The Pen & Pencil Club had more homes than Philadelphia had daily newspapers when it was founded in 1892. Our current, permanent home at 1522 Latimer Street is the Club’s 16th residence. 

The Club’s journey began on the second floor of 133 South 11th Street. It was there two years before the Club moved to Bohemian Hall in 1894 where it remained until 1926, making it the longest home. Neither of these buildings stand today; Thomas Jefferson University built the Foederer Pavilion of its hospital on the 11th Street site in 1954, and its Scott Building has occupied the site of old Bohemian Hall since 1970.

The Club’s third home would be the first that it owned. It bought a townhouse at 1023 Spruce Street in July of 1926 for $42,500 and moved into it the following month. Unfortunately, the Club lost money during the Prohibition years, and its fortunes did not improve to the point where it could keep up with the mortgage payments after the end of Prohibition. The bank foreclosed on the mortgage in August of 1936, and the building was sold sometime in 1937 or 1938 for $11,500.

The Club would rent its next ten homes, starting with the space it occupied in the demolished Walton Hotel at 233-47 South Broad Street from 1937 to August 1941. From there, it moved to 1522 Walnut Street, which currently houses Holt’s Cigar Company, and remained there through the end of 1944.

It next moved to 1523 Locust St. in January 1945. The Club’s tenure there ended in tragedy when the building caught fire on Christmas Day 1946. The fire severely damaged the building and destroyed most of the Club’s records at that point. 

The Club picked up where it left off in January 1947 at 1615 Walnut Street, which served as its home for 16 months. A New Balance shoe store now occupies the building.

It then resided at 239-41 South 15th Street from April 1948 until the last day of 1954. According to Daily News columnist and former Board Secretary Stu Bykofsky’s history of the Club, more than 1,000 persons, including Mayor Bernard Samuel and Governor James H. Duff attended the 1948 opening. That building also fell to the wrecking ball and the Academy House condo tower stands there now.

We have no record of how long the Club occupied 1305 Locust Street; it was mentioned in a letter written in 1954, but no other information about it exists.

The Club then moved to the “street of clubs,” South Camac Street, in July 1955. The 239-41 South Camac location was the first home of Philadelphia’s original advertising club, the Poor Richard Club.

Records are once again sketchy about the Club’s next two homes. A Club document from February 1963 listed 216 South 16th Street as its address, and Bykofsky’s history gives 1709 Chestnut Street as a Club domicile in the 1960s.

By September 1967, the Club had moved into its third-longest-lived home, at 218 South 16th Street/1600 Chancellor Street. It spent nearly two decades at this address, moving out around March 1986.

The Club bought its own spot for the second time with the purchase of 563 North 15th Street in April 1986. It didn’t last long since patronage never met expectations despite its location just up the street from The Philadelphia Inquirer. The Club closed the building on Feb. 9, 1990.

It migrated to 1623 Sansom Street in August of that year, closing for good and then reopening in October of that year. (You can read the story of the Club’s resurrection of the dead in two Wall Street Journal articles at our current clubhouse.) The Club moved out at the end of its lease in the summer of 1995. The building that houses Abe Fisher and Dizengoff restaurants now stands where this stood.

Then, on August 17, 1995, the Club purchased the building it now occupies, 1522 Latimer Street. The third time proved to be the charm, as former Club President Ron Patel paid off its mortgage early, allowing former President Chris Brennan to burn it as his tenth and last year of service as President wound down in October 2015.

And thus, after more than a century of nomadic existence, the Pen & Pencil Club finally settled down.

What do you do?

I’m a journalist and jazz host at WRTI, as well as president of the Club!

Tell us how you got to where you are now.
I describe myself as a writer who happens to be a journalist and a journalist who happens to be a jazz host.  I was born in South Philly on the way to the hospital and raised by a single dad and his mother. He was a news nerd who put me in typing class when I was eight years old because he said if I knew how to type, I'd always have a job. And that's kind of proven itself to be true.

I started at WRTI as a sophomore in college when they had a vibrant award winning news department, and I was a radio news reporter...Then I became a talk radio show producer. I moved out of radio journalism in the mid-nineties, following my nose in terms of the neo-soul music scene that was happening in Philadelphia at the time. I was always a hip hop head, but Phlly was starting to blossom in terms of its music offerings, so I covered The Roots,  Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Kindred the Family Soul.... After 9/11, I worked in print journalism almost exclusively for over 15 years, and then I found my way back to my first home — WRTI 90.1. 

What has been your favorite assignment so far?
I really consider every assignment to be a learning experience. I'll say my most unexpected one was Oprah Winfrey when she was in town to receive the Marian Anderson Award. There had been a pretty much a press blackout.  Media could look but not  speak directly to Miss Winfrey, and I didn't even care nor wanted to speak to her. I was just there to pretty much cover the event and I positioned myself  in a way that was not with the rest of the reporters. As Ms. Winfrey  was leaving the dinner, her bodyguards steered her right my way. My colleagues were surprised and  I was ready with the tape recorder. When she approached, she put two fingers up to the bodyguard so they wouldn't tackle me.  I posed the question to her, and she pondered and gave me a thoughtful answer, which actually landed as the front page story for the publication I was affiliated with at that time. 

Worst assignment? 

You know, there may be some aspects of an assignment that are bad, but I've found that I have learned something from each and every assignment. 

Is there a Philly writer or voice you are really digging right now?
A dear friend of mine is Victor Fiorello (Senior Reporter at Philly Magazine). We’ve been in this game for about the same length of time, and I am always just amazed by the breath of stories that he does. And he's a working musician too! I’m a big fan of his group, Martha Graham Cracker Cabaret. That just blows me away. 

Final question: favorite drink at the club?

On a night when I know I'm going to spend  several hours at the Club, I'll have an Emeritus. Otherwise, I'll have a Heineken Zero.