Ensconced in trees and spanning the entire city block between 6th and 7th Streets, on the south side of Lombard Street, is the festively colored playground and park called Starr Garden.  Entrances at the corner of 6th & Lombard open up into a cheerfully painted rec center, a jungle gym, a frequently-used basketball court and a Little League baseball diamond with an outfield big enough that it could probably be considered a pitcher’s park.

Ball field

Rec center

If you’re standing at first base, you’re somewhere pretty close to where the pulpit of the Colored Presbyterian Church used to be, according to an image from the 1860 city atlas by Hexamer & Locher, which we cribbed from the Greater Philadelphia Geohistory Network.  An Atlas image from 1875 also shows that prominent Irish businessman and early YMCA leader George H. Stuart…