In 1985 I worked for a stone mason. August of that year one of our jobs was to remove bank vaults from the old bank building on Main Street in Manayunk (Philadelphia, PA).

This was at a time when Manayunk was best known for bikers, biker bars, prostitutes and heroin dealers. (It was a sketchy place to work for a 22 year-old me.)

Someone had purchased the bank building to make it into a (swanky) Alfa Romeo showroom.

This was of the first buildings to be transformed into what Main Street in Manayunk has become today: Swanky burger joints, handmade dog treats, upscale cappuccinos and of course the BEST record store in the Philly area, Main Street Music! https://mainstreetmusicpa.com/ (Ask for Pat or Jamie!)

Our job: cut through the back of the building to install a door for cars and remove two of four bank vaults in the basement. After removing the bank vaults another company came in to put an elevator in to transfer the Alfa Romeos from the basement up onto the 1st floor.

It was a dirty job. It was a dangerous job (I almost crushed my left hand on a huge stone which fell out of the wall.)

The bank vaults were several feet thick, made of stone and brick. We kept hoping that we'd find a bag of gold in the walls of the vaults, but really, why would a rich banker hide money for people to find 150 years later? It was a fun, difficult and dirty job.

Today, I went for a walk on the canal path behind Main Street and noticed that the doors we had installed 39 years earlier were wide open. I peaked inside and met a brick and stone mason who had been hired to remove the remaining two bank vaults. He was a charming man in his 70’s with a distinctive Irish accent.

It was like walking into the past. No, it WAS exactly walking into the past: My past from 1985 and quite literally into the 1800’s.

It was like walking back into a memory.

Walking in I took in the smell that only an old building has: Old dirt, brick dust, stone, mortar. Just old. It was like seeing an old friend after 39 years.

Someone recently purchased the old bank building and are in the process to convert it into a (swanky) micro-brewery. It will be interesting to see what changes they make, but I do hope they keep the old arched walls and the original old cast iron door which kept the the bad bank robbers from getting into the basement bank vaults.

If walls could talk…I’d be all ears.