Call Number:

00.016

Repository:

Drexel University: Archives and Special Collections

Extent:

47.0 items

Language:

English

Date:

1956

Creator:

Goldsborough, E. Lee

Donor:

Goldsborough, Ted

Abstract:

In March 1956 the Tidewater Granary elevator shaft exploded, damaging four surounding buildings, including Drexel's Main building. This collection contains a series of photographs of the aftermath of the explosion taken by E. Lee Goldsborough, Jr. and his son Ted.

E. Lee Goldsborough, Jr. taught English from 1937 to 1961 at the Drexel Institute of Technology and was an Evening College counselor during the 1950s and 1960s.

The collection contains forty-seven photographs of the aftermath of the Tidewater Granary elevator explosion at 31st and Market Streets, in March 1956. The photographs show firemen working, damaged buildings, rubble, and several surrounding buildings still intact. One of the four surrounding buildings affected by the blast was Drexel's Student Union Building, which was holding classes for the Evening College at the time of the grain elevator explosion. According to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer (March 29, 1956), 1800 students and 78 faculty were in the building at the time, at least twenty-five were injured and hospitalized. Ted Goldsborough, in high school at the time, drove to see the aftermath with his father E. Lee Goldsborough Jr., a teacher and counselor at the Evening College.