT. Jesus. What does A.I. have to do?!?
QUARTERBACK: RANDALL CUNNINGHAM VS. DONOVAN MCNABB
Cunningham: He was the Eagles’ offense for much of his stint here, passing for an average of 3,000 yards from 1987 through ’90 and leading the team in rushing, including a QB season record of 942 yards that still stands.
McNabb: He holds Eagles records in quarterback rating (104.7), completion percentage (64.0) and passing yards (3,875); has led the team to more post-season wins than any other Birds QB.
WINNER: MCNABB, 57 PERCENT TO 30 PERCENT. But then, we took our poll before he tossed that interception to the Cowboys’ Roy Williams on Monday Night Football.
WIDE RECEIVER: TERRELL OWENS VS. HAROLD CARMICHAEL
T.O.: The Kobe to Donovan’s Shaq holds the NFL record with 20 receptions in one game; in a season and a half with the Birds, he had 124 receptions for 1,963 yards and 20 touchdowns. And he played in the Super Bowl with a broken leg.
Carmichael: Four Pro Bowls in 13 seasons with the Iggles, whom he still leads in receiving yards and touchdowns. At six-foot-eight, he could reach balls that looked like intentional downs.
WINNER: CARMICHAEL, 51 PERCENT TO 32 PERCENT. Frankly, we’re surprised T.O. has as many fans here as he does.
BOXER: “SMOKIN’” JOE FRAZIER VS. BERNARD “THE EXECUTIONER” HOPKINS
Frazier: Olympic gold-medalist, world heavyweight champion with an epic left hook, and the first pro fighter to beat Muhammad Ali, in 1971’s “Fight of the Century.” Thirty-two wins, four losses, one draw, 27 knockouts.
Hopkins: Middleweight cham-peen with the bad luck to win his big bout against Felix Trinidad three weeks after 9/11. After 20 straight defenses of his title, Hopkins, at 40, finally lost in a split decision to 26-year-old Jermain Taylor in July.
WINNER: SMOKIN’ JOE, 69 PERCENT TO 14 PERCENT. Remember when Men’s Fitness anointed us America’s fattest city? This is a city that loves its heavyweights.
INSTITUTION OF HIGHER LEARNING: UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA VS. TEMPLE UNIVERSITY
Penn: The coolest of the Ivies, Penn is hotter than ever 266 years after its founding — by Ben Franklin, no less.
Temple: The anti-Ivy, educating the working people since 1884. This North Philly beacon has been upping its academic profile under ambitious president David Adamany.
WINNER: PENN, 54 PERCENT TO 38 PERCENT. And that’s a whole lot closer than Penn prez Amy Gutmann would like it to be.
RIVALRY: ARMY VS. NAVY VS. PAT’S VS. GENO’S
Army vs. Navy: “The nation’s greatest football rivalry,” dripping with hallowed tradition, has been played for most of its 106-game history here in Philly, halfway between West Point and Annapolis.
Pat’s vs. Geno’s: “The nation’s greatest cheesesteak rivalry,” dripping wit’ Whiz, has been played out for all of its 40-year history at the corner of 9th and Passyunk in South Philly.
WINNER: ARMY VS. NAVY, 52 PERCENT TO 38 PERCENT. This is college football at its purest — and most poignant, in times of war.
SPORTS HEARTBREAK: THE 1964 PHILLIES’ SEPTEMBER SELF-DESTRUCTION VS. THE EAGLES’ 2005 SUPER BOWL LOSS TO THE PATRIOTS
Phils: Twelve games left to play, six and a half up, and then — 10 losses in a row.
Eagles: After three tries, we finally make it past the NFC finals … for this, a crappy, sucker-punch 24-21 finale.
WINNER: THE SUPER BOWL LOSS, 66 PERCENT TO 20 PERCENT. That’s pretty impressive, considering that the Phils’ meltdown is national legend. Just goes to show how mad we are about McNabb’s tendency to choke.
COLLEGE COACH: ROLLIE MASSIMINO VS. JOHN CHANEY
Massimino: His Villanova Wildcats’ 1985 NCAA finals win over the Patrick Ewing-led Georgetown Hoyas stands as one of the greatest upsets in college basketball history.
Chaney: The Temple Owls coach is the 14th all-time-winningest in the nation; 17 NCAA tournament berths since 1982; honored twice as National Division I coach of the year.
WINNER: CHANEY, 51 PERCENT TO 28 PERCENT. Do we love him despite the fact he sent Neimiah Ingram in as a “goon” against St. Joe’s last year, resulting in a broken arm for Hawks senior John Bryant — or because of that?
CARTOONIST: WALT KELLY VS. SIGNE WILKINSON
Walt Kelly: Philly-born creator of sardonic possum Pogo; admired by Carl Sandburg, compared to Shakespeare and the writers of the King James Bible.
Signe Wilkinson: The Daily News political skewerer is the first woman ever to win the Pulitzer for political cartooning.
WINNER: KELLY, 28 PERCENT TO 18 PERCENT. But we hear Signe voted for him, too.
