Paved with Gold

As a modest contribution toward the celebration of the nation's Bicentennial, the city of Philadelphia decided to restore to its original state the paving of a block-long passageway called Elfreth's Alley. Certainly no lane in the land seemed more deserving of such loving care. Philadelphians have been living on it since the turn of the 18th century, thus making Elfreth's, or so they claim, the oldest continuously inhabited residential street in the U.S.

To pave the alley with the "pebble stones" popular in the 1790s and to repair some plumbing, however, will cost $250,000. Applications for that sum were sent to Washington, which has a kitty for historical preservation.

Even so there was some grumbling at home about the cost. When someone quipped that it would be cheaper to pave the alley with money, the Philadelphia Daily News decided to enlist the services of Director Joel Bloom of the city's Franklin Institute to see what $250,000 would literally cover. Ignoring dollar bills ("inferior wearing quality," noted the News), Bloom figured that the street could be paved with dimes for $58,368 and quarters for $82,080. In fact, Bloom added, the city could cover the alley with separate layers of dimes and quarters and still have enough left over from the quarter million to fill in the chinks with gold.

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