This is an odd post, inasmuch as it might have zero appeal for anyone.
Considering it involves a small part of an unassuming and very much common everyday block within a working class neighborhood of Scranton, it might be that no one can or will relate. Okay, I can live with that. I'm having fun. That's enough.
It is every bit possible I wrote it for myself. So for me, and maybe someone's posterity, here we go.
They called it Germ City.
We've found a few Lost Cities of The Amazon, perhaps historically footnoting Germ City may prevent it from being forgotten by the ages.
Fabled, spoken of with respect and amusement throughout the actual City of Scranton, Germ City was one of those many neighborhoods within city limits that have given names. Origins notwithstanding, Germ City, at least for a generation, was a very real place, a place about which those born and raised there were prone to brag, to boast.
"Where's he live?"He's from Germ City."
"Yeah, no shit!"To those of us who grew up in or near Germ City, we took it in stride, part of life, not worth much deliberation. By contrast, to the multitude who only heard this place spoken of by their elders, parents, older siblings, cousins, etc., it began to take on a thin layer of magic, a patina of mystery, deserved or otherwise.
The peril, as I see it, lies in offending or insulting someone, anyone, who may live within the confines of what was once known as Germ City. A question begging for an answer might be: Does this part of Scranton still carry the name Germ City, or has the designation tumbled completely into disuse, only to be spoken of in the past tense, or maybe in hushed tones over beers at Benginia's or Andy Gavin's. I don't have an answer.
What I do have is a friend, a boyhood friend literally, who grew up near but not in Germ City. To those who ask, he tells them while he didn't meet the eligibility requirements for residency, his family lived close enough for him to have been a member of Germ City's Border Patrol. The same would hold true for me.
From our second floor back porch, I could have tossed a rock inside the easterly perimeter of Germ City.
So it is, with all due respects to those who may take offense, although I've never heard of anyone doing so, let's first define the boundaries of said Germ City.
The 1300 of Penn Avenue is defined on the north by New York Street, on the south by Larch Street. A bit off center of mid-block, Penn is intersected on the perpendicular from the east by a small alleyway. In Scranton, we always called these alleys "Courts" and sometimes "Places." This particular alley was a dedicated city street named Just Right Place. So help me, that is the God's honest truth, it was Just Right Place. A scant two blocks away there was Plum Place. That same neighborhood was also home to Krugerman Court.
To make this even goofier, if you lived in Just Right Place, most would refer to you as someone who lived "down the court." You're right, it makes no sense, but to those of us who called this part of town home, you had it figured out by maybe third grade or so. The headache came when you moved your life elsewhere and discovered other towns didn't have Courts and Places, and that no one lived down the court. And, of course, there was no other Germ City.
Now that you know where Germ City is, or was, we need to have a look at that name itself. Where did it come from?
For starters, you could probably trace the actual term itself to Madison Avenue, as in NYC's Madison Avenue, the once advertising capital of the USA. Some national soap maker had used an ad firm to hype and sell its new product, a sink cleanser that attacked all those bacterium lurking around your drain just waiting to somehow jump up and bite you on the face, thereby causing your ultimate demise.
Drains, if America didn't yet know, are dirty, dirty places. They must be, this television commercial said they were. Why, they were so dirty, so full of nasty microscopic disease carrying thingies that this ad firm declared that your drain, all of your drains, were, in fact, Germ City. And so, the term Germ City had been born. From there forward, the time had come, it was war on Germ City. Luckily for us, this company had the very product that would detour us around Germ City and save the lot of us.
To give the world a better handle on the danger, this ad firm created an animated commercial that took you inside Germ City, right down to where you could see these dirty-faced bedevilers just running around by the thousands in each and every drain in your house. Good God, man, it was a national emergency, I say!
If I could find that commercial, it might help illustrate. I cannot. I also can't find the product for which the concept of Germ City was created. This was the mid-60s, a long, long time ago.
The story holds that a frequent visitor to this piece of Penn Avenue one day pronounced it Germ City. This visitor had a good friend who lived there. So, why Germ City?
I'm going to try this. Be patient and see if if doesn't somehow make sense.
For whatever reason, the 1300 of Penn had a traffic flow sparse enough that it allowed, maybe even encouraged, kids to play in the street. In more than a few Scranton neighborhoods, this was not uncommon. In the 1300 of Penn, especially around mid-block, it was an everyday occurrence. Baseball, kickball, stickball, just hacking around in the middle of the street, it was pretty much accepted practice. Driving end to end through that block without stopping, honking, and repeating the honk and stop, was a rarity.
Also for whatever reason, there seemed to be an inordinately high number of young kids in that piece of Penn, dozens of kids in the five to eight year old range (boomers?), and it always looked like darned near everyone of them was on the street playing, and that most of them had picked up that dirt only a kid playing outside for a length of time could accumulate.
After seeing this firsthand on a regular basis, the visitor was heard to say:
"Fercrissakes, this place looks like Germ City."
The name stuck.
Is the story true? From all I ever heard, saw, and heard again directly from the originator, yes, I do believe it to be true.
So, now you know, you know of Germ City and how it came to be called such.
As a closing thought, one with a touch of relevance, the Vice President of the United States likely visited Germ City at some point in his young life. Mr. Biden had a pack of first cousins who lived right in the middle of Germ City.
Maybe some sort of plaque would be in order.