PUNDIT: DAVID BROOKS VS. CHRIS MATTHEWS
Brooks: Oh-so-reasonable reason the New York Times can claim it isn’t a total liberal sewer. (Well, besides that whole Judy Miller thing.)
Matthews: MSNBC’s spittle-blasting, tough-to-categorize former Demo operative turned Bush supporter turned Iraq major doubter.
WINNER: MATTHEWS, 45 PERCENT TO 14 PERCENT. He makes Brooks look lightweight — which Brooks is.
COLUMNIST: PETE DEXTER VS. STEVE LOPEZ
Dexter: Longtime Daily News man-on-the-street who got the crap kicked out of him in 1981 by a mob of enraged drunks who felt he’d dissed their ’hood; while recuperating, he wrote his first (fine) novel, God’s Pocket.
Lopez: Screamingly funny writer for the Inky in the late ’80s and early ’90s who moved on to Time Inc., then to the L.A. Times, where he now writes about traffic and (yawn) civic outrages.
WINNER: LOPEZ, 27 PERCENT TO 21 PERCENT. We took his best, then kicked him west.
KID’S SHOW HOST: SALLY STARR VS. GENE LONDON
Starr: “Our gal Sal” was every eight-year-old boy’s busty delight — in a cowboy hat.
London: Decades before Queer Eye, his fey drawings and wifty charm proved guys don’t have to be macho to succeed.
WINNER: STARR, 38 PERCENT TO 34 PERCENT. Cancellation of her WPVI show in 1971 produced the most protest mail in station history.
TEEN IDOL: BOBBY RYDELL VS. FRANKIE AVALON
Rydell: “Wildwood Days,” Ann-Margret and Bye Bye Birdie.
Avalon: “Venus,” Annette Funicello and Beach Blanket Bingo.
WINNER: AVALON, 43 PERCENT TO 26 PERCENT — influenced, we suspect, by his self-deprecating turn crooning “Beauty School Dropout” in Grease.
NOVELIST: JACQUELINE SUSANN VS. JENNIFER WEINER
Susann: Author of the vastly influential Valley of the Dolls (1966), a tale of three aspiring actresses who fall prey to scoundrels and drugs. At 20-plus million copies, it’s one of the best-selling novels of all time.
Weiner: Former Inquirer staffer and staunch defender of chick lit whose own examples (Good in Bed; In Her Shoes) spawned a movie starring Cameron Diaz and one of the world’s most annoying blogs.
WINNER: SUSANN, 38 PERCENT TO 23 PERCENT. Hmm, fattest city in America … is it a coincidence that Susann and Weiner both had best-sellers featuring women fretting about their weight?
RESTAURATEUR: GEORGES PERRIER VS. STEPHEN STARR
Perrier: Tiny, top-tier Le Bec-Fin kick-started the city’s original restaurant renaissance in 1970.
Starr: The Continental, his posh 1995 do-over of an Old City diner, was just the beginning of his still-growing eatery empire.
WINNER: PERRIER, 30 PERCENT TO 26 PERCENT. “If you die and go to ‘food heaven,’” the Zagat Survey once said, “Le Bec-Fin will be the name over the door.”
LUCKY STIFF: JOEY COYLE VS. VINCE PAPALE
Coyle: Unemployed South Philly dockworker on his way to score some meth who came across $1.2 million in unmarked cash that had fallen from an armored car, scooped it up, proceeded to totally fuck his life up, and killed himself three weeks before the opening of the Disney movie celebrating his exploits.
Papale: A real-life Rocky, the Delaware County substitute teacher and bartender who never played college ball snagged a special-teams spot with the Eagles in 1976 after Dick Vermeil held open fan tryouts as a publicity stunt.
WINNER: PAPALE, 46 PERCENT TO 33 PERCENT. Mark Wahlberg plays him in Invincible, the, uh, Disney movie celebrating his exploits. No opening date set.
ARCHITECT: FRANK FURNESS VS. ROBERT VENTURI
Furness: Eccentric 19th-century medieval revivalist whose works include the Merion Cricket Club clubhouse, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts building, and the highly funkified Penn Library.
Venturi: Pritzker Architecture Prize winner, lover of complexity and contradiction, proponent of Main Street America’s (and Vegas’s, and Wildwood’s) “messy vitality.”
WINNER: FURNESS, 28 PERCENT TO 19 PERCENT. Who knew how much you people hate postmodernism?
DEPARTMENT STORE: GIMBELS VS. WANAMAKER’S
Gimbels: Always had the real Santa; you knew because he climbed right out of his sleigh in the Thanksgiving Day parade and went up a ladder into the upper windows of the store.
Wanamaker’s: Chicken salad in the Tea Room, the organ, the Christmas light show, and generations of locals who met up “at the Eagle.”
WINNER: WANAMAKER’S, 67 PERCENT TO 16 PERCENT. Its 1995 demise was like a death in the family.
URBAN MYTH: JERRY PENACOLI AND THE GERBIL VS. TEDDY PENDERGRASS AND THE TRANSVESTITE
WINNER: JERRY AND THE GERBIL, 40 PERCENT TO 25 PERCENT. Not a shred of truth, but the rumor seemed to run the KYW TV newscaster out of town and birthed a new verb: gerbilling.
