A series of pictures and factoids for Create's NaJoPoMo Challenge.

This is Elfreth's Alley, the oldest continuously-occupied residential street in the US. People have been living here since, the very early 18th Century. There were older streets, no doubt, but a lot of them were built with less durable materials. The solidity of Philadelphia is mainly due to William Penn's PTSD.

When Penn lived in England, he saw the Great Fire of London. So, when somebody put him in charge of a brand new city, he decided to build a less combustible place. Result? A city full of green spaces. Wider streets. And brick or stone houses. Not bad for 1690.

In the 18th Century, the Alley was home to people of the middling sort. One woman ran a dame school attended by little Betsy Ross. Another bottled ketchup – no lie. It was a nice, middle-class way of life, even if there was only one privy, down at the end of the street, and chickens roamed up and down. They grazed their livestock in the green square.

As time went on, the alley didn't change much. But the residents did. By the mid-19th Century, the place was full of, well, immigrants. And I mean full. Every tiny courtyard boasted a two- or three-story tenement. Wood. William Penn would have had a fit.

In the 1940s, homeowners moved out. Their kids said, 'Ma, move to the suburbs. That place is an eyesore.' They sold their historic houses for a song, and moved to Manayunk. Many of them groan now: the houses are very pricy these days. And full of yuppies with a bent toward preservation.

I ask you: would you spend a fortune to live in a house only 9 feet wide? (One is.) And put up with tourists?

Elektra and I used to be tour guides here for a bit. It's fun, trying to get people to imagine life in the olden days. And answering questions like, 'Were people shorter then?'