PHILADELPHIA MOVIE: THE PHILADELPHIA STORY VS. ROCKY
The Philadelphia Story: Katharine Hepburn/Jimmy Stewart/Cary Grant 1940 classic that won Best Actor and Best Writing/Screenplay Oscars; also nominated for Best Actress, Director, Supporting Actress and Picture.
Rocky: Sly Stallone’s Bicentennial-year masterpiece won Best Picture and Best Director Oscars, plus nominations for seven more.
WINNER: ROCKY, 57 PERCENT TO 37 PERCENT. And screw the critics; we can’t wait to see Rocky VI.
LAWYER: ANDREW HAMILTON VS. RICHARD SPRAGUE
Hamilton: Colonial attorney whose
spirited — and successful — defense of newspaper publisher John Peter Zenger in a libel suit brought by New York governor William Cosby added the term “Philadelphia lawyer” to our lexicon.
Sprague: Fearsome former prosecutor, chief counsel to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, and courtroom pit bull whose successful libel suit against the Inquirer won him a $34 million award in 1990.
WINNER: HAMILTON, 52 PERCENT TO 37 PERCENT. Yo, Dick, we’re just the messenger. (Can he sue the messenger?)
SPORTS ANNOUNCER: GENE HART VS. HARRY KALAS
Hart: The “Voice of the Flyers” from the club’s inception in 1967 till he retired in 1995. No fan will ever forget him shouting, “The Flyers win the Stanley Cup!” in 1974 — over and over again.
Kalas: He called Phils games beside Richie Ashburn for more than a quarter-century, and is still going strong after 35 seasons; summer wouldn’t be summer without his “Swing, and a long drive … that ball is out of here!”
WINNER: KALAS, 41 PERCENT TO 32 PERCENT. But we’re lucky to have had them both.
INVENTION: THE COMPUTER VS. THE SLINKY
Computer: Penn’s 1944 ENIAC — for “Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer” — literally the size of a city block, was developed to calculate ballistics firing tables for World War II.
Slinky: Navy Yard engineer Richard James watched a tension spring he’d dropped keep on moving of its own accord in 1943 and told his wife Betty, “I think I can make a toy out of this.”
WINNER: THE COMPUTER, 65 PERCENT TO 29 PERCENT. Spam, kiddie porn, Jennifer Weiner blogs — we’re with the minority on this one.
ARTIST: THOMAS EAKINS VS. MARY CASSATT
Eakins: The greatest American painter of the 19th century was fired by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for yanking the loincloth off a male model in front of a coed class.
Cassatt: The only American to exhibit with the Paris Impressionists — and one of just three women — she rocked convention by forsaking marriage for career and investing her traditional subject matter — mothers and children — with gravitas.
WINNER: EAKINS, 32 PERCENT TO 26 PERCENT — despite the dustup over the discovery he cheated by projecting photographic images onto his canvases and tracing them.
POET: EZRA POUND VS. WALT WHITMAN
Pound: The Wyncote-raised amanuensis to Yeats was the catalyst for English-language modernism. Besides writing his Cantos, he edited The Waste Land for T.S. Eliot and propagandized for the wrong side in WWII. Arrested near the war’s end, he was charged with treason and committed to an insane asylum.
Whitman: The primary force in 19th-
century American poetry, Camden’s Whitman celebrated democracy and the common man. His hypnotic, homoerotic voice represented the nascent nation; Leaves of Grass was published on the Fourth of July.
WINNER: WHITMAN, 71 PERCENT TO 11 PERCENT. In this town, we blame Pound for The Waste Land.
DIVE BAR: DIRTY FRANK’S VS. MCGLINCHEY’S
Dirty Frank’s: Legendary pit whose 13th Street urinals have swallowed the effluvia of the city’s artists, musicians, poets, journalists, bikers, students and transvestites for decades.
McGlinchey’s: Puts the “seed” in “seedy.” Too low-key ever to be a legend, this cheap-cheap-cheap 15th Street “bar and grill” (uh-huh) with an excellent, eclectic jukebox is renowned for service so surly that first-timers sometimes cry.
WINNER: FRANK’S, 20 PERCENT TO 16 PERCENT. A lot of our pollees, it seems, don’t hang out at dive bars; 42 percent chose “Don’t know.” Still, we love Frank’s, which is always haunted by the ghosts of its storied past. Oh, wait — that one’s not a ghost. It’s Clark DeLeon.
How We Got Our Numbers
For our poll of 400 randomly selected Delaware Valley residents, Global Strategy Group offered respondents two options chosen by our staff in each category, along with “Other,” “Neither,” “Both” and “Don’t Know.” In some categories — like “Culinary Contribution” — the percentages add up almost to 100 (83 percent “Cheesesteak,” 13 percent “Scrapple,” total 96 percent). In other categories — “Best Rapper,” for example — there were lots of “Other,” “Neither” and “Don’t Know” votes, which means you didn’t like the options, or you think rap sucks. There’s a margin of error of 4.9 percent.
Research assistance by David Early, Sasha Issenberg, Erica Levi and Ashley Primis.
